Coming out of a Fog...

October 2009

After doing close to 300 blog posts on this thing over the last couple years and almost never being 'out of words' (just ask Adam..), I've struggled big.time. in writing this post. I've thought through it, edited paragraphs/themes/details in my mind, jotted ideas down on paper...and hated every one of them. So, I'll just write whatever comes to mind right now.
My dad died almost 2 months ago. It sucks. Like, really sucks. And, 3 sentences into this post, I'm wishing I was curled up on my couch watching a movie, or snuggled in bed pretending it's all been a nightmare...but, instead I 'got out' of the house for a couple hours and am sitting in Panera Bread crying at our laptop. Smooth, right? I guess there are worse things than the stares of a few strangers at 8pm on a Wednesday...
Anyway, I never mentioned anything on the blog about my dad being sick, but most of our friends knew a least a little of what was going on anyway...but this post is for me. and my kids someday. I wasn't sure I was going to continue any part of this blog- it just felt cheap and obnoxious to keep sharing all the fun little things about life, family, etc.. when there was all of a sudden a huge hole in our lives. and I didn't, and still don't, really know how to deal with it. However, in the last few weeks I've thought, on several occasions, "That would be a cool picture for the blog..." but I didn't want to continue posting fun, simple, life stuff without acknowledging the hard stuff, too. So, here it is.
Losing a parent is horrible. Absolutely, positively, more-than-I-could've-imagined, painfully, horrible. And right now I really wish I was a great writer! I use lots of .... (dot, dot, dots...) and commas...and lots of broken thoughts. I wish I could communicate how great my dad was, how kind he was, how insanely intelligent he was, and how much I miss him. It's not a 'miss him' like I miss Adam when he is out of town for a weekend or how I 'miss' college roommates that I haven't seen in way too long. It's a deep-in-your-soul, earthquake-rattling-the-foundation, kind of sadness. I feel like I've kind of lost a couple months of my own life. I know that I've covered the basics of mommy-hood, carpools, crafting times with kids, etc... but I feel like I've been in a fog. Not a deep and dark hopelessness, just a cloudy, gloomy, man-i-hate-this, kind of thing.
I loved my dad. and he knew that. We talked a couple times a week for the last several years. He LOVED asking about our kids and usually called within hours of a blog post going up to talk about whatever I'd just shared online. I'm not sure he EVER commented on here, but I know he would check in several times a day to make sure he didn't miss anything. I loved that. We had the JOY (ok, it wasn't totally joy at the time, but it was good) of spending some extended time with him over the last few years. When Elise was 6 months old, we came back from Japan for a couple months and stayed with him in Cincinnati. He was able to visit us in Japan for a week in Spring 2007 and there are some memories from that week that are so vivid and happy. He got to sit in the Captain's seat on the USS KittyHawk (picture completed by "making a call" down to the Air Boss or someone important on the ship!). In between Japan and South Carolina, Elise and I lived at his house for about 6 weeks. I was super pregnant with Ainsley, Adam was deployed, and my mom was in Florida for awhile. My dad would sit, FOR HOURS, and just watch Elise play. He would hand her anything to make her smile and laugh -however inappropriate- his cell phone, a dictionary, kitchen utensils, a back scratcher (uhhh...gross.), and she loved it. Elise, around that time, coined the name "Bacca"...for "Grandpa". The rest of the family laughed at it's obvious closeness to "Chewbacca", but we knew immediately that he was Bacca from then on. He loved his grandchildren and, in the one quick visit I made to his office before I left Cincinnati after the funeral, you'd have thought he had 20 grandkids by the number of pictures on the walls. Elise, Ainsley, Mitchell, and Evan were well represented and 'shown off', for sure.
