Lunch With My Other Son

If any of you have opened your cooking and life lessons cookbook, you may recall that I put in a life lesson that says, "when you get married you just don't marry your spouse, you marry their whole family." As all of you now are either married, or about to be, I'm sure you can see the truth in that statement.

You walk into different traditions and make new ones with different people. Sometimes you mesh very well and other times you feel like a catus in a sea of babies breath. You have to try very hard to fit in--but the family has to try equally hard to let you in.

It occurred to me this past Father's Day, that I needed to do a better job of this with Jon, my son-in-law and one of the best fathers I know. So, this past Saturday, we went to lunch at Salmon Dave's in Rocky River. We just talked. There were no long pauses or wishing the time went by faster. We talked about a million things and I learned things about Jon I should have asked 7 years ago when he entered our family.

I learned that besides being a wonderful husband to my daughter and father to their children, that Jon is creative and funny. We talked about his childhood health problems and how he didn't let that stop him from swimming competively. We talked about the inequities of the working world and things that he wanted to be when he grew up. I found out that we share the same dislike of country music but we both love the Lakewood area because of the small shops and hometown feel it has to it.

We talked about Jon the person who sometimes gets lost in the hustle and bustle of the kids and making sure Jenna is feeling OK.

When your children decide to get married, you hope that their spouse will love them, treat them with respect and care for their well being as much as you have. In this, Jon has far surpassed my hopes.

I went to a fortune teller a long time ago. She told me I was going to have 3 children--a girl and two boys. Well, I had the girl and inherited the two boys. But somewhere along the line, in the halls of National City and in a church in Berea, I gained another wonderful son. We had lunch on Saturday and I hope we do it again very soon.

A Day With Miss Elizabeth Rae Purdum

Happy Mother's Day To Me And 3 Hours for Jenna

I decided what I wanted most for Mother's Day was to see the kids. I also thought a nice present for Jenna would be some time with Jon....so we took the kids for 3 hours today. I bought new toys to play with--we had lunch--the kids played with Papa and the hot tub and when we took the kids back, Jenna and Jon look a little more relaxed and glad for the time together. Happy Mother's Day to Me, and to Jenna, the best Mom I know. See what fun we had!!

The Fun We Had Babysitting!!

3 Dimes, A Leaf and 1 Beautiful Boy

How I love picking up Ben from school. He was the "line leader" the other day. Mrs. Baily called on him and told him to pick a line leader, so he picked himself. How proud he was leading the group of pre-schoolers out the door. "Look at me, Moe Moe," he said, "I'm leading the line."

The children came up to me as they often do. They are all so pretty. There is a little girl there who has the prettiest eyes. She will often show me what she has made and she smiles when I compliment her on her art work. She doesn't talk much, but she smiles. What a beautiful child.

And, of course, Mr. Ben has to check on his "coins." The kids are used to the exercise now. "Moe Moe," says Ben, "do you have my coins?" They all wait with baited breath....like I'm not going to have them???? And when Ben pulls them out of my pocket, they all give a collective, "aahhh," like they have never seen dimes before. There is a man at work who will drop 3 dimes off at my desk. He doesn't have children, but I think he would have been a good father. "These are for Ben," he says and quickly walks away. And when I get back from walking Ben home, he comes back to my desk and asks, "did Ben find his dimes?" Oh yes, Ben always knows where to find his dimes.

Recently, Ben has been interested in bringing Mommy home a leaf. He will wade through them until he finds one that has a nice shape and will say to me, "Moe Moe, I'm going to give this to Mommy." A few days ago, the wind took his leaf. He was quite upset, as it was a beautiful shape. "Help me catch it, Moe Moe," he said, "I want to give it to Mommy."

And so, we go to his house. He always runs faster then I do and gets there first. We go inside and often Ellie is up...or, the noise we make wakes her up. She smiles at Jenna. I put my cold, cold face on hers and she pulls back. But as I talk to her in my "Moe Moe" voice, she smiles. I say, "where is Mommy?" And she looks at Jenna and smiles....or, if I say it often enough, Ben sighs and says, "she's right there, Moe Moe, can't you see her?"

I love walking Ben home from school. I have my 3 dimes every day and we collect leafs for Mommy. It is a special time and he is a beautiful boy. I hope I get to walk Sammy home too.

Family

I was on Tony and Marie's wedding site not to long ago and I was looking at the picture of her family so I decided to post our family. We're a pretty good looking group, I must say!!