Family and Friends

Yesterday morning I received a call from Scott, I thought it was our routine call but unfortunately it was to share that Great Grandpa Schuler "Smokey" passed away. Grandpa was very ill and during this time was well cared for by LaLa (Jan, e's LaLa, Scott's Mom) and family. Hospice called in the family Wednesday night to say their good byes.

I took off work and took e out of school today to attend the ceremonies. After discussing with Scott what we thought was best for e, we decided on me taking him later in the day to be with family. We made it for the last part of the visitation and the burial. For e to have been there all day would have been too much. But the joy of having him around for a short period of time, we thought would be a welcomed distraction.

LaLa did take him up to see Grandpa sleeping and to admire the beautiful flowers. It was nice to visit with everyone again. I've felt blessed that the separation between Scott and I didn't dissolve my relationship with e's family. I love my visits with e out to LaLa and Pop's house and they'll feel differently not being able to go downstairs and give love to Grandpa.

Scott and I talked about what to tell a two year old at a time of loss. We thought to keep it simple would be best. Saying nothing further than he was sleeping and that it would be a family day. When it was time to close the casket I made sure to take him out of the room so that he didn't get confused. When it was time to walk to the burial I didn't want him to make the connection of that being Grandpa. One day we can share with him that he was there to say good bye.

I wanted to be sensitive to Scott having time with his boy and family. I took spurts backing off of visiting and immediate family time. I felt welcome but made the choice to be courteous to all who were there. At times I would take e away from the service to get the wiggles out. We would stand from afar admiring family and friends. e would smile as I would say "is that your family e"? He would grin saying yes and then separately call out individuals to tell me "that is my friend, Mommy", "that is my family, Mommy".

I've noticed every time I travel with e how wonderfully comfortable he is around family, those he has seen once or twice or might have never met. He smiles with such pride just as you should looking at a room of first, second, third, fourth generations. I was filled with humble pride when I heard e's name called last in a line up of those who Vernon W. "Smokey" Schuler is survived by. No matter what happened between e's father and I, we created an amazing little boy who continues a blood line...pretty special. We are blessed.

My prayers are with our family and friends.

Love you Great Grandpa Schuler.

Remember Me? Who?

In looking over my entries it looks like March takes the cake! I knew I would be over the top and then fall off writing this blog. Now I scurry to get in an entry and then when I'm ready my neighbor goes off and moves taking the lovely connection with him. Luckily the new neighbors come with the same perks! So remember me?

This Memorial Day weekend Scott and I switched up our days with e. To start the long weekend off right I decided after reading Jenn Whitmer's blog (guest speaker, Ginger to be exact) that I would take e to see "Horton Hears A Who?". To make the weekend even more wonderful both e and I got the day off. His school closed Friday for planning and Birk (my boss) gave us the day off. It was a lovely, eventful, long weekend.

Jenn's children are much older than e but after picking some other Mommy brains I thought it would be fun to try the theater with e. As suggested I really talked up our date. I shared there would be a large (T.V. like) screen, it would be dark and we would watch a story about a large cartoon elephant. e was very excited and my expectations of the evening were off the charts. A date with my son!

The day was full of fun so full that at dinner he slept in my arms just as he did when he was a baby. I ate quietly over his head placing the napkins just so, so if anything missed my mouth it wouldn't land on his head. e has always been my little Roo so keeping him pouched has and remains a comfort place for him.

After dinner (he eventually woke and ate) we walked to the theater (the theater and restaurant in a mall). On our way guess what we passed...just an amazing playground, to a child...a theme park! With a helicopter, SUV, train and slides! Getting him passed the excitement and on to the next best thing wasn't the hard part, it was HAVING to go back. Not being seasoned in the "bring your 2.5 little boy on a date to the theater", my timing was a bit off. We got to the show early, explored the theater and then sat through previews. All of this equated to time away from the mall fairgrounds. 40 minutes into our theater experience he was over it and HAD to get to the helicopter.

