Tag: Baltimore

Heroes and Bad Guys

On By Doser3In Dreaming of Mommyhood - GeneralLeave a comment

At what age do you have this conversation?   No, I’m not talking about the birds and the bees, but the ones where you talk about bad guys.   How do you explain it to a precocious four year old so that he understands, that he empathizes, but that he’s not terrified of every person who is lurking around the corner?  How much is too much to tell?

Davey has always understood the level of respect that goes with a uniform.   When he was two, he saluted and shook the hands of two Army privates as we all waited to board a flight in Baltimore.   He thanked them for their service and was excited to have met two heroes.   My cousin and her husband are both retired Navy Corpsmen.   When Davey met them he was just as excited to know that he has family who are heroes, like Captain America.   He sees heroes on t.v. and we read about them in books, but in those stories, the heroes don’t die.   They may get hurt, but they always come home.  How do you rationalize the difference between the make believe heroes and the real ones who are literally sacrificing their lives to protect ours?   It’s hard, but you find a way.

God's power
It rained hard most of the afternoon and we worried if the rain would hold off so we would light our luminaries. God shined down upon us.

Friday afternoon, we lost one of our finest in Greenville, SC.   A police officer was looking to ask questions of a 17 year old self admitted gang member.   When he and his partner found the gang member, he ran from them.   Both officers took off on foot to pursue the young man.   Without speculation as to what happened or how it happened, Officer Allen Jacobs lost his life when he was shot multiple times by the juvenile.   He was gunned down without ever unholstering his gun.

Luminaries 1
Setting up the luminaries.

We didn’t discuss Friday’s events with Davey.  He caught the occasional tidbit of news here and there, but for the most part stayed oblivious until today.   Today, our neighborhood decided to find a way to join together in solidarity, love, and support.  What we came to learn is that the parents of the officer who lost his life, live in our neighborhood.   While we don’t know them personally, this put more of a reality and close to home factor in it for us.   When you know the family of someone who is senselessly killed, it hurts more, you don’t just sympathize, but you feel as if you can almost have a sense of empathy with the family.  So, tonight at sunset, the neighborhood place luminaries along sidewalks, driveways and walkways.

Luminaries 3
Setting up the luminaries.

We decided that with the impending luminaries of love, we should perhaps discuss what happened with Davey.   We told him about a police officer who died, how his mom and dad are our neighbors, and how he was a hero.   Davey’s questions mostly loomed around these…”Did a bad guy get him?”  Yes, a bad guy got him.  “Does my daddy need to go get the bad guy?”  No, the bad guy killed himself.  “You mean he took the gun and pointed it at himself?”  And Davey said this with a little bit of concern, his lower lip trembling slightly.   At this point, I wondered if perhaps I had gone too far, but decided to plow through.  Yes, Davey, he pointed the gun at himself.  “At least the bad guy is gone now,” was the response he had.

Luminaries 2
Setting up the luminaries.

Later, at the start of sunset, we made a family affair of lining our walkway with paper bags, full of rocks, and votive candles.   Both boys helped, but whenever a police officer would drive by, they both stopped and stood in the front yard to wave.

Luminaries 4
Setting up the luminaries.

It’s a horribly senseless tragedy.   My heart breaks every day.  I’ve found myself shedding tears daily as I’ve tried to put myself into the shoes of his widow, who is pregnant with their third child.   I feel inundated with waves of nausea as I “see” her lying down at night, after she’s tucked her two boys into bed, kissing their foreheads and reminding them of how much they were their daddy’s world.   I feel my heart breaking when she lies in the dark  caressing her daughter, still in the womb, as she tries to find ways to stay strong and tell her unborn daughter of how wonderful of a man her daddy was.   Tears stream down my face when I “see” her waking the next morning, from a fitful night of sleep, as she prays that she was just in the midst of a terrible dream and that the love of her life, her best friend, and soul mate, is really just coming home from work.   He did indeed come home, just not to his temporary one here.   Officer Jacobs went home to his Father, and while we all know he is in a better place and this was God’s will, we still hurt for those who lost him and for those of us who didn’t know him other than as a police officer and army veteran.

