Something Magical

Even though it's been nearly three weeks since our vacation has come and gone, I still must post about our vacation to Disney!!!

Disney was something magical.  Truly.  I am so happy that I didn't let any fear or worry stop me from taking my son there by myself.  We had such a wonderful, memorable time.  And... it's all mine.

Here are some of the best moments...
1.  It started on our drive to the airport.  Car service came to get us.  Car service had some bad gas.  It took me awhile to catch on.  But my son noticed right away.  And he so called the driver out every time by announcing that it smelled like "old soup" in the car.  Lol... glad there wasn't any traffic at 6 am on a Sunday, we got to the airport rather quickly.  Phew!
2.  The wonder and excitement in my son's expression when we arrived at The Animal Kingdom (our first stop) when I told him we were finally at Disney World.
3.  His first meet and greet with characters came the next morning at Hollywood Studios with Chip and Dale!  He ran right up to them with hugs and smiles.  He was SO excited.
4.  My son lost his tooth at Hollywood Studios!!!  Literally, I think he ate it with his lunch, atleast that's when I noticed it was gone.  A lunch with Disney Jr. characters!
5.  My son picked out a snake at the Indiana Jones gift shop.  That snake came with us to every park after that day.  That snake put on a "magic" show every morning on our bus ride to the park.  That snake broke the ice with everyone that came our way.  My son, the people charmer with his sidekick snake.  Lol... I love that kid.
6.  We were up and at it every morning to open up the park of the day.  We stayed all day long.   Only once out of the five days there did we go back to the hotel to "rest" for the night.  By rest I mean go swimming.  My son was a little trooper.  At four, he walked all day everyday.  No stroller!  And he didn't have any accidents.  We didn't even have to get out of any lines to use a bathroom.  He was awesome!
7.  Parades... My son LOVES parades.  We watched the parade at Animal Kingdom.  We watched a day parade at Magic Kingdom.  We watched the electric parade at the Magic Kingdom 4 times!  By the fourth time, we declared ourselves worthy of joining all those who start walking at the end of the parade and joining it.  It was our last night... why not?
8.  A new friend... One night at the kiddie pool, my son made a friend.  He was a boy about the same age as my son, but he had some obvious disabilities.  I think he may have been autistic.  However, my son played with him as if he were just like any other kid.  This boy was scared of the water (a foot deep) and afraid to jump and splash in it.  My son took his hand and "taught" him how to jump.  They had a great time together.  I was so proud of him.
9.  We hit some bad weather on the plane ride home.  The turbulance wasn't bad, but we had some delays.  Our plane even landed at a different airport and waited until the fog lifted in NYC.  We were on that plane for about 8 hours (it was a 2.5 hour flight home).  My son was so good on the plane.  Thank God!!!
10.  We both had our moments, but... I couldn't have asked for anything better.  I cannot express how special this little vacation was other than to call it something magical.

                                                                 

The Animal Kingdom

My son's favorite part... Dino Land!

Hollywood Studios

Epcot

A Luau breakfast with Pluto, Mickey, Lilo, and Stitch!

The Magic Kingdom

Buzz Lightyear... One of our favorite rides.

It's a Small World... I lost count how many times we rode through this one.  

I used a Fast Pass for both the parade and fireworks... VIP seating, nice!

Knowing and Doing

There is quite a difference between knowing something and doing something.  Knowing lives in thoughts, doing lives in actions.  However, there is a powerful connection between the two.  And if I may, I'd like to quote a one Ms. Oprah Winfrey, "If I had known better, I would have done better."  That quote has run through my mind many times and it especially helped in some of the early days after Dale's death when I was confused and questioned what had happened and why.

After writing my post yesterday, I started to reorganize myself (even updated and printed out a new "Daily Rituals" checklist) and thought about what it is that I need to be doing and what needs to be happening in my life to get me out of the rut that I feel I have been in.  I've made some slight changes and overall, atleast on Day 1, I am feeling better.  One thing that I was reminded of after writing yesterday's post was that on maintaining.  I reread that post which sounded all too familiar to my post from yesterday.  That familiarity reminded me that I actually know what it is I need and want to do, but the problem lies in actually doing it.

