My boy

So much has happened.  We went on a lovely vacation to the Grand Canyon, and I promise I will blog it, with pictures.  Caitlyn had a full seizure and meningitis which landed us in a hospital in Flagstaff for a while.  I don't want to dwell on the negatives...I want to celebrate.  After such a hard summer we need joy.  Luckily for us it comes in a convenient eight year old package.
Happy Birthday to my Conner Mac.....eight years ago at 1:45 am, he came into this world with loud cries and promptly peed on everyone within reach, and some who weren't.  He has a content and happy baby and was determined to never be left out.  I can sympathize.
I love you, Mac!

Do Not Go Gently....

Sorrow often burrows in a heart.  It lingers and while the eyes may remain dry, there is a well of tears that hover, just below a normal surface.
There reaches a point where the soul's fatigues weigh heavy on the body, where a spirit has carried heartache until the point that it, too, must rest from a weary load.
It is the point where the church should not ask what you can do for it, but what it can do for you.
When I find the sorrow and weariness resting too close to the surface, I seek God.  I do not seek Him in buildings of wood and concrete.  I seek Him in the wild places.
I find Him in those places where man is an intruder, where the workings of nature as clear,  where weather blows wild, the sun beats down and life finds a way to thrive.
I find Him in broad vistas, wind swept plains and the frail structure of a dew sprinkled spider's web.  I find comfort in the animals.  I find comfort in watching the simple joy of a sparrow in flight, a hawk on the wing, a deer who treads softly along needle strewn paths.
I retreat to the comfort that I found as a child.  I re-open to the bird song, and the happy panting of my dog.  I let my hands trail the soft smooth sides of a horse, I sit and watch ducks glide through the water.  I will lay on the earth, and let the sun warm those cold parts within me. Animals have always shown me the higher part of life, by not worrying over it.  They show me the joy of the present, no worries of tomorrow, no regrets of the past. 
While this retreat was planned well in advance, God knows my needs and it dove tails into what my soul yearns for, as only the Creator can do.
I will leave my sorrows in the wild places.  I will leave them for the birds to ponder, circle and ignore.  I will leave them in the winds and they will rush by strange places that haven't heard the voice of man. I will come home, refreshed in spirit, my eyes reopened and my heart full of joy.
I will be able to face the memories of my sorrows with gentle knowledge that, yes, this too, shall pass.  I will face them knowing that I have survived, I will face more, and I will survive again.
So, I don't go gently.  I go with an ocean of tears to give to a desert.  I go with emotions that roil across the landscape of my heart.
But in the return........ I will return with gentle fire, and I will be better to have felt it.

And how was your day?

A Gallant and Noble Friend

There seems to be much sadness here at the Rooney Ranch.....
Today we had to say Good-bye to Challenger, my father's Morgan horse.  Foaled on the exact day of the Challenger accident, he earned his name to remember those lost souls who looked to the stars and found Heaven.
He was an arrogant snot who was very friendly and would lick continually until your guard was down, then he would take a nip.  Nothing serious, just a reminder that his teeth were bigger.
Everywhere he went, it was a parade and he flew his tail high to let all admire him.  He was a clown, a bossy meanie, a softie and a trail leader.
My father nursed him through colic surgery and later on, Challenger nursed my father through a heart attack.  He was likable to all, but most fond of my father.  I would take him on rides where he would gait his way through a trail, yet always glad to be back to my father, his buddy.

I was with this fine horse when he slipped the bonds of earth.  He cast off a crippled body and galloped off to the greener pastures. 

So, to Challenger, may you find lush meadows, smooth trails and cool water.....and lots and lots of carrots.

Little Wranglers Junior Rodeo or How to Exhaust a Parent

There are a hundred and one ways to exhaust a parent.....and we found a new one.
Caitlyn and her intrepid partner, Sam, have discovered Little Wranglers Junior Rodeo, a group whose purpose is to introduce children to rodeo in a safe and supportive manner.  It does, all night long!
While I totally love it, and Caitlyn is having a wonderful time, we find ourselves not getting home until about midnight, and we leave after the fourth event!!!
She competes in barrel racing, flag race and pole bending.  For those who don't know rodeo, let me explain.  Barrel racing involves three barrels set up in a clover leaf pattern.  The rider races at top speed circles the barrels one at a time and races back.  The flag race involves a flag set on a barrel at the end of the arena.  The rider races to the barrel at top speed, grabs the flag and races back. At full speed.  In poles, the rider races at top speed through a pattern of six poles. Then they race back, at full speed.  Sense a theme here?  These are timed events and while my daughter is full gunning, God bless her horse, Sam.  Sam has a sensible head on him and understands his full job is "do what The Girl tells you to, but get The Girl home safely". I love this horse.
This is Caitlyn and Sam with their friend, Allie.  Notice Caitlyn's helmet.  She is one of three that wear them.  She wasn't happy, but it was part of our deal.