Luminaries 5
Setting up the luminaries.

Heroes don’t always win and heroes don’t always live, but God’s will be done.

 

Rest in peace, Officer Jacobs.   Your brothers and sister will

Officer Jacobs
Officer Allen Jacobs EOW 3/18/16

take over from here.

A Travelling We Go

On By Doser3In Dreaming of Mommyhood - GeneralLeave a comment

Travelling with children is loathsome for me, be it plane, train, or automobile.   I spend a solid month preparing myself for it, mentally and physically.   I go through a checklist with things I may need for every possible scenario and for each child.   The boys have their own back packs now, so I do my best to load them down (without tipping them over) with every book, movie, colored pencil, and stuffed animal they may need.   Still, I’m not as fully prepared as I’d like to be.

When we go to Rochester to visit family, we fly, ALWAYS fly.   Being cooped up in a car with my two boys for 12 hours or more is not my cup of tea.   With flying, it’s usually five hours total, with a two hour layover built in so the boys can at least walk around, in their cases run, and expend some energy.   Of course, at times there are delays at the airports, thereby extending my time of misery as I find myself sprinting to catch up with Henry as he’s climbed onto the moving sidewalk and is strategically trying to look into other passengers’ bags.   Fortunately, most people just smile at the boys, while giving me an “I’ve been there before” pity look.

flying

This past Thanksgiving’s travel started out cumbersome and was a bit foreboding.   We arrived at the airport early, about an hour and a half before our flight was to leave, only to find out that it was delayed an additional two hours.   Unfortunately, we didn’t find out about this delay until AFTER we’ve already gone through security, meaning we were stuck in the terminal with two overly excited and rowdy boys.   I was at my wit’s end and needed a drink.   Actually, I was tempted to have my flight, and ONLY my flight, moved so that my husband could experience the joy of flying solo with the boys.  I’ve been there and done that.

Henry didn’t sleep during that flight.   He cried a lot, wanted to roam around the plane, kicked the seats in front of us.   Davey watched his movie on my iPad before finally laying his head on my lap and falling asleep.   Thank goodness!

pre flight

So, Saturday morning, as we were busy packing, I went back through my mental checklist, bringing back everything bothersome that had occurred on the flight up, and a solution for those problems.

Unlike the flight up, I was not given a pre TSA boarding pass for having an infant in my lap.   Side note…Rochester, NY is HORRIBLE with their security.   HORRIBLE!!!!!!   So, I had to practically undress myself, including my vest, which the TSA agent called a coat and I nearly lost my cool as I wanted to yell, “it’s not a coat”, and encourage Henry to walk through the metal detectors and wait on me.   After we made it through and were fully clothed and loaded back down with our carry ons, I needed  a coffee, and here’s where the adventures began.

hello Baltimore

While getting my coffee, the boys sat at a table howling like dogs, their howls reverberating and bouncing off the walls in the terminal.   Both sat with their heads towards the ceiling literally howling.   I pretended not to know them for as long as humanly possible.   Once we were in the lobby area waiting for our plane, I gave the boys my iPad so they could watch “Land Before Time”  (I love that they love what my husband and I watched as kids), along with their own personal headphones we’d just bought.   It went off swimmingly for about 15 minutes, before Henry wanted to shove Davey and take the iPad from him.   Of course, once Davey fought back for his fair share, Henry took off the headphones and went for his normal sprint through the airport.

Once we were on the flight, Davey watched another movie, Henry and my husband napped, and I was actually able to read a book!   Can you believe it?  I certainly can’t.   The last time I was able to read a book on a plane, that wasn’t about dinosaurs and knights, was on our last cruise in 2010.   It was nice, so nice.

on the plane

When we landed in Baltimore for our standard two hour layover, we found a restaurant carrying the Clemson/Carolina game.   Naturally, we had to stop there, but the downside was that all the tables were high top, and there were no booster seats or high chairs for Henry.   We weren’t going to be enjoying our lunch and game in peace.   Nope.   It’s quite exhausting trying to eat with one hand while using the other to keep a busy toddler in place.

trying to catch the game

During our layover; however, Davey did what he does best…he made new friends.   This time they were fellow Clemson Tiger fans, decked out in their orange, much like my entire family was.   Davey did his C-L-E-M cadence cheer, and the sweet lady gave him her Tiger Rag!

