Time Flies...

My sweet girl is growing up. I can physically see how tall she is growing. I can feel it in my checking account when she grows out of all of her clothes and shoes and we have to buy new ones. I can measure her on the doorframe of the closet to see how she compares to me and Brad at her age. But, I don’t actually ‘get’ it…it doesn’t actually hit home that she is growing up every single day and becoming more and more of an ‘older’ child with ‘older’ tendencies until I hear about her doing something that she did last night. Wow…it’s amazing what little things make you realize how fast time really does go. My Megan is growing up…and that is bitter sweet for me.

I wasn’t in Waco to witness this last night, I got the details from nonie, but it is just too cute not to blog about. Megan had a ‘first’ last night. She called her friend from school just to chat. Her friend had written down her number for Megan yesterday at school so Megan decided to call her.

Phone ringing…friend’s mom answers…
Megan: “Hi, Do you know Caroline? May I speak to her please?”

How funny is that? ‘Do you know her?’ That cracks me up. Nonie said that they talked about 10 minutes. They talked about other girls from school and how they needed to get their phone numbers also so that they could all call each other. They discussed what they were having for dinner. They discussed where Megan was staying last night and why. So cute…I can’t wait to listen to one of these conversations.

I cherish every moment that I have with Megan. I sometimes just watch her and look at her in amazement…I can’t imagine what life would be like without her. I don’t know what we would all do on the weekends if we didn’t have her to ‘live’ for. I miss her as a baby, but I would miss her even more now without her funny sayings, her funny personality that keeps us cracking up at her. I love her age right now and sometimes think about what it will be like in a few more years. I hate that she is growing up so fast…the ‘bitter’…but I love the fact that as she grows, she becomes more and more of her own person, with her own ideas…the ‘sweet’. I will admit that the ‘own ideas’ aspect gets a little annoying at times when we are trying to get dressed to go somewhere and her choice of clothing clashes with my idea…when I want to take a nap or watch a movie and she wants to play with her Barbie dolls…when I want to play office or school and she feels the need to tell me every thing I’m supposed to say or do and if it’s not perfect, she corrects me and tells me to start over. She and I have always had an amazing relationship and a very special bond but it seems like it just continues to get stronger. She wants to be just like me…to wear the same clothes I wear…to wear my jewelry…to wear my shoes. (who could blame her, really?) It is so fun to watch her idolize me…but honestly it makes me want to be that much better of a person…it makes me want to be the perfect role model for her. I can’t wait to watch her continue to grow up and become a teenager. Yes, I’m sure there will be all kinds of issues with that, but how fun will it be (I hope) to encourage her to be a good person, to watch her go through the boy phase (fortunately we are still in the ‘boys are icky’ phase but I have a feeling that won’t be for too much longer…I sure keep hearing the name Dillon a lot lately), to help build her confidence and teach her how to be a good friend...the list goes on and on. I can’t wait to be the aunt that she confides in and comes to for advice. Although, this weekend she asked me what ‘those purple things’ were that I had in my bag. I tried to pretend that I didn’t know she was asking about my tampons but it didn’t work. She said, “I’ve seen those at my mom’s house and you have them to”. I said, “um, nothing, you’ll figure it out when you get older. They are for older girls”. She said, “just tell me aunt kellie”. Um…yeah, I choked…not ready for that yet!

She is my girl and always will be. We dance together. We laugh together. We say our prayers at night together. We are THE boss hog duo (unless Lisa is around of course). We have fun together. And I hope nothing ever changes that. I love my Megan!

F is for Family...and Fun!

I spent the weekend in Waco and it was busy, busy...yet relaxing. I had lots of family time…even though my parents ended up going on a trail ride and were gone all weekend! Friday, mom and I went to lunch with Megan and Mason and those kids are too funny. The cafeteria has a stage in the front of it and when a child has someone bring them lunch, you sit at special tables on this stage. Both of our kids spend more time watching the crowd below them, making sure to be ‘seen’ by all. They both barely pay attention to you; they take a bite of their food and immediately turn their attention back to the rest of the kids sitting at the regular tables with their class. Knowing this from last time I had lunch with Megan, I purposely placed the kids with their backs to the regular tables, thinking it would force them to look at me and pay attention to me…um, nope, didn’t work. They just turned themselves completely around and I got to look at the back of their heads…making it that much more obvious that they could care less who was with them…it was all about the fact that they were ‘on the stage’. Megan constantly had other kids hollering “Megan!”, “Hi Megan”, “Megan!” and waving frantically…I was proud…she just might be an ‘Oakley’ like her Aunt KelBel!