Did I mention that as we walked into the theater hand in hand I got a bit choked up. It was such a "first time" moment. So needless to say my bubble burst when we left. I then received a reality check that 40min for his first time was great. I also needed to be sensitive to his level of understanding to the facts that a movie theater is not a place you come and go, run around in and speak.

We ended up leaving and my guilt from his sadness not being able to go back to see the large elephant took us straight to the bookstore. We found the book in a flash! Also in a flash was his overstimulated attitude. The evening eventually made its way to a close and after all the discipline I was spent.

I'll try again but perhaps when he's a little bit older and I have a bag full of goodies. It still was a great night with my boy, one filled with lots of learning and new firsts!

Love you e.

KLEA Masthead

This is my first attempt at KLEA's masthead...I needed a break today and found drawing to be a nice escape. Sometimes a child-like drawing...the whimsy in it...just fits.

I'll wait to hear from Karl and Louise to see if it has received "Scott" approval.

Getting KLEA Started

I'm sitting here on Louise's couch with Kara. Today is Kara's Birthday and we celebrated with burgers and fries...ooops, I mean minus the fries, Louise forgot to make them. Anyway...I am proud to announce a new blogger in the world of Mommy blogs, "On A KLEA Day".

The genius ideas of Mommy KLEA are soon to come. She will build it, it will come.

P.S. I am well aware I am overdue the neighbor next door decided to move out WITH my connection.

Painting Clouds Part II

Here are some additional pictures:

• The partial cloud
• What the cloud hopes to be
• Completed cuckoo clock

Hopefully the next time I blog about our rooms they will be completed!

Painting Clouds

I've started painting a massive cloud on e's new room wall. Funny, just as I got started I stopped because I didn't have the muscles to move my bed and complete the shape. Also funny that I call a cloud a mural. Anyway...

The switch has started and I'm enjoying putting together what will be our new rooms. I've included e in the process, encouraging him to help move his toys in after I get the large furniture in place. e has demonstrated some frustration to change, it's just his age. When LaLa and Pop brought over our super sized new television and I rearranged the living room to accommodate it, e was not happy. He immediately wanted the couch moved back and the little T.V. in place. All of the transition was done without him so it came as a shock. He quickly moved past the hurt and all is well but I want to be courteous of his sensitivity so I'm including him all the way down to moving a box or two...ya know the fun stuff.

This sketch is what I did simplifying a previous computer mural thought. The computer rendering was much more elaborate but after seeing something similar in a great kids magazine called Wonder Times I've simplified my "mural" to just one enornmous cloud. But because of its size it will make a wonderful statement. I also managed to finish the cuckoo clock that will go above his bed. It turned out great unless you look too close. All the imperfections of the wood really came out underneath the bright orange spray paint but can I call that character?

I'll post pictures of the half painted cloud, looks pretty silly at the moment. I hope to complete everything this week/weekend. It will be nice to see e playing in a room that has room to play in. e and his toys keep getting bigger so it's time to grow into a space instead of out of it.

Mother's Day came early

When booking our trip out West I didn't pay attention that Mother's Day would fall on that weekend away. e and I traveled to San Diego, the La Jolla area to see Aunt Pat. Tia Pina (Aunt Pineapple) Laura Cardenas came over from Phoenix to visit as well. Pat and Pina hadn't seen e since he was 15mnths, he'd changed just a bit.

In discussing the trip with Pat we thought it would be fun to head to the LA area and spend some time with Celia, Mike and Chloe. Celia being the youngest of Aunt Claudette's girls, my cousin, e's second cousin. I love how big our family is (on both sides), that I can share that e visited with his third cousin, Chloe...that's pretty special.

