So I loath the month of March. Lets face it for the past two years March has not been a good month for my family. Robbie passed just eight days after his birthday (March 24th), and a year later I had a stroke from all the stress I heaped upon myself. I painstakingly pushed to make sure that every single moment of every day was perfect for my kids and well it broke my brain. For realls yall.
This year when March rolled around the decision was made to make sure that when we celebrated what would of been Robbie's 7th birthday; it would be as laid back and relaxing as possible. We also decided to celebrate with only our small family.
First we went for a bike ride on the Cape Fear River Trail. We rode two miles in and back making the trip a total of four miles. It seemed like such a good idea until Laney was suddenly trapped on a wild run away bike prompting Chris to ditch his bike run down a hill and save his bewildered little girl. I being the amazingly wonderful mommy that I am, was not around. I didn't want to hang around with the slower part of the family and took the two faster kids farther down the trail. Chris banged up his leg and Laney decided she did not want to ride anymore. Long story short we enjoyed the ride (mostly) and Chris still has a decent sized strawberry mark on his ankle. Laney never wants to go on a bike ride with me, EVER, AGAIN!
We then picked up some chicken wings, went home and had an IronMan marathon. Robbie was a big IronMan fan and we thought that would be a great idea. So we all piled up in the living room with our wings and chowed down. Lets all cross our fingers and hope Laney does not repeat some of the wonderful sexually charged one liners from those movies.
A few days later we sent off some paper sky lanterns that we wrote messages on to Robbie. We had several wild fires in the area a few days before and Chris just knew we were about to start the next one. I will admit I was worried too but the kids were really looking forward to flying their lanterns. Those jokers were a little iffy at first but once they started to float it was smooth sailing.
CJ's girlfriend also surprised us with a birthday cake for Robbie. Applegate is a pretty decent cook and she made a delicious two tiered cake decorated with Hot Wheels and licorice swords that looked like the foam sword Robbie had for his last birthday party. It took a whole week for the kids to eat that cake and they loved every minute of it.
We had a decent time remembering our silly little boy and made some family memories while doing it. Not to bad. So far March didn't have me down........till St. Patrick's day.
I forgot to make sure the girls wore green to school that day. While I was getting dressed to go to the girls' school I made sure I had a green shirt but Freakin' Mother of the Year here couldn't do the same for her kids. Luckily I found three strands of green Madi Gras beads in the car and promptly put them on the girls as soon as I saw them at school. Of course by the time I showed up it was already too late. Andrea has a stern 'if you pinch me I will kill you' look and Laney.........well Laney had been pinched. She voiced her feelings about being forced to suffer such an indignity and snatched those green beads out of my hand and thrust them upon her neck. Poor kid.
Just when you think we have had enough another shoe dropped. The kid's medical insurance had expired and I didn't know it. After all the things we went through to get the medical coverage, it just expired. Poof! So I call the DSS Lady and had to submit a 'special' renewal form packet that I had to wait for her to mail to me. Once I got the 'special' form I about had a
conniption. It was the same form that I could of down loaded online and mailed in; No, I had to wait for the 'special' one from DSS Lady. Because I had to wait the kids went without coverage for a week. The whole time I had a nice little monkey on my back making me worry about what we would do if there was some kind of medical emergency. Once I got the new insurance cards I grabbed that little monkey and sold it to the local freak show. You know the one with Melvin the Amazing Midget and Liz the World's Greatest Lumberjack. No? Yall need to get our more.
So just when I thought I could come out of my fortress of solitude and try to act like a 'normal' mommy the universal joke I call my life let me know it wasn't done with me yet. Andrea had come in second place in her school's civic oration contest and had advanced to the district competition. She had about two weeks to improve her speech, memorize it and practice her hand gestures. Her teacher also sent her to about every class in the school and had her recite her speech and receive critiques from other teachers. (Got to admit if it was me I would have shot someone after doing that speech for the one hundredth time) So when the district contest came my parents, my nephew and mother-in-law came to see it. All of them arrived early so I could pile them up into the minivan drive into the bowels of Fayetteville and deposit them into the county schools' resource center in the middle of nowhere.
My poor dad had the honor of being in the passenger seat and had a front row ticket to the horror show I call driving. What can I say? I am a self taught driver. Andrea did a great job on her speech and she placed fourth. That just means next year when this speech rolls around again she is going to be kicking butt!! After the contest I piled all the family back into the van (like sardines) and drove by the hospital for a short cut to the Hope Mills Arby's for lunch. While chit chatting with dad and making a joke about the rolling stop I just made I saw flashing blue lights in my rear view mirror.
Yup, the man finally found me and I knew it was just a matter of time before it happened. What was funny was no one else in the van noticed the lights and when I started to slow down to pull over I could her mom from the back of the van asking why I was slowing down. "Because I am being pulled over" and just then I could see in my rear view every one in the back of the van whip their heads back to look at the pretty blue lights. I wonder what that cop was thinking of when he saw them looking back at him. Mr. Officer approached my car and asked why I was driving 48 mph in a 35 zone. Well I did what any self respecting adult would do; I blamed my family.
"Umm, today is my daughter's speech contest and all her grandparents came to see and well I just wasn't paying attention." He looked in the van and saw us packed in like a bunch of illegals and walked back to his patrol car with my driver's license. I could hear mom's voice quietly coming from the back of the van, "Did she blame us?". YES, YES I DID! It worked too because all he did was give me a warning of course instead of me showing my gratitude I blurted out this wonderful gem. "You just had to pull me over in front of my dad!" Yup, manners I has them.
Later in Arby's I texted Chris about my brush with the law and told him they only pulled me over because I am black and Dad is brown. He replied that what I did was UNACCEPTABLE. Yup, March your insistent need to torture us is just unacceptable.
Not only do I have great manners I also now how to dodge responsibility with a beauty called the Blame Game. It is a survival skill really.
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