Denial....it's not just a river in Egypt....

it's a friggin' ocean. So how do you keep from drowning in it? (many years ago, a quote from Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy)

Yep, I'm back at the corner of bitter and sweet again this week. 

Today's post of denial is about Elder Son.  Who's growing up way too fast.  He's not featured a lot here on the blog because, well, teenagers are completely different creatures when it comes to blogging.  The shame, the embarrassment, the privacy clause, etc.etc.

We recently celebrated his 14th birthday with a party...about 4 months late.  (with a trip to the bowling alley, after I nixed the go cart track racing.)  Which at this point I'd like to interject that I beat all of the people in our party, of every age even the 39 year old with me, in bowling---twice!!! 

I said Elder Son could invite as many friends as I could hold in my vehicle and we'd meet his father after work one Friday night.  He invited 3 friends.  A boy and two girls.  And as luck would have it, the two girls "like" the two boys in my car and vice versa.  I felt like a chaffeur the entire evening. What's up with this?  I'm used to breaking up knock down drag outs in the garage every day for who gets to ride in the front with me. Hmph.  We're not in Kansas anymore.

When the mom of the boy (and good friend of mine) called to check in on the evening she asked "how's your triple date going?".  I promptly replied this WAS NOT the "d" word, as we were just simply out bowling to celebrate Elder Son's birthday, why in the world would she call it that? 

After bowling, we visited a yogurt shop where I quickly snuck some candles in Elder Son's yougurt bowl of choice.  And since it doesn't matter to me what Elder Son's age is, or who his party guests are, or where we are at the time, I even made him blow them out! But, I did not torture him with the awkward Happy Birthday song in the middle of the packed out Friday night yogurt crowd.

So, the circle of life....you invite girls and boys to Elder Son's toddler and preschool parties, even up to mid-elementary or so....then comes the drought of only guy parties for a couple of years, and now we're back to mixing it up again.  Oh Lord, help me.

Yep, he's growing up alright, how can I tell?  It can be witnessed in the following photos:

• He is no longer one of the kids registered for VBS, but rather one of the Recreation Leaders on staff for VBS. (And he does a SUPER job, by the way!)

• He has muscles. Guy muscles. 

• He's past the stage where he would be embarassed to even be SEEN on a pink float, much less float around for hours and smile for the camera.

• He's taller than me and he looks like a guy. Not a child. A good looking guy. With gorgeous eyes. Where you can glimpse that sweet and tender soul inside.

Sweet Mercy.  I am enjoying having a front row seat to watch him grow.

Even if it includes girls coming to his birthday celebrations.

Denial. It's where I'll be living the next few days.

So this week you'll be knee deep in denial with me.  Like it or not.  Beginning with this post.

Which should have been posted back in May, on the last day of school....but in my state of denial, I chose to keep putting it off in an attempt to prolong the inevitable. 

Middle Child begins high school next week (which begins in 7th grade here).  And I just can't help but think he should still be in maybe, 2nd grade? Another year with the fabulous Mrs. Davis would be just fine with me. And he would be excited about my packing his cute little football snack bag.  

But no.  Apparently, they grow up and you have to let them be promoted if they make the grades. Or some hogwash like that. 

So off to the wolves high school he goes!!

But not before I made him suffer through these last snapshots of walking down the elementary halls one last time....when all was right in my little world.

Sweet Memories....

The photo above may not look like much to you, but it means a whole "heckuva" lot to me.  It strikes up so many wonderful memories....of what, you ask?....a little thing called DINNER ON THE GROUNDS.  

Ever been to such?  Ahh, dinner of the grounds, a favorite memory with my PawPaw, Walter.  Every year, his church had a luncheon out on the concrete tables in front of their church.   As a kid I thought it was the coolest thing ever....EVER.  Concrete tables lined with tupperware bowls full of the best homemade food made by the sweetest old ladies. 

Since those times back in the late 70's and early 80's, a fellowship hall had been added to the church.  That kind of put a damper on the ol' concrete table festivities outdoors.  Everyone wants to be comfortable in a temperature controlled climate belly up to a table with their plate of food. I understand that, really, I do. 

But it sure was nice to eat outside again, dinner on the grounds, on the concrete tables that have been there for many decades.  The same tables my PawPaw fixed his plate from numerous times.  And some things never change, there was still lots of yummy food, in tupperware containers, fixed by the sweetest ladies ever.  It would have made my PawPaw proud.....

What's in a name???

Often times during church service, Baby Girl breaks out her inner artist.  We bring out a bucket of crayons or markers from Sunday School and she gets carried away.  She doodles and draws. Usually everyone in the family has a creative "name" design by noon on Sunday.  And our church pew is filled with paper giblets.

A few weeks back, she made me this sweet picture.  With my name.  I smiled sweetly at her and silently mouthed... thank you.  She smiled sweetly and silently mouthed back to me....flip it over....except she wasn't quite as silent and she used some boisterous hand gestures to assimilate the action.  So I quickly did as she asked just to get her settled back down.  And this is what I found on the back:

Am I ever so glad I followed her hand signals...and turned it over.   What's in a name?  A lot.  Especially when your Baby Girl describes you as a pretty faced, very special, Queen.  A name can mean so much....you can evoke lots of memories just with a name.

