Mom’s Visit | Days 0-1

Day 0:
Hello, friends. I had mentioned in a previous post that my mom was coming to visit me, and meet her grandson, for the first time ever. She was due to arrive in Illinois around 4:00 pm yesterday, and should have arrived to her hotel around 7:00 pm. We decided that she would not come for a late night visit, as Liam would already be in bed, and she would probably be tired anyway. The morning of her departure, I remembered that I hadn’t given her Kyle’s new number (my phone has been out of minutes for ages), and messaged her around 6:00 in the morning, well before she left for the airport. Unfortunately, my mom did not check her computer before she left, and did not know that she could check Facebook or her email on her new iPhone, and this created a few problems.

We waited around for a call or a text, and started getting worried once 8:30 pm rolled around, and we hadn’t heard anything. She hadn’t seen my FB messages, and I was worried she hadn’t seen my emails either. At 9:00 pm, I remembered that I could check her flight online, and discovered that she had been delayed in Detroit for 3 hours, and hadn’t even landed in Illinois until 8:07, much later than scheduled. She wouldn’t even be getting to her hotel until after 10:00. We waited some more, but never got a call. I assumed she just went to sleep. We watched several episodes of The Adventures of Merlin, which we just started watching Netflix, and then went to bed.

Day 1:
We woke up this morning and realized that we still hadn’t heard from my mom. Kyle decided to re-read the email that she had sent me last month, and discovered that she had actually given me her phone number, which I didn’t think I had. Kyle texted her, and we figured out our situation, and then we showered and got ready for her visit.

Her hotel is only a few minutes from us, so her drive was short, and then she was here. Kyle and I were nervous. Kyle had never met, or talked to, my mom, and didn’t know much about her. I hadn’t seen her in over 4 years, and our last meeting wasn’t the greatest. It went surprisingly well.

We greeted her, we exchanged hugs, and Liam cried immediately when she sat near him, which we expected. I gave her the birthday drawing that Liam had made her, as well as the card and bracelet that I had gotten her, and we took some pictures together. We decided to play with his Mega Bloks on the floor, and within minutes, he was building towers with his grandma. He warmed up to her quicker than most. We had some coffee, played some more, and decided that we should do something, so we went on a looong drive to the Fox Valley Mall, about an hour and 20 minutes away. Liam sat in the back with my mom, which made me nervous, because I thought he would get upset, but he was surprisingly comfortable, and even played with her for a while, before falling asleep. We stopped to eat lunch at Golden Corral, since my mom had never been, then continued to the mall.

We love walking around malls, especially when they are enormous. And this mall is enormous. Three stories, and massive. We forgot Liam’s stroller, since we were taking my mom’s rental, and it took us forever to find the rentable strollers. Once we did find them, it was smooth sailing, and Liam was much more behaved. We went into several stores, like Lane Bryant, Torrid, a gaming store, and a few others, and my mom tried to coerce us into letting her buy us everything we passed. We politely declined several times, and she finally stopped, but I know it will come up several times over the next few days.

After three hours walking around the mall, we left for home. The ride was uneventful, and we talked about Kyle’s job, my mom and her boyfriend’s plans to build a new house, and the future and potential moves for us. It was pleasant. We got back to our area, and stopped to get some dinner at Steak ‘n Shake, another first for my mom. Afterwards, we went to Target for a few things, and I got to see my good friends Aubrey and Lindsey, who were both working that night. I introduced them to my mom, and they got to see Liam, who was happy to see them as well, and proceeded to be an absolute little flirty ham. It was SO cute. Then we said our goodbyes, as it was almost bedtime for the kiddo, and came home.

My mom said some goodbyes, and we told her how to get to her email and Facebook on her iPhone, so that she could keep in touch better, and upload the pictures that she took today. My mom has been in the state for a day and a half, and I thought it would be terrible… but it has been surprisingly nice. Her questions and energy can be exhausting, especially when they are deeply personal, and we have been estranged for a while… but it was okay. She will be here until next Saturday, and I won’t always have Kyle with me for morale support, but I am hoping that it continues to go well.

Thanks for reading, friends!

Jan

Advertisement

Dream Journal 5/13/16 | Bad Neighbors

It was nighttime. Kyle and I were outside, on the deck of a large duplex, presumably ours, sitting in wooden Adirondack chairs, talking. A young girl, probably 7 or 8 years old, walked up to the stairs to the deck and started kicking and shaking the wooden rails violently. Kyle stood up and yelled at her to stop, and she ran into the duplex next door. Several minutes passed, and we decided to go back inside. We shut off the lights and climbed into bed, but were immediately disturbed by loud pounding on our door.

By the time we got to the door, the door had been broken open, and a large group of people were pushing into the living room. The woman in front was our neighbor (yes, our real neighbor that I always complain about), and she demanded to know what we did to her daughter, who was at home crying. We told her that she was vandalizing our property, and we yelled for her to stop, and that was it. She claimed that her daughter came home covered in bruises, and I laughed and told her that bruises didn’t form in the span of 5 minutes. She got so angry that she turned red, and ordered the people behind her to tear apart our living room.

Kyle and I stepped in front of them, and I shoved another woman who tried to push by me. She grabbed my shoulders and tried to move me, and I punched her in the face, causing her to stumble backwards, screaming. The rest of the group, except for my neighbor, ran from our apartment, while she stood there fuming. I picked up a large vase from the end table nearby, and threw it at her head. She ducked, and ran out the door.

We woke up after falling asleep on the couch, and Liam was standing in the living room, pointing at one of the windows. I looked up and saw that all of our windows had been broken, and there was glass everywhere. I picked up Liam and Kyle got on the phone with the police. I went next door, still holding Liam, and kicked the door down. I had a large torch in my hand, and tossed it onto the large sectional in the middle of the room. I could hear my neighbor screaming from the back of the apartment, and I picked up another torch, and threw it into the kitchen, which went up in flames immediately.

I calmly walked out, and Kyle was waiting for me by the car, carrying Liam’s favorite Froggy stuffed animal, as well as my diaper bag. We left the property, and Kyle asked where I wanted to have breakfast. I told him Steak ‘n Shake, and we headed that way. I could see a massive mushroom cloud of smoke behind us where the apartment was, and I just laughed.

I ordered a taco salad at Steak ‘n Shake, and a milkshake, which was a terrifyingly bright, neon purple color, but seemed delicious.

Then I woke up.