We took the train up the coast and to our surprise the trip which is normally two and a half hours ended up being 8 HOURS! A ruptured gas line kept any train from getting to its final destination. We traveled in business class and had loaded up a back-pack full of food, healthy choices for us all to munch on. Because we were traveling with e and didn't have a car seat or stroller any option to take an alternate route home was out the window. We decided to stay put and take advantage of the roof over our heads, bathrooms, cushy seats and yummy food...oh yeah, and great company. e was an amazing little boy! I was such a proud Mommy!

e is quite the little traveler. He's traveled by plane 6 times and now train, one. He's always made me proud traveling. I grin ear to ear when I receive compliments from strangers on how I have such a good little boy. With this trip out West it was no different. e received many compliments on his behavior and I on my attentiveness to him. I made sure I called Scott to tell him how proud he should be of our little boy.

Highlights of this trip:

• Visiting with Tia Pina and seeing her new Artesania designs (and purchasing a few)
• Having some great one on one time with Aunt Pat
• Celia, Mike and Chloe getting to meet e
• Meeting Aunt Pat's new "companion", Bob
  
• Spending Mother's Day with two incredible Mothers
• Delicious food at a quaint French restaurant for Mother's Day
• Getting to see how Celia, Mike and Chloe spend holidays as a family
• Staying up late and sharing stories about our lives, family and ART
• Watching Mike work on a stinky project for the Countess
• Seeing some old high school friends that I hadn't seen since at least 1993
• Watching e light up as his feet sunk in the sand
• Spending full days on the beach exploring, resting and just being
• Yummy seafood
• Shopping at cute little boutiques
• e chasing Albert the cat
• e being a little chatter box and witnessing his vocabulary growing and growing right before my eyes
• e's thank you's, your welcomes, please and excuse me's just at the right times
• Butt showers (you'll have to ask me personally about this one)
• Teddy the dog
• Home videos
• Pete's coffee
• Sleeping on the beach
• Hermit crabs
• Rollie Pollie's
• Chloe's patience with e

I'm sure I've left some details of this great trip out but I think you get the picture. We are so blessed to have wonderful family. A family that is filled with such talent and such love. We are so lucky to have friends and family in fun places to visit. We hope you guys get the chance to come visit us! You're welcome any time.

Much Love to all!

Wild Wild West

E and I just returned from a wonderful trip to see our family out West.

Here is a link to his Flickr site to view the San Diego 2008 slide show:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elliott_adler/sets/72157605056699422/

I'm way overdue for a post. I'll post all about our trip when things settle down.

We are so blessed to have such an amazing family.

Handsome Boys

Yesterday was my dear friend Nikki (Harvey) Golding's Birthday. e and I called her early in the morning to sing Happy Birthday. When I feel guilty I didn't get a gift off in the mail I put my boy on the phone to sing Happy Birthday and it seems to make it all better. The giggles from his sweet voice is a pretty sweet gift.

Nikki and Chris recently had their second child, a little boy Devon Harvey Golding. When they sent out pictures of his birth I was amazed. Devon and e could easily be brothers. Heidi, Nikki and myself growing up together we're joined by the hip and people would comment on our similar features. I saw it a little I guess but looking at this photograph of Nikki's boy and my boy, it's apparent that the kids have very distinct facial similarities.

Nikki and I managed to get together last year for a long vacation with our families and photographed the kids instead of ourselves so I don't have a shot of the two of us together. I could dig in the old high school shots but...well...maybe one day. Until then I've posted these fun pictures.




e=e, d=devon

Talking with Nic on her Birthday I mentioned their features for the first time. Even though I've known her since we were 14, yes that would be 20 years!!! I didn't want to launch into how her boy looks like mine or mine like hers |smile|. Apparently her husband, Chris mentioned it and asked if I had said anything. It was fun sharing these photos with them yesterday.

e this is your atomic brother (will this do?) We'll have to go meet him in person very soon. You had a ball with Savannah his big sister who is only a day older than you. We'll go back to Florida very soon and see them again.

Much love to you guys! I'm glad to hear things are going well, yes, even despite the paci, silky, animal and Easter basket. XO