  

Twice now, we have been moved to an indoor area due to lightning.  Here is what happens while kids wait for their events.

Here, two girls show that, yes, they can mulit-task by cooling their horses AND talking:

 

For the kids Five and under, the calf scramble.  There is a ribbon tied to a calf and the kids are on that poor creature like zombies on the slow guy.

These horses are chosen for their ability to work well with kids, like this...ummm, full figured gal.

So, as the kids wait their go-rounds, the adults eat fantastic BBQ in the stands.  They wait to cheer on the cautious slow runs as much as the fast runs.  They saddle, bridle, lead and wipe tears.  They coach, they feed, they drive the trailers.  Some day, some of these youngsters may end up in Pro Rodeo.

Then, they can stay up to midnight on their own.

And how was your day?

Goodbye and Godspeed

Things are always busy in our world, but this season was especially so.  We experienced baseball and tournaments, our first rodeo and most importantly, a deep loss.
After enjoying his life and this beautiful world for 90 full years, my Grandfather slipped quietly to his place in heaven on June 6th.  It was a quiet passing in the night, where he was watched and held by earthly angels as well as those that came to shepard him home.
He was a WWII veteran, a member of the elite Navy Sea Bees.  He was a dedicated father, a loving grandfather and a hands on great grandfather.
He and my Grandmother came to the High Plains when we did.  My Grandmother had a terminal disease and Grandpa needed help.  My mother became a caretaker, again.  Grandpa arrived from Florida in fine white Bermuda shorts and lightweight shirts.  He quickly went native and wore blue jeans and a bola tie.
He was an active member of Kiwanis and delivered Meals on Wheels well into the point he should have been receiving them.
An active member of the church, he was part of the Men's Prayer Group and avid participant in church activities.

My Grandfather passes and leaves a hole in our lives.  It is a temporary hole, as one day, we will join him in heaven, whole, healthy and full of love.

Tag, You're It

Parenting is a tag team event.  To the single parents who manage this on their own, my hat is off to you.  On any given day, I tag team it with my dear husband.  Steve and I had the pleasure of playing "one-on-one" for just shy of two years.  Our daughter was watched, washed, followed, cossetted, read to and basically smothered. We never had the chance to try the one kid per adult route.  The twins exploded into our world with our surprise, Conner, swiftly following them.
Steve and I joke that we are really good about playing "zone". Any given day of the week, we exchange conversations saturated with planning.
Since Steve leaves the house at 4:30 am, our planning takes place over phones, via text and the occasional facebook post.  We sneak in the "I love you" and "how's your day going" as we can.
Steve: Morning, Hunny.  What's on your agenda today?
Me: laundry, laundry, after school program and home. How's your day?
Steve: good, work and then a remote. I love you  Is there soccer tomorrow?
Me: yes. Soccer at 5 and 5:30. Baseball is day after.
Steve: Need me to start up dinner while you're out?
Julie: I love you.

Now, there are times I might be out at practice with a pouty kid and I pull out the big guns.  I use my phone (God bless cell phones) and place the dreaded call to Daddy. At work.
Steve: Son, why did Mommy have to call?
Unnamed child:mumble mumble
Steve: Speak up, if your mother had to stop practice and call me AT WORK, it must have been something...

And then the contrite child will knuckle under and proceed to have a much better attitude with practice, or a game, or homework or chores.  I roust through the daily sludge, while Steve tends to be the "clean up" guy.  I will be dragging in from soccer, putting away shin guards and cleats, hauling water bottles and thoroughly grumpy, hot and sweaty.  Steve has dinner going and a plan to get the kids through homework, showers and bed time.
The times where Steve is out of town, those are the absolute worst.  I break so many of my own rules in the name of survival.  I admit, times have gotten easier.  I don't have diapers, I don't have feedings and sippy cups.  I can let them shower by themselves and they honestly do step up and help. 
Yet, on any given day, they will all unconsciously know, there is a weakening of the system.  They will know at some higher level when the schedule is off kilter, when the gears aren't quite in line...and that is when there is a melt down.
And when I utter those dreadful words:
Want me to call your father? At work?


And how was your day?