So I was reminded of yet another thing... the word itself, maintaining.  I had been searching for a bead to represent maintaining, but just like the bead that I had wanted to get for "the process" nothing jumped out at me.  I didn't know what I wanted so I didn't get anything.  However, yesterday, I did find a bead to represent maintaining.

This stone of courage is said to be named after the female Amazonian warriors. Some say, however, that it is simply named after the Amazon River in Brazil, where it is found embedded in boulders of hard granite. It is also called the Hope stone, since it inspires confidence and hope. - See more at: http://www.trollbeads.com/global/en-us/products/beads/80106(base_usd)#sthash.dDgGla3X.dpuff

This is the Amazonite bead... The stone of courage named after the female Amazonite warriors.
It is also said to be the hope stone since it is supposed to inspire confidence and hope.

This bead looks strong to me.  And when I read the caption about it, it seemed fitting.  Fitting enough to be my next bead to represent maintaining.

After this bead, I think that I have room for two more.  One spot is already taken for "The Process."  I had to send back the rainbow bead I bought for it because it didn't look like a rainbow at all.  I have yet to find a bead to represent that important life reminder.  I'm still looking though.  

 

 

My 19 Day Hiatus

Where have I been for the past 19 days?  Other than the 5 days I spent at Disney World, I have no idea.  Things are going very well for me right now, awesome actually, but I feel like I am such a hot mess.  I really am in a disarray and I am fighting to balance and reorganize, but I am not doing such a good job.  Do I really need to dust off The Happiness Project (or atleast draw inspiration from the first month's theme of organize, organize, organize) and attempt it for a third time!?!

As I have shared so many times before, this summer I turned a big corner in my life and it was quite an adjustment.  I was having difficulties with the new found peace that I was feeling because so many of my other feelings and memories had subsided as well.  And although that process was both necessary and important for me to pass, it was still bittersweet nonetheless.  So that threw me off a bit.

Then I got sick in the fall.  Not sick, sick.  But the low energy, nagging dull headache, cough, and sniffles sort of sick.  That lasted forever!  I coughed my way into January and although I feel better now, my energy is not up to par.  I'm sure this incredibly long and extremely cold winter has something to do with it, but it still bothers me.  It bothers me because I feel as though I have become lazy.  Extremely lazy.  This fall I started watching t.v. and really getting into shows that I made an attempt to watch every week.  I haven't done that in such a loong time.  I stopped working out.  First, it was my sickness, then it was the weather.  I signed up for a gym membership last month, went twice.  And I can feel and see the effects of this lifestyle that I don't enjoy but can't seem to break from.  Jiggle. 

I was supposed to start p90x (I quit my gym membership) on Monday.  I started it last year at this time and I really enjoyed it.  It was tough working out 6 days a week, but I dedicated myself and although in the end it was more like 5 times a week, I still finished the program and I looked and felt great!  This year, I want the results, but I know how difficult it was to put all that time into the program and I am having a hard time finding the time.

Time... I have become unorganized in my routines.  I am not accomplishing all that I need and want to each day.  When I don't, it just carries over into the next day and it builds up.  I am finding myself looking for time to blog, workout, even spend with my son.  I don't have any less time (not really) but I don't know what I am doing with the time that I have.  One thing that I do know is that I am going to bed earlier.  Sometimes I'd stay up to 12 or 1 am to finish a blog post.  Or I would start my workout at 10 pm or later if I needed too.  But I am just having a difficult time doing that now.

I also have someone special in my life now.  And as happy as I am that I do, it is an adjustment.  We see each other on average now about every 3 or 4 days.  When we don't see each other, we talk on the phone.  Our conversations have rarely been less than an hour these days.  My relationship is taking time that I used for other things.  (NOT complaining, but it's just reality.) 

I hate this dishevelled state that I am in.  So what do I do?  I think I need to make a list, lol.  Sometimes you need to go back to what works best, and I love me my lists.  Apparently I need a daily checklist of tasks and goals that I want to accomplish each day.  It worked before in the toughest of times, why not when times are good.?.  Once I reorganize, I think that I will find that more time will open up.  With more time (and the NEW p90x3, which is only 30 minutes a workout compared to 60 minutes plus!) I won't have any excuses for not working out.  Working out will help me to increase my energy.  The more energy and time that I have the better the mom I will be.  All of these things will make me feel happier.  And the happier I am the better my relationship with my New Yorker will be and that will make me even happier!

