Go for the Gold

http://pmgsports.com/davidboudia

There has been a lot of excitement over David Boudia coming to school tomorrow to speak to the kids. They're all supposed to wear red, white, and blue tomorrow in his honor.

Claire came home today with a fever.  When she figured out that she wouldn't be going to school tomorrow, she was crushed.

We tried reasoning, we tried explaining, we tried watching videos of him on YouTube, we tried distraction...  She was inconsolable.

"If the Bloggess can convince Wil Wheaton to collate paper via Twitter," I thought, "maybe I can get an Olympian to call my daughter so she will stop sobbing."

So I did this:

@davidboudia My kid has a fever and is crying b/c she's going to miss your visit @ school. Any chance you could call her or something? HELP!
— Amy Austin (@prettybabies) September 27, 2012

...and he replied!  Long story short, he called and they spoke and she beamed.  He was so sweet.  What a nice person.  He gets a gold medal in making little girls' days.

After we hung up I said to Claire, "I am so happy to see your smile again," and she said, "Mommy, you're the BEST!"

Thank you, David.  You are a class act!

PS - I think she might have a crush on you.  If you start getting love letters from a secret admirer that are written in crayon, you'll know where they came from.

PPS - I think she also thinks that you're her new gymnastics teacher.  Don't worry.  I'll figure that one out later.

PPPS - unless you want to teach her gymanstics.  That would be pretty cool!

S is for Sunrise

You may have noticed that I was a wee bit on the grumpy side today.

It all started last night.  Jack took three incredibly long naps yesterday.  He must be getting ready to do calculus or something really monumental, because he slept more than he was awake.

Until 11 pm, when he woke ALL the way up.  For three hours.

Yes, I was up with my darling child and his brand new fun-to-grind front teeth until 2 am.

I finally crawled to bed and fell asleep, then Mary Grace came down.  It felt like it was immediately after I fell asleep.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"What does the clock say?"

"S."

"Go back to bed."

I'm pretty sure S is for "5."  Or possibly "Sunrise."  Or "holyS*** it's early!"

Regardless, no one should wake up at S.

I tried, today.  I really did.  After we got MG on the bus, Claire, Jack and I got dressed and we went to the bank, then to McDonald's for breakfast (Claire wanted cinnamon rolls).  On the way out, as we were crossing the parking lot, this woman came BARRELING into the parking lot, she must have been doing 30. I had to push Claire back out of the way.  "SLOW DOWN" I yelled.

Then as I was backing out, some other idiot in a truck came screaming into the parking lot and didn't bother to stop, even though I was 2/3 of the way out of my spot before he turned in.  He got the Hoosier Salute and a little bit of reality-TV style arm action.

We were late for Claire's preschool open house because somehow I'd put it on the calendar for 9 - 10:30 instead of 9 - 10.  It's ok, we know the drill from last year.  But it wasn't the best way to start the year.  I promise I'll do better next week, Mrs. P and Mrs. D!

We made it through the grocery store with no fussing, which is a monumental accomplishment.  A nice lady even let us go ahead of her when a new line opened up.  We managed to get the frozen stuff put away and get to the school on time to get MG.

Home.  Lunch.  And then, somehow, it all fell apart.

I will spare you the gory details, but I ended up yelling at some poor customer service rep from Bank of America because they bought our mortgage from Huntington and they don't have a branch here, so I can't talk to real people, and it's just SO unfair and stupid, and I don't WANT to deal with them because when I get a late fee which was totally not my fault and I took care of it last month, immediately after they called me and said I'd mistakenly paid the wrong amount, but there's no real person to go talk to unless I go to flippin' Oklahoma or something, and just take the $45 off of my bill, lady, before I go postal, all right?

The kids were screaming in the background, I was crying.  It was not pretty.

She was like, "Step away from the knife drawer, woman.  I'll take it off."

Being insane saved me $45 today, so there's that.

Then Monica saw my angsty blog post and she was like, "Bring all the little children unto meeee!" and she even offered to keep them while I went and did something, but I had already been shopping so I couldn't think of anything to do, so I stayed and we laughed and it was all ok again.

Jack fell asleep on the way home, and I dropped the kids off at Grandpa's so I could sneak in a little nap before dinner.  BJ handled almost all of bedtime.  I'm about to go get some ice cream.  It's going to be ok.

Mama said there'd be days like this.  *sigh*

Looking forward to a long weekend, here.  How 'bout you?

Proud to be a Hoosier

Driving home from dinner last night, we got caught in a terrible storm.  It was crazy windy, the clouds were all different colors of black and gray, there was hail, driving wind, and rain so heavy that the highway slowed to a crawl.  It didn't last long, but it did a lot of damage.

By now, you've probably heard about the stage that collapsed during the same storm at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Saturday night just before a concert by country group Sugarland.  The video is horrifying:

Watching it made me cry.  But I had to back it up and watch it again, because look at 0:13.

The people ran BACK.

Even as the storm worsened, even though no one knew if the debris was stable (it was safer to assume that it wasn't), my fellow Hoosiers rushed back toward the stage less than a second after it hit the ground, to help those who were trapped and injured.  They could have been electrocuted by the lighting wires, they could have been hit by lightning (standing near a huge metal thing on the ground in an electrical storm), but they went back.

That's why I can't imagine living anywhere else.

Well done, Indiana.

Our family's thoughts are with all the victims of this tragedy and their families, and all of those who witnessed this horrible scene in person.

Torin's Story

My friend Cate, who knows Torin and his family personally, asked me to share this video with you.



Precious boy, I wish continued health and healing for you and your family.

If you are moved to help Torin raise money for the hospital that saved him, please click here.

Your Daily Cry

I promise I'm not going to beat the story of the dog into the ground, but just one more heartwarming thing, and I swear I'll stop making you all cry, ok?

I got home tonight and BJ was already here.  I hate that he came home to a completely empty house, and I had tried to beat him home, but I didn't make it.  When I walked in he was standing at the kitchen counter looking exceptionally sad.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

He gestured at a box on the counter from Purdue.  We assumed that it was Max's ashes.

"Oh wow, oh God, that was fast."

I felt AWFUL.  I knew it would be hard for him to come home to an empty house, but to come home to an empty house and a box full of... well, that was just horrible.  Sometimes there just isn't enough Zoloft, you know?

We talked about whether or not we wanted to scatter them at the airport this weekend, and we decided to wait because we're not sure if we'll want to scatter them all or save some.  We've never had custody of any ashes before, so we're not sure what to do.  We don't want to regret a decision we make in grief.  So we'll wait.  After all, Aunt Vicki drove around with her husband's ashes in her trunk for at least a year or two, right?  We don't have to decide immediately. 

By this point we'd wandered into the laundry room and BJ was changing Jack's diaper.  I told BJ I'd take care of the box, and I went back into the kitchen to put the box somewhere where he would not accidentally find it and get all sad again between now and when we decided what to do.

When I picked up the box it felt way too light for what I thought was inside.  I remembered that they were sending a metal urn, and this didn't feel at all like metal.

Curiosity overwhelmed me, and I opened the box.

Inside a sympathy card with personal notes and signed by everyone we came into contact with at Purdue, and a clay impression of her paw print!  I laughed at us for a second before I started sobbing.  To think that I almost put this treasure away without opening the box or looking at it.

People can be so lovely.  I continue to be blown away by the kindness that surrounds us.

Lauren, Mike, Kristi, Laura, Brandy, Greg, Rebecca, and Jeff - thank you.