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Tag Archive: Family

In an Instant on 9/11, I Changed

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Eight years ago today started like any other day. I had sent my oldest off to Kindergarten. Jason was traveling and I was enjoying a few hours of peace before Sami woke up. I was checking e-mail and I didn’t even have the TV on, which was unusual for me. Then, I got an e-mail from Kirsten that just said to turn the TV on. I thought that was an odd e-mail from her and I assumed she was on TV.

I’ll never forget what my first thought was, “I need to go get my baby from school.” I needed to pull my family as close to me as possible.

The fear of knowing that just miles from my home a plane had crashed into the Pentagon and my family was not all together was the first time that as a mother I really felt that my family was in grave danger.

Jason was in Germany and I couldn’t get in contact with him. There was so much confusion about what was going on and who was in danger and the talk about the 3rd plane heading to DC was more than I could handle. I remember being so scared and I didn’t know what to do. I sat paralyzed in front of my TV. I could hear a lot of sirens which in hindsight I’m sure were all headed to the Pentagon.

That was the only day I was grateful for half-day kindergarten.

Last night my kids asked me about 9/11. None of my kids remember the day (the 2 youngest weren’t born yet) or understand how it changed the world. All they will ever know is the post 9/11 world. I tried to put into words the change that 9/11 brought to me, but I couldn’t. For me, it’s a feeling, not a tangible change that I can show my kids. The feeling of knowing that in an instant, everything can change. But Alan jackson’s song captured that feeling and put it into words beautifully.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

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Mom's Day Out Vlogging

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I got about 3 hours to myself to shop on Saturday. Of course, I had to lifecast the adventure. It’s silly, lots of special effects just because I can and my new video camera makes very shaky video so careful, you might get dizzy.

Family Musical Adventure at Best Buy Vlog

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Last night we ran a few errands and one was to Best Buy to just browse. Our whole family really loves Best Buy. My husband loves the music section. I love the Mac stuff. My oldest son loves the game section. My daughter loves the CDs and Mac stuff. The little kids love to play in the music room with Jason.  I happened to have my iPhone 3GS so I took some video of our little musical adventure. It’s mostly my 5 yr old because she was the most entertaining. You will see my hubby for a moment rockin’ out at the very end.

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One Tweet put my BlogHer Life into Perspective Today

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I woke up this morning thinking I was going to rush down to my computer, upload all my pictures and write my post BlogHer post because that’s what everyone does, right? I told my kids they needed to be good and leave me alone so I could work. I settled them down with the TV and breakfast and got on my computer. One of the first things I saw was a twitter update from MckMama.

TweetDeck

It brought me to tears and not really for the reason you think. Yes, I’m very sad for Stellan, but it made me think about what I just did. I spent the last 4 days away from my kids and husband and no, I didn’t really miss them too much. I deserve and needed the break and they needed the time with Daddy. It’s good for us all to get a break once in a while. But now that I’m home, I pushed them away so that I could work. I felt compelled to get my post BlogHer post up immediately because that’s what we do!

MckMama’s tweet was like a shot of reality for me. I do this so that I can stay at home with my kids, yet often I push them away so I can blog. I know that there is never a right answer for striking that perfect balance between family and work. Today, the right answer is for me to forget the blog post and the pics and getting the thank you’s out immediately and instead to go sit on the couch with my 4 kids and watch a movie and just be Mom.

If you want to find me, look on the couch where I’ll be most of the day catching up with my babes, thinking a lot about Stellan (and crying) and hoping that MckMama gets to sit on her couch with her 4 babes and catch up very soon.

Prayers for Stellan

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Meet Miley, the newest member of the McGraw family..

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Meet Miley! There she is in the crate on the counter just seconds after Sami brought her into the house.

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I need to give you a little background on our pet situation. I had a cat, Bridget, when I met Jason. She came into this marriage with me and I always warned Jason that she had squatters rights. We adopted Benjamin because we were both working and Bridge was alone a lot and VERY lonely. The two got along as if they were born and raised together even though they were both about 4 or 5 yrs old at the time. When my 2nd child was 2, we got a Black Lab, Kelsey. The cats and dog cohabited pretty well until we had another baby. Then the cats got mean and started attacking my baby. They had to go. We were a 1 dog family for 5 years. No cat hair, no litter box, no furniture being ruined by a cat scratching.

Then we saw Sue at the Petsmart last year and fell in love with her. We brought her home and we realized how much we missed having a cat around. However, shortly after we all fell totally in love with her, she started peeing on our living room couch (where the 2 earlier cats spent most of their time) and scratching up my living room chairs. We remembered what we didn’t like about cats. We worked hard to get her to stop peeing and for the most part, she did stop. Every once in a while she’d regress and pee on the couch.

A few weeks ago she started to do it again almost daily. We were at our wits ends and didn’t know what to do. I turned to Facebook and asked for advice. It seems that citrus and newspapers were needed to stop her of that habit. So right before we left for Florida, I put newspapers all over the couch, sprayed it down with the citrus stuff to keep cats away and put her food right by the couch (because cats won’t pee where they eat). Well it seems this dang cat must have had newspaper as her kitty litter at one point because she though the newspaper was my personal invitation to use the couch ALL the time. So now, I not only had cat pee on my couch, but also the black stuff that rubs off the newspaper. It was just disgusting.

I thought the cat would go when Jason saw that because that is usually what he says. But instead he threw the couch out and said we needed a cat proof couch (Hello!!! Where is my husband?) This was on Sunday morning. I sent him to PetsMart to get this stuff that we heard about that you pour into the kitty litter and it attracts the cats to it. It works like catnip. My daughter calls me from PetsMart and tells me that Dad is buying a kitten? I was napping and wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.

But they came home with this…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL_9EungZzQ[/youtube]

Her name was Tangerine, but we I didn’t like that. Nicky thought Miley was good and we all liked it. Then a few hours later, we were watching Hannah Montana and I realized that our cats were named Miley (as in Miley Stewart) and Lily (as in Miley’s best friend). No, it was not intentional, but we like the names.

MIley kitty

We now have 2 cats and a dog. The dog is very interested in the cats and the cats want nothing to do with the dog. The two cats hiss at each other and stay far away. The kitten cried a lot last night like a baby. We have her in our master bathroom for the moment. The cat place suggested that we keep her there for about 10 days and let all the animals sniff each other under the door and get used to each other. Then we can let her go free.

She is quite spunky and loves to play. She will cry really loud like a baby if she is lonely and then starts purring really loudly when you come in to play (how sweet is that?)

I know everyone thinks we’ve lost our minds, but she is the cutest thing and so irresistible. I just can not figure out how we went from almost giving away the cat to adopting a new kitten a matter of hours??

Share your crazy pet stories with me!

Michele McGraw ~ Social Media Enthusiast, Digital Scrapbooker, Blogger, Vlogger, Tech Goddess. MomTV Host, Mom of 4 Read More About Michele »