I think he probably knew he was sick for a long time. I think he knew it was UGLY when the cancer diagnosis came in early September. Nobody expected him to die in just over 2 short months, but I also don't think he FEARED death. In the last couple of weeks, he stopped taking phone calls, checking emails/texts/etc... and I'm assuming it's because it just made him sad to hear his kids' voices, see updates about grandchildren that he was never going to see start Kindergarten, or worry about things that he could no longer help out with. But he knew that his wife and kids loved him, he knew that he had people around him supported him (on so many fronts!) and cared for him, and I so so so so hope that he knew what a positive impact HE had on so many people.
One phrase that kept coming up when we were all together in Cincinnati for the funeral and Thanksgiving was, "good people." Often used with incorrect grammar to express our appreciation of the literally HUNDREDS of people who came by the house, dropped off food, send cards, babysat my kids, we'd say, "so-and-so...wow, he's good people." From one neighbor who stopped their car in the middle of the street and reversed a few houses to come over immediately upon hearing of his death to one of my dad's life-long best friends who held his hand and sat with him in the last few hours of life and leaned in close as my dad whispered, "Denny, it feels weird...it's not what you'd think.", to the long-time co-worker and friend who held him closely and sat with him in the in-home hospital bed as he was having a panic attack and couldn't breathe. Add in a friend of my brother Paul's who drove up from North Carolina for just a few hours to be at the visitation, one of my dearest friends who flew from New Hampshire to spend 48 hours supporting me, another wonderful friend who diverted a family trip to swing by the funeral home for just an hour with her husband and beautiful children, and the dozens of Kelly's friends who showed up en masse at the visitation. All good people. And I don't mean that lightly. It seems almost trite to say 'good' when these people are LOVING, GENEROUS, THOUGHTFUL, and ENCOURAGING, but 'good' in this sense means way more than I can explain. I feel like my dad has FOR YEARS used that phrase to discuss people he works with, friends from AA, etc... he'd throw it out there when someone went above-and-beyond kind of thing, "that guy who drove 2 states away to do XYZ...he's good people." I truly, truly can say that I've never felt so comforted and supported in my life. And it doesn't totally surprise me. BLESS ME?? YES!!!!!! SURPRISE ME? No. Because my dad was GOOD PEOPLE. He loved others, he served others, he made business decisions to help out others instead of himself. He supported people and cared for them, he was faithful, loyal, focused, and generous. He was able to look beyond his own Harvard MBA degree and the oil-stained coveralls that his employees or co-workers wore and honestly appreciate people. And that's why some of those same people showed up at his visitation, in their greasy coveralls or whatever, and supported us and him. 'Good People' follow 'Good People' and my brothers and I are trying pretty hard to follow the Good People that my dad was.
We miss him deeply, my kids miss him, my birthday (3 days after the funeral), Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc... all kind of sucked this year. I know that will get a smidge better. I KNOW he raised us to be strong, intelligent, focused people and that our lives will be a reflection of him. And I think we're doing a pretty good job of reflecting him well. But it's hard, and it'll be that way for awhile. And I know the same God that held him tightly at the end of his life as he told a friend, "it's not what you'd think..." welcomed my dad into Eternity where there is NO SUFFERING, NO FEAR, and NO PAIN is the same God that holds me tightly these days, too.
So, all that to say that I'm learning a lot, I'm coming out of the fog a little, and I'm so thankful for the many, many, many people who've loved my family lately. Thanks for calls, emails, texts, prayers, cards, meals, donations to Hospice in my dad's name, etc... each and every one of them was appreciated, even if you didn't get a thank you card or email... I think this 'process' is going to take awhile but we are extremely thankful that you are in our lives.