So to sum this all up...

If H=Hiatus, L=Lists, O=Organization, T=Time, E=Energy, HP=Happiness then

-H= HP ( O + T + E)         
                  L

Or in simple Nike terms... "Just Do It!"  

A Last Redezvous?

In October I was feeling a bit down and out.  I was tired of meeting wrong guy after wrong guy.  Even my mom could feel the frustration and she told me that "he was just around the corner."  And you know, I actually believed her.  Ever since I had come home from my NW trip, I felt that I was in a new phase.  I felt different.  I did feel as if he were just around the corner and my mom saying that to me only helped me to actually believe it even more.

So, I started to think about how BIG this actually was going to be when it happened.  As wonderful and as amazing as it was going to be, the one thing that was bittersweet to me was going to be the change of dynamics between my son and myself.  That sounds completely selfish, I know.  I want nothing more than a great man for both of us.  But, we do have something special.  I know it will always be special, but part of that uniqueness comes from it being just the two of us.

Those thoughts gave me the courage to book a trip to Disney World for just me and my son.  I didn't ask anyone else, not my parents... no one.  I wanted it to be just the two of us.  And we are leaving tomorrow... actually today... in 9 hours.  I can't believe it is here already.  I am super excited and super nervous all at the same time.  I think that I am going to need a vacation after my vacation, lol.  But it is going to be truly special and magical.  I am so happy to be spending it with my son... alone. 

You see, I think that perhaps he was just around the corner, a corner that I turned... :)

We will be back Friday... Hopefully I will have pictures to share next weekend! 

Proofs of Love

It was almost exactly two years ago that I stepped back out into the dating world.  It had taken me nearly a year to do this and in that first year I did some deep soul searching about who I was and who I needed and wanted to be in my life.  The past two years of dating has helped me to define that, but the foundation was built as I began to rebuild myself that first year. 

Two years ago, I wrote a post with the same title as this one...  Proofs of Love (click to read the older version).  When I wrote that I did so almost innocently.  I was so full of hope that this actually existed.  It wasn't based on anything other than the quote, "There is no love, only proofs of love" and my own romantic optimism. 

Yesterday morning I sat in my classroom before my work day began and read that post.  I had forgotten what my Valentine's Day had been like that first year.  I had somewhat forgotten about that post and certainly didn't realize that I had posted it on Valentine's Day. 

Reading that post yesterday morning, brought tears to my eyes.  Two years ago, those words were what I was hoping for.  They were what I had wanted to find and to feel with someone.  Yesterday, I realized that I have all that I had wanted for when I wrote that post... I am given proofs of love everyday by this incredible man that I call my New Yorker. 

The entire day was completely wonderful yesterday.  And at the end of the night when he told me that he loved me, I looked at him, smiled, and said "I know."  He asked how and my response was quick and easy.  "You show me."  After a short nod, he kissed me on the forehead and felt surrounded by it... his love.  <3

A Big Moment

When my grandmother talks about my grandfathers, I can hear the love in her voice that she had for both of them.  When she talks about my step-grandfather, the man that she married after my grandfather passed away, I hear something more. 

My step-grandfather was 17 years older than my grandmother.  To my grandmother, that was just a number.  To her, she had met a man who understood her pain, having been widowed himself.  But even more than that, she had met a man who wanted to take care of her and wanted to make her happy.  When she speaks of him I can hear in her voice not only her love for him, but his love for her. 

My grandmother had two young children, my father who was 8 and my aunt who was 6.  My step-grandfather had children of his own, but being 17 years older, they were already grown and out of the house.  My grandmother says that he looked at her children as an opportunity to do that all over again and he embraced them as his own.  He helped to raise two wonderful people in my father and my aunt.  He was the one there for all of the big moments... graduations, weddings, (grand)children.  My father and my aunt were both old enough to have memories and to have been influenced by my grandfather, but my step-grandfather's role was no less significant.  As difficult as it is to say, it was even more. 