I love the name Kimberly, my given name.   And I love that if you have met me after the year 1993, late fall to be exact, you know me as Kimberly, because that is what my main squeeze calls me.  My Valentine.  He met me during that time period of fall '93 and of course there's a nice story behind it.  Stop yourself now if you don't want to hear the beginnings of a sappy love story. 

I won't bore you with all the details during the very early stages of our courtship, but I will share with you why he doesn't call me "Kim"....especially when so many others in my life do. 

I take you back to October of '93....we were at college in Auburn, and believe it or not, we were at a party.  I know, I know.  A party?  In college?  Really?  I bet you thought college was all about getting an education and such.....and yes, it is.  And for the most part, I was always busy doing the educational sections of college.....the classes, the tests, the papers, the projects, etc...  but on a rare occasion, like say, maybe Wednesday-Saturday you could find me/us/all other college undergrads, at a sporting event, party, karaoke night, or a gathering of some sort...that pretty much didn't involve any educational qualities.  Unless of course you were majoring in Quantum Physics....those folks rarely made an apperance outside the labratory.  But for the rest of us....fun times, great memories.  And just FYI---I graduated with a 3.4 I believe, even with only buckling down Sunday-Tuesday.

I assume, and according to my father, had I applied myself the rest of every week I could have majored and graduated with a 4.0 in Quantum Physics....but show me the fun in that???  Exactly my point. But back to the story at hand....

On this one occasion, I walked into a party where I really knew only a handful of the several dozen folks in attendance.  The party was celebrating a BIG birthday of a great friend of mine....who was in a sorority.  I wasn't a sorority girl.  I came to Auburn late in the game, junior year.  Besides that fact, I also couldn't have dared ask for more money than my parents were already shelling out just to join a sorority.  And thirdly I was at AU...it didn't matter...everyone is family on the plains....sorority or not.  Alas, it was still hard for me to go to it, I was nervous, anxious and all of that....but free beverages were involved, plus I loved my friend and wanted to celebrate her birthday with her, so I faced my fears and busted on in.   I was thrilled to see a familiar face in the crowd.  Leaning against the living room wall was that boy I had met a couple of weeks earlier in Section 19 at the football game.  He was so captivatingly charming that I had been hoping to run into him again, but had dismissed those thoughts when I realized I didn't even know his last name.  

He recognized me as well and smiled brightly when I came inside. Score. He remembers me...and he's still smiling.  We hit it off that night, I immediately felt at ease, even amidst all the sorority gals.  Later in the night, another good friend who had driven me to the party left early, so that left me to find a ride with someone else. 

That sweet, charming, cute guy with the sparkling eyes that remembered me, seemed like a good idea.  However, I'm from Smalltown, USA....where they always tell you to be real careful out in the "big world" because there are bad people out there.  And we were no longer in Mayberry, anymore.  Or Kansas, Dorothy.  I had no red shoes to click together to get me back to my apartment.  I was left to his mercy to drive me home and all I could do was pray he wasn't a psycho.

I knew in my heart this guy wasn't one of those "bad people".....but just to play it safe, when he asked me my name, I decided to change it up a bit.  Instead of just saying "Kim"....which is what almost everyone had referred to me as for the first 20 years of my life, everyone except my PawPaw anyway....I told him my name was "Kimberly".  Which it is, that part wasn't a lie.  However, when he asked my last name, to throw him off, just in case he was a serial killer on a college campus....I told him it was "Abracadabra".  

That's right.  Meet me....Kimberly Abracadabra.  Sister to Charlie Houdini, Sally Alakazam, and little Johnny Hocus Pocus.

I realized almost immediately it wasn't a good cover name. Duh. Now who sounds like the psycho??  He didn't buy it.  Not for one presto chango/open sesame second. I don't know what came over me.....why didn't I just chunk myself in a common last name category, like Smith or Jones?  Or why not go big and drop a name like Rockefeller, Washington or Einstein?   Oh, yeah, now I remember why...it may have had something to do with those free beverages.  So I blurted out Abracadabra...with a flashy smile on the side. Ta Da!

Abracadabra.  Honest, that's what I said.  Ask him.  He'll tell you the story just the same.  We both remember that night.  The night I tried to fake myself out about what I was really feeling for a guy I had only laid eyes on twice in my entire life.  The night we had our first kiss.  The night I smiled so big after that kiss I thought my cheeks would explode.  The night my heart was taken, but I didn't know it yet, because my mind would not stand for such nonsense reasoning.  

It was the night he said my name....Kimberly.  Just Kimberly.  

I love to hear him say it.  Even this many years later.  I don't mind being called Kim....I'll answer to either.  But from him, he only calls me Kimberly....and I would have it no other way. 

Yep. Enough with the mushy mushy whatever from the early 90's.  That was way back in the day. 

Now, flash forward back to present day.  In light of this clever name explanation, complete with picture, that Baby Girl created for me during Sunday worship, I think I'll ask the husband if he'll just start calling me Queen for short.

Or maybe even this:

Queen Abracadabra---now that has a nice ring to it. Don't you think?  ;)