Many have asked how Ben is taking The Engagement.

At first I thought there might be some issues since the morning after the proposal, the boy woke up in a less than sunny mood.  But it turned out it was just a bad morning where I was SO IN THE WRONG for NOT WAKING HIM UP EARLIER! (When you yell apologies they work better.)

I think one of the reasons Ben is adjusting so well is a tribute to Matt and I.  (Dr. Phil says to pat yourself on the back as much as possible)

The truth is, in the past when dealing with men, I haven’t always been good about the speed of things (”Hi, I’m Becky. Ooh I like you. HEY! WANNA MOVE IN WITH MY KID AND I?!”) but this time with Matt it was so dead on that I’m just waiting for an offer from Random House to write my book, “Mommy Found You a Daddy Online.”

From the beginning we have gone at a snails pace, as far as Ben was concerned.  Matt would stay over only when Ben was having a sleep over at my parents.  It slowly graduated to Matt spending Friday and Saturday night with us.  Then we brought in Wednesday nights.  And now, go figure, that fiance of mine is moving in the first weekend in April.

Between the gradualness of this and the fact that Matt has played with Ben more in these past 6 months than I have played with the Punk in the last 10 years, Ben and Matt have become quite the pair.

In fact, last weekend, as a joke Ben started calling Matt, “Dad”  WITH the air quote motion.  He was trotting off to bed, turned around and said to Matt, “Night ‘DAD’!”  Matt and I both lost our breath from laughing so hard.  Now, it’s a daily, hourly, oh who the hell am I kidding, every minute occurrence.  (You tell that kid something is funny once…)

So now Matt calls him “son” – air quotes included.

Although behind all the joking, there is a very sweet serious side to all of this that makes my heart swell.  On Monday night, Ben and I were watching “The Bachelor” (take a moment to judge. I’ll wait) and when they did the, “If you want to be the next Bachelor or Bachelorette…” Ben said, “Mom, you can’t be on that show anymore because of Daddy.  It feels kinda weird calling someone ‘Dad’”
Even though my heart was in my throat I managed to get out, “You don’t have to call him that, honey.”
He thought for a minute and said, “No, I like it.  I just have never called anyone ‘Dad’” before.”

OH! MY! GOD! Queue the tears!!  “I’m not crying, I just have something in my eye…”

So when people ask, “How is Ben taking all this?”  I just smile, think of  “father” and “son” and reply, “I think he’s going to be just fine.”

July 1981

Father and daughter rode their bikes down to the Memorial Union on a warm summer day. This wasn’t a new or special event as it was something they did on a fairly regular basis.

They parked their bikes and went inside to get ice cream. Again, nothing new. Taking their ice cream over to the pier and dangling their feet as they ate. They talked about the boats, about the clouds while they licked and licked. The girl knew that the best part of the ice cream was always the end. That very last bite.

When the girl finished her cone she looked up at her father and asked a question she was sure she knew the answer to, “Can I have another one?”  Of course her father would say “no.” It was a shot in the dark. A totally absurd request.  She knew all this but something in her nine year old body had to ask.

To her utter surprise her father looked down at his daughter, with a mischievous look in his eye and said, “Sure!” as he got up from the dock and started back towards the ice cream stand with his absolutely gobsmacked kid running behind.

January 2010

“Any requests from the store?” she asked her son. The only thing on his list? Ice cream. Cookies and cream ice cream to be exact.

She came home with apples, bananas, string cheese but no ice cream. “That’s the only thing I wanted,” he said in his best Don’t-Whine-You’re-Big-Now voice. “Oh shoot, Buddy. I’m sorry.” She replied knowing that she knew she forgot something. “After dinner tonight we’ll go to the store and get some. Promise.”

As they were leaving the restaurant she was deep in thought about the week ahead, the friends they just left, and life in general, when a little voice from the backseat said, “Don’t forget about the ice cream, Mom.” Of course she had forgotten but she promised and he was so good through dinner, she made a bee-line for the store.

Inside they looked and looked for Cookies and Cream only to come up with a poor second choice. While in the check out line, he looked up at his mother and asked a question he was sure he knew the answer to, “Can I get a candy bar?” Of course his mother would say “no.” It was a shot in the dark. A totally absurd request. He knew all this but something in his nine year old body had to ask. To his utter surprise, his mother, remembering a very similar time 30 years prior, looked down at her son with a mischievous look in her eye and said, “Sure! In fact, let’s get two.”