On the Kitty Hawk. Spring 2007
Japan, Spring 07
Holding Mitchell for the first time. Halloween 2009

Christmas 2010

March 2010

Halloween, con't...

Ok, we left off with pumpkins carved, check. Scary Cow Train documented, check. Pumpkin muffins made and consumed, check. Only thing left is Halloween. Ok, two Halloweens, actually. Saturday night, we did a 'trial run' of sorts with a Trunk-or-Treat event at the girls' school. It was fun and cute and it allowed us to get everyone in costumes to test out the process.

Easy. Fun. Cute.

Elise thought Adam should be the duck instead.
Mitchell thought it was cute, too. The little guy laughs at EVERYTHING. I love it. He knows Mommy is hilarious, too.
Why does every event turn into Wrestlemania? I thought that only happened to friends like the Tinsleys, the Hawleys, or the Janneys, who have all boys... nope, my girls LOVE to wrestle, too!

Everyone ready. Oops, we lost a duck/chicken thing...
Adam walking everyone around at the Trunk-Or-Treat event. They even got to climb inside a real firetruck- that's always cool.
Actual Halloween Night,

Halloween Happenings..

Here's the post where I catch up with all things related to Halloween.

A few weeks ago, we went to a GREAT Pumpkin Patch/Hayride/Farm/Corn Maze place about 30 minutes from here. Kids all had a great time. Mommy and Daddy wish it hadn't been an 'unusually hot' October Saturday...it was about 90 degrees by lunch...gross. Caramel apples, pumpkin donuts, and funnel cakes are NOT appealing at 90 degrees. Ok, just a little appealing.

Elise's favorite part was probably the COW TRAIN. Each "cow" was made of a big 55 gallon drum, linked together and pulled (FAST) by some crazy guy on a tractor. Seriously, they were FLYING. WAY to fast to be safe.












Elise LOVED it. So did our neighbor who is in the cow in front of Elise.












Hauling, I tell you.













Ainsley's favorite part was the Corn Kernel box (think Sandbox, but with hard kernels of corn. ingenious, really. And much cleaner than sand, too. Ainsley spent about an hour in there.






























They also had a pumpkin cannon and a corn cob launcher. Both were awesome, but the adults appreciated them so much more than the kids.

They had fun playing around the pumpkins-for-sale area, they played on a gigantic bouncy thing, slid through an underground tunnel, we bought an overpriced pumpkin, and that was the day.


Mitchell seemed fine while we were there, but then crashed the minute we got in the car (kind of unusual for him). After he drank 1/2 a bottle and drooled it everywhere...

He started throwing up a few hours later and that was the beginning of FLU WEEK in the Moseley household...


Next up: PUMPKIN CARVING.
Kind of like Valentine's Day last year, I thought it would be great fun, family memories, etc... but I still don't quite have that right.

Everyone was excited, we got it all set up before Adam got home, the girls talked about it for hours. They wanted their pictures taken IN their special pumpkin shirts, etc...

Then, the work started. It was windy, and the pumpkin innards were gooey. They still helped some. For MAYBE 4 minutes.

Ainsley got bored and went down to the swingset.

Mitchell finished his bottle and just wanted to escape.

Elise only wanted to pick the seeds out of the goop, but not touch anything else. I chased all three kids around to keep them away from sharp knives, and Adam did 90% of the carving by himself.

Yay. Memories.


Phew. We're not even to Halloween weekend yet. I'll get to that tomorrow. Thanks!

AWESOME PICTURE of the WEEK

Look who's WALKING!!!!!!!



It's still a little intermittent, but he's definitely taking steps, all day long. And you can tell from the top shot, he's VERY proud of himself.

...mullet and all...

Hair 'issues'

If you've EVER met our family OR even just seen pictures, you know there are some hair 'issues' here. All 3 kids were born basically bald and stayed that way until about 2 years old (for both girls) and right about the year mark for Mitchell... I cut Elise's hair once (like 18 months ago) and it was DISASTROUS. I did a blog about it, but don't know how to do that fancy link-to-something-else-in-the-text, so use your imagination. It was a bad haircut. So I'm a little scissor-shy after that last incident.
We've never cut Ainsley's hair- not one strand. She was SO BALD up until 2 and then in the last 6 months or so, she's actually getting a bunch of hair...but it's pretty scraggly looking. Ok, REALLY scraggly looking. I try bows, headbands, hairspray, mousse sometimes, but it's really just useless...it's so uneven, she's got some mind-of-their-own curls (hmmm...no idea where THAT came from!?), and NO patience for mommy to work on it.
She went down for a nap a few weeks ago with a little bit of wet hair (mid-day bath? not likely..maybe it was syrup or peanut butter in the tresses. That sounds more probable.) and woke up with a HAIRDO that HAD TO BE IMMEDIATELY CAPTURED ON FILM...seriously.

