glenrockschwartz

Dear Alex, Happy 9th birthday!  I am more than a bunch of days late, but that is because I've been thinking about what I want to share with you about the last year of your life.  It's not easy to boil everything down to one blog post.  And honestly, because your personality has been so strong and clear from an early age, I know I might come across as repetitive - and I don't want it to seem like you haven't grown over the past year, because indeed, you have! So as you might expect, you continue to be an emotionally smart, kind and funny kid who is a voracious collector of stories in both the film, written and spoken version.  That will never change.  I could just copy this paragraph and paste it for every year that you continue to grow. As for the differences, from seven to eight years old, you had a year of positive growth, an easy happy year. This past year has been a bit different.  It will for sure all be positive in the long run, but while you an...

Dear Alex, I just got off the phone with Mrs. Dextraze.  When I see the school number show up on my caller ID, I cringe wondering what part of your body you injured, what the nurse has to say about you. But instead it was your teacher.  She called to talk to me about some class parent stuff - Wendy and I just finished executing the Third Grade International Luncheon.  This is an event that you kids particularly loved.  Basically, it was the culmination of a whole unit on genealogy.  You guys studied the countries from which your ancestors immigrated and then your parents brought in food cooked from those countries.  As usual, you stuck to what you knew and liked, but I was pleased that you did try some new things.  A spark of hope that one day you will be more adventurous! Midway through the conversation  Mrs. Dextraze changed the subject to talk about you.  My "uh oh" alarms went off again, not because you are an evil person, but ...

Hiked all the way to the top of the mountain and got pushed off before I could enjoy the view.  # politics   # businessasusual

Today we went to the beach for a little bit and stopped for some Ben & Jerry's. I didn't have any lactaid pills, but Alex had ice cream anyway. He said "When I refluxed it was so awesome because it felt so cold coming up."

Dear Alex, You are not quite nine years old. I was updating and cleaning through your itouch and found this email that you sent. It makes my heart smile. Love, Mom

Will You Marry Me So much to prepare Proposal The ring The time The place Finally, will you marry me

I started to think about what Pearl's life lessons for me would be had she taken the time to write them down. And if I think back over the almost forty years I got to spend with her, there are really four or so: 1. Take care of your family before you take care of yourself. This may not seem like modern thinking, but if I really look to why she would do this it begins to come clear. If you do this, you will make everyone including yourself happy. If I think about each and every meal, I am not sure that she ever sat down with us, but rather served us. And who doesn't remember how each and every meal began, with your choice of a half grapefruit sprinkled with sugar (what I always chose) or a small glass of tomato juice (what Dawn always chose). 2. Stand up for what you believe in. Pearl was absolutely famous for this. She demanded amazing customer service, and I would sometimes feel sad for the people on the other end of the phone, letter, etc. because they had no idea what h...