The ABC's of Me

Have you ever played the ABC game? The game where you call out the letters of the alphabet in order and say a word that starts with the letter you have been given until someone gets stuck. I am in a silly mood today and thought I would help you get to know me a little better by playing this little game, Here she goes, The ABC's of me..

A is for Angie,  why that is me who knew?

B is for Brent, he is my son and my pride and joy also the bane of my existence some days. He will soon be headed to Acadia University in a few short weeks, I will face an empty nest..

C is for Christopher, My youngest son born Feb 19, 1998 in the middle of a blizzard and ice storm, He passed away Aug 15 2008, life has never been the same without him.

D is for determination, I am the most determined person I know when I set my mind to it.

E is for Exasperation, I am also a very exasperating person at times.

F is for friendship, I have been blessed with a multitude of amazing friends, These are the people I go to for everything , comfort companionship, and to be silly with and to vent and share new ideas, Heather,Lori, Andrea and Andrea, ( there are two), The Janets (also two) Kelly,Laureen ,Jackie , Kim, Denise, Derek, Dylan, Jeffery , Adam and Cody, with out all of you in my life I would be much less than I am today, Thank you so much.

G is for giving, it is a quality I am always trying to improve on in myself.

H is for handmade. I am always creating jewelry and other items because I love to.

I  is for ice cream, Ha HA (you were thinking it, you know it and so do I) I LOOOOOVVVEEEE, this stuff , sadly it does not like me, I am lactose intolerant and it hurts my belly, but it does not stop me trying to eat it.

J is for 2 Janets and a John, Janet one is a friend for many years, she is an amazing woman, She can do ANYTHING, and I mean anything. Jay as we call her, showed up at my house once right after I found myself single. Was she there to comfort me, NOPE she wanted to show me how to check my oil. Amazing, Jay also always remembers my youngest son loved sunflowers and always posts one where I can see and mentions him on his anniversary date. Janet number two is a new friend in my life, but boy oh boy she is amazing too, she has had a pretty rough go herself, but I am in awe of her, she always says something to me that is just what I needed to hear.  John, well that is my husband, and he is perfect. everyone has a soul mate and he is mine.

K is for daily acts of kindness, I am not always successful ,but I do try to be kind whenever I can.

L is for Law of attraction, the belief that you can bring anything about in your own life, It just takes practice and patience.

M is for Max, my oldest son , whom I placed for adoption when he was 5 days old. I was 17. We were reunited a couple of years ago. He is a wonderful young man who is about to make me a Nana, in January.

N is for nut, I am called this a lot although I have no idea why...

O is for ocean , I live beside the Atlantic ocean and until I moved here I didn't know that once I arrived I would become one of those people who needs it in their lives, to see it, swim in it, and play in it. I can not imagine a life where it is not in view .

P is Parsons, My family name. I just became a Parsons a year ago, being a member of this wonderful family has given me love, peace and joy. I am very proud to have this name.

Q is for quilling. I love this ancient and almost forgotten art. Maybe someday soon I will share some of my work with you.

R is for reading. I devour books, When I find one I like, I am known to read it again and again over the years. books and reading give me the chance to explore places and be someone totally different. I could not live with out books.

S is for Sophie and Storm, these are my furry babies , my cats . Sophie is a long haired white calico half manx and she is full of attitude. She is also the most loyal creature ever. She never leaves my side even when I go to the washroom, she has to go with me. She taught herself to play fetch like a dog and thinks she is a princess, and she is right. Storm, storm is the baby, we got him a year ago after seeing an add on Kijiji. He is a beautiful grey and white tabby and is sweet, talkative and loving. . He is a real cuddle cat and loves to greet company. He also loves the water and is always trying to find out how to swim, I found out the hard way that he must be shut out of the bathroom when I take a bath.

T is for tomboy, I have always enjoyed boy things, trucks , 4 wheeling, playing in the dirt, hunting.  Now as I am older I embrace the more feminine side of me, more than the tomboy side.

U is for unique, no one can argue that I am anything but unique...

V is for virtual. I am a homebody. when I say that I mean if given a choice I would always choose home over anything else, So I work virtually, and see most of my friends virtually, thank god for the internet, if not for that invention I would have to work outside my home and wear something other than my jammies on a regular basis ..