**********
As my father doesn’t remember the double ice cream day, I too shall forget that night in the grocery store. But I have a feeling Ben never will. The look on his face, his under-the-breath-mutter of “this is the best day ever!” and his physical skip to the car tells me he’ll not only never forget but he’ll make a memory like this for my grandchild some day.

Thordless Thursday

(Please excuse the pictures that are askew.  That’s what happens on Thordless Thursdays…)

On the 8th day of Hanukkah my true love gave to me:

Eight candles shining

Seven killer presents

Six dreidels spinning

Five GOLDEN COINS!

Four crisp latkes

Three warm challahs

Two great big hugs

and a kiss on the cheek from Mom-mee! *kiss kiss*

(made up by Ben and Becky on a very slow second day of Hanukkah…)

*No homes were burned down as a result of this very precarious Menorah.

Wordless Wednesday

3am Saturday

“Of course he has to be at the one friend’s house who lives 25 minutes away.”

“Too bad this wasn’t yesterday.  I could have stopped at Old Navy for some shopping.  Everyone needs a $5 fleece.  At 3 AM.”

“I better not get in an accident.  I’m not wearing a bra.”

“Actually, what the hell am I wearing?  Good lord.  I hope I don’t get stopped by the fashion police.  I’m in massive violation.  In fact, if I were walking down the street someone might give me $5 and point me in the direction of the nearest homeless shelter.”

“So this is what it feels like to be out past bar time.”

“Hey!  Taco Bell really IS open late.  I could so go for a Nacho Bell Grande.  Slight detour perhaps?”

“Thank God Matt and I didn’t pick last night to find our true calling as Rock Stars and therefore have to pick the child up in a cab.”

“I haven’t seen another car in the longest time.  This is so cool.  I bet this is what it’s like on the Autobahn.  Without any other cars and the fact that I’m only going 40 in a 55.  Oops.  At this rate I’ll get there by 4:30.”

“That was sweet of Matt to offer to come with me.  I should have taken him up on it.  I bet he would go to Taco Bell with me.”

“This kid better sleep until noon.”

Wordless Wednesday

Despite my mother’s tooth pain, my 25% lung capacity (which made sightseeing go something like this: walk walk cough cough walk walk cough cough) and Northwest/Delta’s merge almost causing us to miss both of our flights (more on that in another post), we survived our quick little jaunt to D.C.

In addition to having a great visit with my uncles, and my friend Anne, we did many of the classic touristy things. When in Rome…
One of the best was seeing the monuments at night.

If you ever get a chance to do this, DO IT! President Lincoln never looked so fine.

Speaking of Abe, my father and Ben decided to take in a show with the ol chap. I hope it’s a good play and ends well.

Oh dear.

Friday afternoon we got our tour of the White House but security wouldn’t let me take my camera. I really didn’t want to throw my weight around but sometimes you have to do what’s necessary. So I pulled one very large fellow with one very large gun aside and explained, “Excuse me sir but perhaps you don’t know who I am just by looking at me, which is totally understandable. Does Princess Mikkimoto ring a bell?  No huh?  Well anyway, you see I have this blog and I need to take pictures of this tour for my readers and… Oh OK. Um, ouch! Wow, you are very strong! And, er, that hurts my arm. OK yes, I’m moving right along. Thank you for your time…”

The White House (the tiny part we saw) was amazing and very regal. And HA! Look who we ran into!

Our new BFF’s! Since I didn’t have a camera Michelle let me use hers.  And the President was having a rough day (health care reform is hard!) so he asked Ben to answer some phone calls for him and give a quick press release to the media.

Once outside Ben’s new office the White House, we ran into this cowboy who escaped from Texas. The kid used his new powers to give that fella a piece of his mind.

Strangely enough our Obama Halloween party invitation got lost in the mail, so we decided to have our own party. Candy from the hotel lobby store, plus hotel towels, plus whatever we had in our suitcases plus some imagination equaled a rockin’ good time!

Here we have a zoombie Cubs player and some sort of gypsy fortune teller…

Super Grandpa and an Indian Princess – from India.

After saying good-bye to all our new friends,

we headed back to Madison.

Thanks Washington. You were swell.  See you again soon.

Hello from the other side!
So yeah, that was fun. 

By getting this flu and in turn, giving it to my son, I was just being a good mother.  You see, Ben told me last week that he wanted a day alone with just me.  Well kid, how about THREE!?  Just you and me, Buddy.  Nope, no one else can even come into this apartment!