Saturday, after having an amazing lunch at Granny’s house…including mashed potatoes, mac&cheese, rolls and gravy...I was in pain but it was yummy! Saturday evening, we took the kids to play putt-putt. Although the kids had a blast, they have a lot to learn on the art of putting. Fortunately, there was nobody else playing on our course, b/c balls were flying all over the place. The adults became a bit competitive. “Mason get off the green!” “Megan don’t touch that ball until it’s in the hole!” “No, get out of the way!” Yeah, we may have taken it a little too seriously, but who wants to be the loser?! Not I! We let the kids play ahead of us…pretty much on whatever hole they wanted, just so they weren’t disturbing our game…and they would ‘let us know’ their score as they played each hole. Somehow Mason, got 2 on every single hole…imagine that…maybe Candice should consider signing him up for amateur golf now!

I'm getting IMPLANTS!!

That’s right…finally…I’ve always wanted implants!

So, Mica and I went a couple of weeks ago for our lasik consultation. I think this was one of those things where Mica was probably a little hesitant, she would love to be able to see, but maybe not necessarily go under the knife to do so. But, being the amazing friend that she is…she decides to have the surgery if I’m going to…we are in this together! I make our appt and we drive downtown together…game on. If you know either of us at all…or really us when we are together, we become very competitive. We get to have our exams together…you know the one where they ask, “which one is better? 1 or 2…2 or 3…3 or 4...8 or 9…okay, you get the picture. So, I go first and we all know how blind I am. The tech first asks me to read the smallest line I can…and I can see about one or two lines from the top (thru the doctor’s lens machine) and I just think I can see it. Apparently I get a little confused with O and G…or 5 and S…etc…and Mica smugly sits towards the front of the room thinking, what a bozo, she can’t even see that (as she reads them all just fine….in her glasses!) So, then it’s her turn…off with your glasses Mica! And the tables turn…so I make sure she knows every single letter she says wrong…”ehhh, wrong answer!” Fun! That quickly put my friend in her place and shut her up!! One of the first machines we had to do, looked exactly like that stupid puff of air test…so once again I go first and think a puff of air is coming and I can’t stop my eye from fluttering. The lady tells me to ‘hold my blink’…but I CAN’T…I’m doing everything in my willpower to keep from blinking and it is physically impossible. So, I get the nickname ‘Blinker’ for the rest of the day. It ended up not even being that stupid puff of air at all…Mica gets a heads up about that so of course, she aces that test! But Mica didn’t go thru the day without a nickname of her own…she became known as ‘the special one’ by our fun little technician lady. Not unlike most of our journeys together, Mica and I had a blast at this beat down of an eye exam…it was the mother of all exams and it lasted about 4 hours.

As the afternoon comes to an end, it’s time to see the actual doctor and discuss the surgery. But to my dismay, I found out that I am not a candidate for lasik surgery…apparently my eyesight is too bad. Basically for lasik surgery, they have to shave off your cornea enough to change the shape of your eye, therefore making you see better. So my cornea isn’t thick enough to shave so much off for my bad vision. It would be too dangerous for me to have my cornea so thin…and most likely I would end up back in glasses or contacts again shortly afterwards. A newer option for people like me with such bad vision is called Visian ICL and it’s basically an implantable contact lens that is placed into your eye permanently…but can be removed if for some reason you need to. So, I’ve been doing lots of research, talking to people that have recently had it done and I’ve decided to go for it! It’s a little pricey but everything I’ve read and heard, they have all said how much it has changed their lives. I can’t imagine waking up in the middle of the night and being able to see the clock…or not worrying about having my contacts in too long, or something getting in them and bothering all day at work….it will be a life changer to not have to worry about contacts or glasses. So, I’ve set my appointment and hopefully by Dec 13, I’ll have 20/20 vision…or at least much closer than I am now! Mica has her surgery on Nov 14 so we could both use your prayers that it all goes well!

And I can officially say, I have implants!