She's still 1/2 asleep here, but I had to get proof of this look.

I PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE that I did NOT stage this at all!

Here's after a few more minutes and she realized Elise and I weren't laughing AT HER (ok, not in a mean way at least...)...and it's a better angle with light/color behind her to get the full effect.
Man, she is a funny kid. Stubborn and exhausting, but funny. =)

She's not alone, though. Her brother is still rocking the SKULLET, and it's actually getting better. (or worse, depending on how you feel about HORRIBLE hair on a baby).



Elise, however, is the one shining star in the hair department of Moseley kids right now. On a total whim a couple weeks ago, she said she wanted her hair cut a little... I thought, "I can do it this time...it's much longer than the last attempt, there's more room for someone else to fix it once I mess up...". So, I just cut off about 4 inches straight across the bottom, then did some of the little 'texturizing' stuff they always do to my hair, and it worked! She loves it and I think it's precious.

The day before the cut...it was SO long! And she's wearing a gorgeous hand-made outfit from a friend of mine. It's a tunic/long shirt on Elise and Ainsley wears it as a dress. Beautiful!


Immediately after the haircut.

oh, man...

I'm so behind on this thing. It bothers me for two reasons when I'm behind...1.I hate to disappoint my 'fans'...ok, our family + about 3 other people. and 2.This really is our (online) photo album and keeps things in order in my head to have pictures, stories of our hysterical kids/life, and dates all in one place. (So, in theory, when I get around to updating the kids' baby books, this is a huge help)...

Ok, I'll just throw up a smattering of pics/stories from around the house this past month:


For Mitchell's 1st birthday, my great friend Erica F MADE this adorable (A-DOR-A-BLE) little froggy for him. It's a tennis ball in the middle and SO CUTE!


It's quickly turned into one of his favorite bed-friends and he giggles whenever I hold it out to him. It's like his own little secret with froggy...so cute. Thanks, EF!!


Ainsley MAY be one of the most stubborn kids on the planet. She asked for a banana with lunch one day about 2 weeks ago. I asked again "Ainsley, are you SURE you want it?" because she's already eaten a full lunch. She said "Yes, I sure." So, I gave it to her and she immediately handed it back to me and said, "No, i not hungry now." WRONG ANSWER, kiddo.

She stayed at the table for ONE HOUR and TWENTY MINUTES longer (almost 2 hours total for a weekday lunch). I didn't give in, she was crying, laughing, angry, etc... but there was NO WAY she was getting out of this one.

...halfway through the event....

but ATE THE WHOLE THING. And she was so proud of herself...all this over a banana.

The whole time she was at the table, Mitchell, Elise and I had exaggerated "fun" without her, Elise pretended she was a cheerleader, etc...

Mommy won that day.

Today:

I hate doing blogposts out of chronological order, but I had to put this one up right now.

The 'Controlling' part of me always wants to pick out my kids' outfits, especially on school days and church days... (So, they can choose on Saturdays, ok!?!). But the 'I want them to express themselves within reason' side of me LOVES when they choose whole outfit by themselves... This morning for church was a "Choose your own outfit" day for Ainsley. And as a friend working in the nursery commented, "She's kind of channeling Rainbow Brite from the mid-80's". Although there are a few differences, the overall thought is right on!


Complete with the Silly Bandz (OBNOXIOUS jelly bracelets that are back in style. they were a gift...i DID NOT BUY them...), adorable leggings, and a dress-that-is-really-too-short-but-throw-on-some-leggings-and-you'll-get-another-6-months-out-of-it! woohoo for having little girls! You can't pull that one off with a boy... I also love the last-years-jeans-are-now-capris trick!


Then, of course, is Ainsley's go-to face for pictures:

And the best part is the Bed-Head she was sporting after naptime! This kid has crazy hair and I have no idea what to do with it right now...