The Indomitable Spirit of Coyotes

First off, even though it is spelled "coyotes", the team is pronounced Kai-oats. They are very serious about this.  One is the pestilence of the High Plains, and one is the sports teams of Dora Schools.
Alas, I yet to have an athlete in the JV or varsity level.  I don't even have a student in the junior high.  What I do have, is the making of some awesome future Coyotes.
Around here, the city league of basketball, allows the smaller, rural schools to keep their budding athletes together on a "school" team.  There are Dora Coyotes in every age bracket of Little Dribbler basketball.  There are Floyd Broncos and Elida Tigers as well.
It just so happens that the 1st and 2nd grade boys of the Dora Coyotes legacy are going to be the future state champs in about 9 to 10 years.
This year the boys have played hard and won all but one of our city league games.  We did suffer a last minute defeat to the Elida Tigers (can you say school nemesis?) and that left a bitter taste in their little mouths.
This past weekend, they recovered their glory.  Shrouded in sweat and the ever present funk of little boy, they went forth and conquered the Melrose Little Buffs basketball tournament.
I have the bleacher butt to prove it.
Our own little champ, Conner (aka Big Mac) was up early that fine Saturday as we prepared for our day. Melrose is past Floyd and a solid 40 minutes from our house.  It is even farther for some of the other players who live south of Dora.  (I am quite serious and at this time I invite you to go HERE and check it out)  We knew going into this that it would be an all day event.  Like ant good tiny town in New Mexico, it features a road, homes, an amazing small school, a post office, fire department, cemetery and maybe a gas station.  No fast food, no movies, no nothing.  We knew we would need to pack snacks and drinks.  We are also now well enough versed to know that "Basketball Tournament" means fund raiser with admission charge and ......CONCESSION STAND!  Bazinga!
I packed left over pizza, juice boxes, soda, oranges, PB cracker packs, girl scout cookies (my current addiction, thanks, girls), cheese sticks and cupcakes.  I also packed yarn and crochet hooks (I am a veteran of the local ability to keep to a schedule), a gameboy, dsi, my Kindle and paper towels.  I am also a rabid bleacher creature.  My child might be only seven, but by all that's holy I am going to cheer like it was Kobe out there.  I packed two pompoms and a set of boom whackers.  Oh yeah.  I got game.
Naturally, there was freezing fog and seriously cold temperatures.  For all that think that New Mexico is basking in some desert of warmth, grow up.  At over 4000 feet, they don't refer to us as the High Plains for nothing.  We may be flat, but we have altitude.  Cold means in the 20s or under.  Added to that is the ever present wind, which I normally fully curse about, but not in this post.
To add to our complicated day, Caitlyn had her basketball game in Portales at one.  So we had to take two cars, knowing one of us would stay on Melrose and the other would cart Caitlyn and one other child to a whole new set of bleacher backache hell.
We arrived in Melrose in good time, having passed such exciting things as a llama, a herd of young horses and a partial hill.  I kid you not, we get excited for any type of landscape.  I have driven through Melrose on any number of occasions but have never been to the school.  Steve employed his trusty GPS which promptly took us into the heart of the residential area (four blocks) and declared us arrived. We then asked the really nice gentleman walking his dog.
Of course, by this time, Caitlyn had pointed out the school was the other way, by the water tower, because she watched a line of cars go directly there.
Smiling in what we hoped was a reassuring manner, to make sure dog walker didn't think we were some new breed of rural terrorist, depositing sugar hyped children along the by ways of America, we came to the school.
Another fine rural school tradition is, when you build something new, don't remove the old!  So, like most schools here, there is an old gym and a new gym.  They have great names, like Roger's Gym, and Luscombe Gym, but are always referred to as the New Gym and the Old Gym.  In Dora, the old gym has a history of being carried overland from another town on horse drawn sledges. On a bet.  I am pretty sure alcohol was involved in some way.
We pull up to the new gym at Melrose and find a new bracket and schedule.  We are now playing ten minutes later in the old gym.  At this point, it is now snowing with a cold bitter wind.  We hoof it across the way and find another game already in progress.  I saw my day spool out ahead of me.  Hurry up and wait because these games will NEVER run on schedule.
Finally the first game is done and my little guys hit the floor.  We climb to the very top of the bleachers.  We have learned that the best place to survive and extended bleacher sitting, is at the top, where you can rest your back against the wall.  The game starts and William immediately requests the use of the boom whackers.  Not familiar with boom whackers?  Imagine two inflatable handheld tubes that when hit together make a large and unsettling noise.  In true William fashion, he dropped them through the stands before the second quarter.
