Mother’s Day 2010

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . May 8, 2010 . 5:58PM

As most mothers will tell you, the homemade gifts are the most amazing, loving, generous and heart-breaking we will ever receive from anyone, ever. Most of us would not trade these colored, glued masterpieces for the most expensive piece of jewelry you could offer us. Children, as they get older, begin to provide information as to their true feelings about their mothers. I am lucky enough to have a child who shares my inability to wait when sharing gifts. Yesterday, I received a book that he’d made at school. Completely bound and made with love by my 9-year old, AJ.

Some of the comments were just heart-breaking and beautiful…and some caused me to raise my eyebrow. All spelling errors are AJ’s.

From page 3… (my commentary is in parentheses)
Just right (????)
Important (awww)
Legendry (mmmhmmm)
Lovable (my little sweet one)
Inaccessible (what? Does he mean in a “can’t touch this” kind of way?)
Awesome (truly)
Neat (well, we know he doesn’t mean in the vs. messy category)

From page 7….

His favorite time with Mommy
My favorite time with mom is sleeping with my mom because we get to spend time with each other. We get to do it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It’s nice to sleep with my mom. (Ok, I swear I’m weaning him off of this. He’s just having trouble adjusting to recent events. I can only imagine what the teacher thought when she saw this paragraph. I literally put my face in my palms when I read it.)

From page 10….

A list of Mommy’s best attributes:
1. Nice
2. Kind
3. Generous
4. Smart
5. Loves me
6. Listens
7. common (WHAT? OH NO HE DIDN’T. COMMON? WHERE DID THAT EVEN COME FROM?)
8. Accuracy
9. Gives advice
10. Comferting

From page 14: If I had a millione dollars I would buy her a golden car. (Exactly what I’d want if he had a million dollars).

Page 19: (Perhaps the one I’m most proud of) When I’m a parent, I will read like my mom.

But the bottom line is that Mother’s Day is about how we feel about each other. AJ says:
My mom is nice.
She does homework.
She likes me.
She looks like me.
She sounds like me.
She smells like perfume.
She always loves me.
My mom is kind.

That’s my boy.

Happy Mother’s Day, y’all.

Nashville Flooding

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . May 4, 2010 . 1:01AM

I’m tired. There was flooding in Nashville all weekend, but with the national coverage, you would really only think it happened today and was over in a short time. Franklin, TN has areas that are wiped out. Nashville has areas that are wiped out. So do the other surrounding areas.

Because I’m tired, I’m also incoherent. I should have written this post about 5 hours ago, but I was just really happy to be in my house. I spent the weekend at my friend Bryan’s parent’s house (did you get that?) where I was essentially trapped for the weekend due to the weather. Thankfully, his parents are gracious and were incredibly accommodating.

Please keep the people of Nashville in your thoughts. Nashville has a small downtown area and is made up of the surrounding areas, all which were hit very hard. We have many dead and our schools in the downtown area are still out. There is possible contamination of our water and we are under orders to conserve.

Pictures are worth a thousand words. Credit to my anonymous picture donor, who knows who he is.

We are not anonymous. We are a community of people who stick together and work hard to make Nashville an amazing place to live. This is devastating.

Edit: Please go read this link for another personal flood story: http://twt.tl/6lUMyOp