W is for witch and water, why witch you ask? Well when it comes to snow, most of my friends swear I must be a snow witch. All I have to say is it will snow at this time and it does, my friend Lori will call me and say " ok my witchy friend can you stop making it snow now... PLEASE??"  What can I say ? I love the snow .Water, I love  to swim once I am in I am pretty difficult to get out, I should have been born with gills and fins.

X is for Xena Warrior Princess, In my fantasies I am just like her, confident, strong and beautiful, Then I wake up... perhaps I could rock a sword in a past life.

Y is for yoga, I am trying to master this , it will take some time, most people who enjoy yoga are slim and flexible, I am decidedly round and unflexible, this is new thing I am just learning so someday I might be able to twist myself into the positions but I am not there yet.

Z is for ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I like millions of others snore, much to my husbands annoyance...

So there you have it the abc's of me. I am impressed with myself that I was able to find something for each letter that applied to me, feel free to share and challenge yourself to come up with the abc's  of you :)


P.s A few people have said to me that they would like to comment on my posts or share but don't know how, all you need is a gmail account, sign up for one and sign in and you can comment, as for sharing look to the bottom, there is a small, Facebook icon there and a twitter one too, feel free to share any of my posts you might like, I like hearing what you all think so feel free comment as often as you like to . Have a great day everyone.

Memories, The litter box story

    Five years ago my world changed forever. My youngest son Christopher passed away. It was very sudden as he was not sick or anything like that. Chris was only 10 years old. He was playing and got hurt, and then he was gone.

   No mother is prepared to bury her child. It took me a long time to think of him with out bursting into tears. Slowly over time, with a lot of love and patience from my family and my friends I have come to a place where I can think of him not on the day he died but of who he was when he lived.

    

   Christopher was an amazing child in my eyes. Now I know what you are thinking, every mom says that, but Chris as we called him was different. He had a the gift of getting along with everyone. Nobody was " different " in his eyes. He loved everybody and they loved him. 

  He made us laugh. Sometimes it was intentional, sometimes as you will see in this story it was not. If you know me personally, you most likely have heard this story before. If you are just meeting me through this blog, I hope you will enjoy this silly cherished memory of ours.

  Chris was six years old and Brent ,who at the time was my oldest son at home, Brent was 10. I was a single mom and had been a single mom since Chris was about 2. Being a single mom is sometimes tough. You make choices you wish you didn't have too. One of these choices is to work outside my home. At the time there was not a lot of legitimate work from home opportunities out there. So I did what I had too. I was working for a company that helped families who had a disaster of some kind like a flood that damaged their home or a fire that damaged their home. My job was to clean and restore any of their possessions that we could.  The job allowed me to arrive home about an hour after my children. At the time I could  not afford a babysitter for only an hour, so my kids were home by themselves for that  time. 

  They liked coming home and having the house to themselves. It made them feel all grown up. They also had some rules to follow, They were not to answer the door or telephone. They were to do their homework if they had any. Brent was to change the cat's litter box and Chris was supposed to feed the cat.

  

  The cat was an orange and white tom cat the boys had found as a stray. He was called Screech. He earned that name. He was very affectionate and whenever he saw you or wanted your attention he would meow at you very loudly until you talked to him. This is where he got his name. Screech had one bad habit. If his litter box was not to his standards he would do his business in the bath tub. In order to keep Screech both boys had pinky swore to look after all his needs. Pinky swearing is serious business to a child, my children believed horrible things would happen if they broke this kind of oath. Being their mom and I knew this and I used it as much as I could .

  I arrived home on a wintry day to find Brent sitting in the corner on the floor holding Screech (who was loving the attention) and rocking him crying.

I was alarmed. "Brent, what is wrong?" I asked.

Brent looked up at me "Its screech he is very sick, he may even die!" 

Screech, at this moment was laying on his back in Brent's lap all four feet straight up, kneading the air while he purred loudly, as Brent rubbed his belly and cried. He certainly looked healthy to me. 

"Brent hunny, why do you think he is sick? He looks pretty happy to me."  I picked the cat up from his lap and looked him over and could find nothing wrong. Why was Brent so upset?