Davey and tiger rag

We killed a bit of time before boarding the final leg of our journey by walking the boys back and forth on the moving sidewalk.   Finally, when boarding the plane, the flight attendant did something that I despised her for the entire flight.   She asked Davey if he’d like to sit in the cockpit and get his picture made when we landed.   Why oh why, would you ask a child, MY CHILD, this and expect him to not want to do it?   So, for the hour and 15 minutes we were in the air, Davey whined off and on about wanting to go into the cockpit right now.   Couldn’t she have asked this as we were exiting?

Davey in cockpit 2

We were the last ones off the plane, which is usually the case, and as we were exiting, the same flight attendant said to have a great weekend, while looking at us and not registering who we were.    Seriously?   I’m the tallest female on the plane, you looked at me when you asked Davey about the cockpit, and now you act as if you don’t recognize me?   Naturally, I reminded her and she happily got the pilot and Davey was allowed the chance to see in the pilot’s seat.   The pilot let him grab the yoke and even told him what buttons to push, as I cringed the entire 3-4 minutes.   Please don’t tell my 4 year old he can push the buttons on a multi-million dollar plane.

Davey in cockpit

So, for now this adventure and the travels that go along with it are over, and not a minute too soon for me!

The Trip That Almost Wasn’t

On By Doser3In Dreaming of Mommyhood - GeneralLeave a comment

Traveling is a lot more tedious and even strategic now that my husband and I are parents. Long gone are the days of worrying about just the two of us. So what if we only have 30 minutes to make our connecting flight! We can just make a run for it…those were the words we use to share with each other. Not so much these days.

We’re very fortunate to have a son that seems to be flexible and willing to travel. He’s a frequent flyer already, having logged his 18th plane ride this weekend. He was flying, and rather superbly I must say, at 2&1/2 months. That doesn’t mean traveling is as seamless as it once was, when it was only my husband and me.

Gone are the days of listening to my iPod, reading a book, or even picking up a celebrity magazine to pass the time while waiting to board a flight. If we have a delayed flight that could cause us to miss our connecting flight, then we have to seriously reconsider our travel, much like we did this past weekend when we were told that we wouldn’t make our flight in Baltimore. In the olden days of just husband and wife travel, we would have just dealt with adding an additional flight through Chicago into our travel, even if that meant arriving at our final destination after midnight. Not the case anymore.

So, we decided to delay our travel by a day, reroute out of our local airport, and take the over $150 in travel vouchers. Of course that meant keeping our little rebel, aka Davey, cooped up in a car for another 2 hours as we drove back home. You can only imagine the amount of energy he had once we finally walked back into our house. It was like holding a wind up toy, winding it to its max, and letting it go.

The next morning we rose before the crack of dawn, 4:30 to be exact, to try our travel again. Take 2! And what we thought would be seamless wasn’t so much the case. Nothing is more excruciating for the parens of a toddler, than watching the seconds click by on the clock as you continue to sit on the Tarmac. Seconds become minutes and minutes quickly add up to a cranky toddler who can’t understand why the plane is not his own personal playground.

And what’s worse is that after the minutes pass by and you’re pushed out from the gate, you hear the pilot state that the necessary little generator needed to actually start the engines is tanked. Yes, that would be correct. We were then pulled back into the gate to fix our issue. My husband and I looked at our watch and realized that we may actually miss our connecting flight this time. What are the odds?

We developed our plan of blocking, quick exiting, and picking up anything we checked at the gate. And when we landed, I was quickly thankful for the fact that I am a runner, that I am strong, and that I’ve managed to stay in shape during this pregnancy because while lugging the extra weight from the baby in my belly, and a 35 pound toddler, I managed to still navigate the airport, stay ahead of my husband, and make it to our connecting flight. Whew!

Needless to say, I think I’m already developing an ulcer as I worry about how we’ll manage this once the second baby arrives.