Caitlyn then had to descend into the underbelly of the gym bleacher to collect the boom whackers.  We then proceeded to cheer on our players to decisive first win.  I kind of laughed ten minutes later because someone else dropped a phone under the stands and sent a grandchild to fetch it.
With a first win, we were scheduled for a short break before playing again in the new gym. We re-wrapped ourselves, bent our heads against the wind and stumbled through the weather back to the new gym.  The kids announced their undying hunger, even though it had only been two hours since their last feed.
We sat in the concession area and I winced when someone announced too loudly that hot dogs would be served shortly, trucked in from the Clovis Wienerschnitzle. The kids immediately began asking me for hot dogs, and when was lunch, and can we eat here (as if we had anywhere else to go) and could we get a soda and some candy now?
Holy cow.  It was obvious to me that this was going to be a long day.  I laid down some semi firm laws that the kids took to heart, their little minds already at work on loop holes and passes that would shame and prize litigator.
The next game was against the Elida Tigers.  The boys were tense.  Elida had beaten them.  The only team in league play to make them sweat and work.  They were worried.  Amanda (another mom) and I leaned over the tunnel rail and cheered our boys to the court.  We then took our gear and settled in fine seats in the new gym.  It was posh, with fold down stadium seats and great views from every spot.
The game started and the boys were pushed.  The worked and passed.  The ball flew back and forth with multiple turnovers and shots.  The score was up, the score was down and then the final 15 to 11...DORA WINS!  The boys went crazy,  and the parents weren't any better!  We whooped it up in a completely undignified manner. 
We gathered our bags and jackets and went back out into the concession area.  Steve drew the short straw and took Cailtyn to her game and took William with him.  I was left with Big Mac and James.  The front concession area of the gym, like most, was unfortunately located near the doors.  Cold wind would waft in and chill us.  We scarfed our pizza and I succumbed to the guiltly nagging that had me buying some of the most coveted hot dogs.  This was by far our longest wait and suddenly I was sitting at a table with one kindle and about seven little boys.  My phone was now running angry birds and was surrounded by sweaty, sticky boy hands. 
Ten dollars worth of hot dogs, candy and gatorade we had yet another game.  This team fell to our amazing basketball prowess.  We had game and I was rapidly getting a sore throat from my cheering.    Younger siblings were getting cranky, James was bored and despite the proper seats, my hinney was really beginning to ache.
The final game was approaching,  We would be playing the Melrose team, itself.  They had been knocked to the loser's bracket and had won all the games, since.  The coyotes were over confident and somewhat tired by this point.  The game was supposed to be at 2:20 but was running closer to 2:45.  The game started with a noticeable change in attitude in the refs.  Fouls slipped by, calls weren't made that should and all of that lit the fire in myself and Amanda.  We started calling out as well as cheering.  The boys brought their game and then left it, intimidated by the aggressiveness of the other team.  They became angry and their passing wilted and failed.  This wasn't our boys!  This wasn't the boys that had their last game mercy ruled at 27 to 6!!
I was getting text updates from Steve about Caitlyn's game.  She was playing well and her team was winning.  I was ready to chew my nails.  Amanda and I yelled at the refs again.  I am by no way a basketball pro, but even I know that a choke hold is a foul!
The score was 8 to 4, Melrose.  The parents took turns cheering, yelling and texting non present family the updates.  The boys settled into a better pattern and began using teamwork.  They were tired and sweating.  They were determined.  Their sweet young faces shown with concentration.
Another bad call and one of our top players took a foul that sent him crashing to the floor with his head hitting the hardwood.  The Coyotes, as trained, immediately took a knee.  The parents took to their feet, yelling threats at the refs, the other teamed milled on the court until our young man was up and taken to the bench.
Another set of bad calls (since when do you run the clock during free throws?) and the score was 11 to 10, Dora.  The boys began to get very, very serious.  Our injured player came back on the court with revenge in his eyes.
The clock ticked down with the crowd chanting it out.  Final score 10 to 17....DORA WINS!  Undefeated champions of the Melrose Little Buff's 1 and 2 grade Basketball Tournament!  They proudly accepted their medals, gave their team chant and glowed for pictures.  They were sweaty and smelling and all were sporting red faces and bruised knees.  But they were Champions!
The parents packed up their gear, sleepy kids and hoisted their weary fannies to the parking lot. 
The very proud Coyotes returned to their homes victorious.

And on a side note, Conner wore his medal to church and all day Sunday....

And how was your day?