 It took me a few moments to get Brent calmed down enough to understand what he was saying, 

After a few moments he explained. "We came home from school and I wanted to do my chore right away so Screech didn't poop in the bathtub, I went to the bathroom, then I went to clean his box. Mom it must have hurt him , he must be sick, He seems ok, but he can't be!!!" He then proceeded to begin wailing again.  At this point I still didn't know why Brent thought the cat was dying.  Brent was now begging the cat not to die. Screech's response was to roll over and present his belly again for Brent to stroke.

Finally Brent said for me to go look into the litter box and see for myself. Keep in mind I had just gotten home from work , I was tired, hungry and the last thing I wanted to do was look at a dirty litter box. But if I was to figure out what all the drama was about I had to go and look. Up until this point, I hadn't noticed that Chris was no where in sight. Strange. If the boys believed their beloved cat was sick , why wasn't Chris here crying with Brent? I didn't have much time to figure it out, I was getting short on patience and I wanted to sort this all out. So I proceeded down the hall to the little utility room where the litter box was kept.  There was nothing in there except a freezer and the litter box so the door was always open so Screech had access, I turned on the light and looked at the box, It took a few moments for me to realize exactly what I was looking at..... Well I could see what had upset Brent.
I was not looking at cat feces,  If I had been looking at cat feces, then Brent would have been right, our cat would have definitely had a problem. What I was looking at was human poop... In the cat's litter box.

  I began to put two and two together , Brent was still in the kitchen with the cat, crying so it wasn't him, I knew that it was not me. That leaves only one other person. A certain 6 year old who is now conspicuously absent. I went looking for him.

 He wasn't in the living room or kitchen, I checked the boys bedroom first. I looked in the closet, nothing. I looked under Brent's bed, nothing, Then I heard a large sniff coming from under Chris' bed. I got down on the floor and lifted the dust cover, huddled as far away as the wall would allow, was one very miserable 6 year old.

  "Hey buddy, what are you doing way back there?" I asked. No answer. " Come on kiddo, come out of there and let me see you" .
 " Is Brent with you?" He asked
 " Nope, he is in the kitchen with Screech. Why don't you come out and give Mommy a hug, I missed you today." I answered.
 Slowly he wriggled out and climbed into my lap, He was obviously miserable, Although I had an idea what was going on, I decided to let him tell me.
" Can you tell me what is wrong?" I asked.
His big brown eyes filled with tears.
 " Oh Mommy, I did a really bad thing!" And he started to cry.
" Well why don't you tell Mommy about it."
" You can't tell Brent! pinky swear!!" He stuck out his little pinky finger. Well now, this was serious. I stuck out my pinky finger and wrapped it around his, Chris didn't know that Brent was peeking around the doorway listening to us, I would threaten him not to tell Chris he knew later.. " I swear" I promised." Now tell Mommy what you did."

He looked away from me, "I pooped in the litter box. Brent thinks it was Screech, He is gonna kill me!" And then he started to cry again. Now that I knew what had happened and the cat was in no danger, I tried really hard not to laugh, I was also confused, "Why did you poop in the litter box Chris?" I never dreamed this was a question I would ask my child.

"How did you poop in the litter box?" I could not fit my head around it.

" Brent was in the bathroom and I really needed to go, I didn't want to poop in my pants. I am NOT a baby!" he declared firmly " But I couldn't wait! then I thought of the litter box, I pushed Screech out of the way and squatted down and just did it. It was a 'mergency Mommy!"

He looked so serious, all I could do was hug him and tell him it was ok. And when he was out earshot, and couldn't see, I collapsed on my bed laughing as hard as I could.

 The day was saved. The cat would live.  Christopher cleaned  the litter box instead of Brent. Brent made it clear to Chris he had heard everything and he was NOT cleaning that up. I also heard my oldest inform his little brother that it was pretty smart to think quick that way, and that he never would have thought about that. Truthfully neither would have I. I made a point to explain to Chris that he should probably not do that again. Next time he should ask his brother to let him go first.
  Chris smiled at me and said" Don't worry Mommy I won't Screech didn't like it much he looked at me awful funny"

I hope you enjoyed this little memory of ours, It was a silly thing that we still laugh about today. Have your kids ever done something strange that you laughed about later?