Oh and how about during those three days we lay comatose on the couch.  Even better let’s watch D3: The Mighty Ducks more times than Emilio Estevez.  Because really, nothing says “mother and son bonding” like both of us sleeping for 12 hours a night, going through three boxes of Kleenex, and nagging each other to “drink more water!”

I thought I was going to go stir crazy being cooped up inside for days on end but really, I was too sick to care.  My parents brought over supplies but because I didn’t want them to even THINK of getting this, when they came over I opened the door just a crack with a scarf over my face.  A dramatic Michael Jackson impression?  Perhaps but guess who ISN’T sick!

Yesterday when Ben and I were feeling good enough to come up with hair-brained ideas (and neither of us had fevers for 24 hours so we were officially non contagious) we decided to get out of the house and go to the mall.  Nothing perks those spirits like some retail therapy! 

However the minute that we got out of the car, I felt like I was part of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?”    This place was HUGE!  The most movement I had done for the past five days was from the couch, to the kitchen, break at the couch again, to the bathroom, back to bed.  Just getting through the first store was like walking to Chicago; uphill.  Don’t even get me started on going from Boston Store to JcPenney’s.  It was so bad we had to take a break and sit down on one of those benches.  I finally understand who those things are for.  Victims of The Swine.  After ‘Penney’s the boy and I both looked at each other and said, “Let’s go home.”  

Even though I’m still as strong as a wet noodle and can’t laugh without hacking up a lung, the worst is over.  I even made it into work.  For a day.  Because tomorrow we head out to DC to celebrate Halloween with the First Family. This whole time we were so worried Ben and I wouldn’t make the trip but HA!  Take that H1N1!  Punk! 

However I did tell my parents we should add in some time because if Ben and I thought the mall was big, the airport is going to seem like walking across Africa.

It all started on Thursday night.  It had been a very stressful week so when I was feeling run down and semi sick, I just thought it was the weight of a bad week on me. 

Until I woke up in the early hours of Friday with a cough deep in my lungs that burned like lava.  “Shit,” I muttered to myself.  I knew immediately this wasn’t just a normal chest cold.

Regardless Friday morning I dragged myself into work since I had already called in sick once that week and thought maybe I would feel better as the day went on.  Ironically Josh (my coworker) was out sick, so I stayed but as every hour went by I knew that Matt and I were going to miss The Boys birthday party.  Yes, they are such a cute couple they even have birthday’s just days apart.  ALthough I was super bummed to miss it,I figured nothing says, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” like hacking up a lung all over the artichoke dip.

Saturday I woke up feeling OK.  Little did I know that was the best I would feel all day and it would be downhill from there. 

We had plans Saturday night to go to my friend Darcy’s house for dinner.  So around 4:00 pm I made the accent up Mount St Helen’s, or my stairs…it was hard to tell.  I took a long hot shower that was an almost an orgasmic experience, until I finally decided I should leave some water for the fish and got out.  Once out of the heaven I called a shower, it took everything I had to just put a towel around my hair and get on my robe.  As I collapsed into bed I knew there was no way we were going anywhere that night. 

Instead of spending the night with friends, food and wine, it was a night in with my boys, dressed like a homeless person clutching my tea.  By Saturday night the body aches were so bad and my fever so high I was delirious.  At one point I asked Matt for more ibuprofen.  Five minutes after I took it, I looked at him and asked for ibuprofen.  “Honey, I just gave it to you,”  Matt said.  That’s when I declared that I was Done With The Day and took myself to bed.  Where I proceeded to sleep for 12 hours.

Today I woke up feeling much better.  Now I just feel like I have a bad cold which I would take any day over the previous feeling of my lungs being filled with cement on fire. 

However, as each minute I feel better, there is a little boy on the couch next to me who’s sinking deeper and deeper.  And I need to figure out how to not go insane by the fact that I haven’t left the house for more than 48 hours with many more ahead of me.

Even though I never made it to Urgent Care, I did talk to a friend of mine who is a doctor and pronounced me a H1N1 victim.  Serves me right that I would get this weeks before work vaccinated me.  Remember I was the one who cried pig!  I was the one who called this just a big media hype. 

So let my lessons learned be your knowledge.  1) you don’t have to guess if you have the Swine Flu.  You will know.  Just like you don’t have to guess if you are in labor… you know!  And 2) it’s not just a media hype.  If you have a chance to get vaccinated, DO!  Trust me, this is a nasty virus which I would have been so happy to avoid. 

Now everyone cross your fingers that this passes through my family in time for us to catch our flight to D.C. on Thursday.  The Obama’s are counting on us.