If you are a regular reader you know that every week I do Thankful Thursday posts, and sometimes I mix them with one of the prompts from Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop (2 great things put together!).

This week when I read the writing prompts, one stuck out at me:  What do your kids have that you always wanted when you were a kid?

At first I thought, “Hmmm…. what toys do they have that I wanted?”  But really, I can’t think of too many toys I pined over…  Yeah, I’m sure there are things I wanted that I didn’t get, but since nothing pops to my mind, I must not have wanted them too badly…

Just about as fast as that thought went through my mind, I thought of something my kids DO have that I would have liked to have:  grandparents.

Let me be clear,  I had grandparents at their age, but what I mean is the relationships my kids have with their grandparents.

By the time I was 2 I had already lost one grandfather.  I never even knew my mom’s mother was still around until I was in 3rd or 4th grade, when SURPRISE! I found out she was in a nursing home and we went to visit her.  She had had a stroke; it was impossible to understand anything she said; I only remember seeing her one or two times.  (I’m sure there is a lot to that story I will never know, and it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized how that has affected me.)

On my dad’s side… We went to visit my grandparents every Sunday.  The smell of the right pipe tobacco brings back so many memories for me.  But I don’t remember them ever playing with us.  Or really talking to us.  I remember everyone watching Dallas.  Sitting on the steps and drawing pictures with crayons that were stored in an old tobacco can and then hanging them on my grandpa’s bedroom door…   He had the beginnings of Altzheimer’s then.  They were both gone by the time I was in middle school.

That’s why I treasure the fact that my kids still have all 4 grandparents.  Not only that, but that they have REAL relationships with them.  Take for instance our Wacky Wednesday when both of my parents came up with clothing on backwards and mixed up shoes.  My dad loves to take them for walks when he visits.  My mom will sit and play Polly Pockets with my daughter.

We live right next door to my in-laws.  The kids get to visit whenever they want.  Papaw has taken them fishing.  Mamaw sits and does Play-Doh with them.  There are snuggles and giggles each and every visit.

I am so thankful that my kids will have these memories.  I pray that they have many years of memories with their grandparents ahead.

The post What My Kids Have That I Wanted… first appeared on There's Just One Mommy.

That’s one of the prompts from Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop this week,” Write about a time you pretended to be someone you aren’t.”

At first when I read through the prompts I thought about the times I’ve looked at caller-ID and seen it was a 1-800 number and answered with, “Joe’s Pizza, can I take your order?”  (Hey, a SAHM has to get her kicks somehow!)

But when I crawled into bed last night, it hit me.  I actually created a whole campaign once, based on a person who didn’t exist.

It was senior year in high school.  After years of seeing the campaign posters up in hallways each year before student council elections, I was getting pretty tired of the whole thing.  After all, it was always the most popular kids that seemed to get voted in, and always the same people running.

It started out as just a few simple “Vote for me!” signs I made while sitting in the back of math class (I don’t think I ever actually did MATH while in that class).  I hung the signs in the bathroom stalls at lunch time, when no one was around.  Well, my best friend was… (got to have an accomplice, right?)

By the end of the day there were signs in all the girl’s bathrooms, “Vote for Sherry!”

A day or so later I heard a couple of people wondering who this Sherry girl was.  Stickers were made and passed out, again, in math class.  It’s funny how people will wear a “Vote for So-N-So” sticker without even knowing who the person is…or asking.

More signs were made, this time taped up in the halls after school.  The adrenaline pumping at the thought that a teacher might catch us and ask who this Sherry person was.

Of course, poor Sherry never stood a chance.  She couldn’t even get on the ballot, since that required at least 25 signatures and a passing G.P.A. that would be checked at the office.  Hard to have a G.P.A. when you don’t exist.  But for a short moment in time, Sherry took the chance and ran for office, stirred up some talk, and was noticed.  Something completely different for a girl who wouldn’t talk in class and tried to blend into the walls most of the time.

What about you?  Ever pretend to be someone you aren’t?

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I am 36 years old and I have:

1.  I’ve had the same best friend since elementary school.

2.  I’ve kissed my best friend’s husband.  (Okay, this deserves some clarification; we were 3 or 4 at the time and we grew up next door to each other.)

3.  I’ve played the violin. (I was in the orchestra from grades 4-12)  I also taught myself to play a little guitar, recorder, and keyboard.

4.  I’ve competed in gymnastics at the high school level.

5.  I performed a song that I wrote the lyrics and music to at a high school talent show, something completely out of character since I rarely spoke in class.

6.  I wrote the rough draft of my senior year term paper in my math class the day it was due, and got an A.  (Nothing like procrastinating to get your adrenalin going!)

7.  As a senior in high school I created a fictional person and put on a mini-campaign for said fictional person to run in the student government elections.  I even had stickers made up that people wore.  (No body ever suspects the quiet kid…)

8.  Over the summer when I was in college I got drunk enough at a “ladies night” pool party that I had no idea how my friend and I got back to my parents’ house, or where my shoes were.  Thankfully, however we got home, we somehow didn’t wake my parents up stumbling through the door and down the steps.

9.  I was in Girl Scouts through my senior year in high school; I earned the Silver Award (the second highest award in Girl Scouts).

10.  I’ve built two dollhouses.  One was from a kit and one I designed myself, complete with 2 secret passage ways and a rope ladder.

11.  I’ve had a few poems published.

12.  I dated and fell in love with my tae kwon do instructor in college (and still had to work my butt off to earn each belt); 8 years later we married.

13.  I worked my butt off and saved to be able to pay cash for my first car – a used Mercury Topaz.

14.  I’ve donated my hair to Locks of Love 3 times:  over 19 inches before I married, and then 2 more times before each of my kids were born.

15.  I’ve been a substitute teacher, and I’ve taught high school special ed. without being certified to teach it (the school really wanted me, I guess), 8th grade language arts (love working with this grade), and high school summer school English.  My favorite teaching position to date?  Being a SAHM.

16.  I’ve earned a Master’s degree in Education.

17.  I took German in high school and college and a couple sign language classes for fun.

18.  Before kids I regularly competed in two different types of pistol shooting competitions.  I actually won 2 guns in the Glock shoot, too.

19.  I’ve brought two beautiful children into this world, both, thankfully, healthy, despite all the concern doctors put us through before their births.

20.  I’ve breastfed two children past the age of one.

21. I’ve built an entire play area out of cardboard boxes for said children.  (Yet, we’ve also given them our living room…)

22.  I’ve gone from not knowing much about the Internet to writing a blog (not that I know a whole lot more about the Internet, but I’m learning!)

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