I think that is the more that I hear in my grandmother's voice.  It's more than an appreciation towards him.  Actually, I am not sure what word I can use to describe it.  It's just something more.  I always picked up on that feeling from her even before I became a widow myself.  But it wasn't until after, that I could truly begin to understand that feeling. 

It takes a very special man to do what my step-grandfather did.  I know that there are men (and women!) that step up to the plate everyday.  But I know that in my grandmother's case, it was more than just stepping up to the plate.  He wasn't there because he felt sorry for a young widowed mother and her two children and he wanted to do an honorable thing.  He loved and adored my grandmother.  And he loved and adored her children as if they were his own.  That's what made him honorable.  He had a big heart and he opened it up to all three of them. 

I understand that feeling even more now than ever before because my son and my New Yorker have met.  I have seen first hand the interactions between the two of them.  And it's... incredible. :')
My son has been so happy during our times spent together.  He's chatty and silly and comfortable around him.  And my New Yorker, the 40 year old bachelor who didn't think he had it in him to be a good father... is a natural.  And not just in the way that he interacts and connects with my son.  But as a caretaker too... removing the knife from the place setting (even I still forget sometimes!), covering his head so he doesn't bump it on the table when he goes to pick something off of the floor, being able to divert his attention when a little tantrum is about to take place... just little common sense things that wouldn't necessarily come to a person who doesn't have children. 

Tuesday was a big moment day.  It was a huge deal for me to let my son into the picture.  It was a huge deal that my New Yorker wanted this to happen.  He was the one who first brought it up.  We discussed this weeks before it actually happened and I was made well aware of both his excitement and fears in meeting my son and why.  It's because of how he feels about me.  And the beauty that I saw with him and my son interacting, is a direct  result of those feelings. 

As far as my feelings go, it is love.  It is appreciation.  It's also more.  A whole lot more. 

Mommy Milestones

This past week, I've hit some big milestones as a mom.  In other words... my little boy is growing up!!!

My son is finally old enough to join a Little League Tee Ball team!  He has a later birthday and missed the cutoff last year.  But this year he's ready to go!  This brings back such memories for me as I played organized softball from the time I was nine and throughout high school.  I have SO many memories as much of the summer time was spent playing and traveling to different tournaments.  My Little League team won states one year and my high school team was one of the top ranked teams in New York State.  So I have been very excited for my son to be old enough to start playing baseball.  And now that the time is here, I can't help but to wonder where did that time go!?!  Crazy!

This week I also signed my son up for a summer camp.  He loves, loves, loves to dig in the dirt and so what better place than the Botanic Garden?  He'll be learning about soil, seeds, bugs, and all things dirty.  He'll have a chance to channel his inner country boy and he's going to love it!  It's twice a week for the whole month of July and... it's a drop off!  He's finally old enough to be dropped off somewhere (other than school) and left... for 3 hours!  Woo hoo!  Since the gardens are one of my favorite places, I plan on spending a good amount of the days there, relaxing and reading.  It's also across the street from a park.  So on my energetic days, I can go running.  Or maybe best yet, lay out in the sun! 

I also finished applying my son for kindergarten this week!  Kindergarten!!!  I have decided to stay put in my apartment because financially it makes the most sense.  Our zoned school is also very nice as well.   However, I did apply to two other schools that are nearby.  Chances are that we won't get in because they typically only take zoned children as well.  But, I had the opportunity to apply to schools outside of my zone and they are close enough to make them doable.  And even more importantly, they are very, very good schools.... public NYC schools!  It's funny to think that my son is a true New Yorker... a born and raised Brooklyn boy!

I discovered last week that my son also has a loose tooth!  It's his first... but he's only four.  He was so excited at first especially since he knows that the Tooth Fairy will come.  What he didn't understand was what a loose tooth really was and how it felt.  He also didn't realize that he would be losing all of his teeth.  He was actually a bit devastated when I told him.  He cried and cried.  I couldn't help but to laugh (bad mom, lol).  But I squeezed him tight as he cried as I think I was crying a bit inside too being hit with another biggie.  My son really is growing up!

Perhaps the biggest milestone of them all, was what occurred on Tuesday.  My son and my New Yorker met for the very first time!  This was such a big day... for all of us.