Son Days...

Today I am taking it all the way back to kindergarten!  Yes, kindergarten, for kicks and giggles, and perhaps a few tears..oh, who am I kidding?  Where's my Kleenex and chocolate? Here we go...August of 2005...Nathan began kindergarten.  This was Nathan's first year of school and his first year of school came less than two months after his brother passed away....talk about hard to let him go!!!  After losing Matthew, it was, for a lack of adequate words, devastatingly difficult to let go of Nathan immediately after...It was the opposite of natural because after loss, you want to hold everything else that is close to you as tight as you can.  I felt like I had a big monster pulling my child away.  I was so sick still and I knew I had to get better for him.  The emotional battle coupled with the physical battle was heavy...on the days I didn't think I could persevere through, there stood this beautiful brown eyed boy to help me.  He was my insp...

If you are following this blog, you are aware that I am writing about my son's high school senior year and all of the sappy senior mama moments that I am experiencing along with it...this is going to include some of that, but it is going to also contain content that is so important to us as parents...raising Godly gentlemen.   This past week was Nathan's last high school homecoming parade, pep rally, football game and homecoming dance.  After the parade my sister turned to me and she said "You weren't ready for this to be over, where you?"  No, no I was not.  I took a deep breath and had a flashback of the last four parades that ended in this very place full of memories for us!  I smiled.   Then the pep rally happened, the football game happened, and then the last homecoming dance happened... And just like that...it was over! It all happened and left me with some serious sappy senior mama moments and some incredible memories of my boy smili...

THE day that is affectionately known to the Weatherly boys as "the best day of the year" was yesterday...the first Saturday of college football!   It is very rare that I sit at a keyboard on a weekend...but yesterday, kind of got me in the gut so I wanted to capture my thoughts here for a bit...I am finding it hard to keep the many memories running through my head to stay in order, but they need to come out!  So here we go... College football... College football games were some of my first memories with Ronnie and his father...Ole Miss, of course!  The memories of the RV road trips coupled with cabins at Sardis Lake are certainly rolling through my catalog; one particular memory sticking out.  Before we were married, we went with Ronnie's parents in the RV to Sardis Lake.  I slept on the bed adjacent to the bed that Ronnie and his father slept on.  I woke up in the middle of the night to see Ronnie and his dad sound asleep...and as I looked a...

The making of this mama has been a very unexpected journey... I must admit, at the first sign of the pink line, I had piles and piles of books on pregnancy; you know the ones that tell you what to expect. Yep, I had those! We took Lamaze classes; you know to help with the breathing and all! Hah! I thought I was so prepared with literature and breathing techniques, boy was I ever wrong! I  didn't  know what to expect with any of my boys! Here we go! The spring of 2000 would bring me to the delivery room for the first time! Excited, scared and definitely not sure what to expect, (although I had read all of the books on what to expect) I gave birth to our first son, Nathan. He was beautiful, almost 9 pounds of beautiful. The delivery was pretty fast and I was able to pull him from my womb and put him directly on my chest. It was amazing! That was definitely unexpected as the doctor asked me if I wanted to pull him out. I remember freaking out for a half of a s...

Yesterday I was able to spend a few minutes with Will before he went to football...we decided to get a liquid salad (green smoothie) from one of our favorite places, The Sweet Escape!  As we were drinking our smoothie, we were discussing his day at school, his homework and of course, football!  I caught myself staring at him with that green mustache (from turning his cup upside down) and it melted my heart, because I knew this time was so limited and fleeting before my eyes...I took a breath and literally choked back on my tears... I stopped myself from thinking about "tomorrow" and decided to stay in the "right now" and enjoy it... And we did!  We laughed on the way to the field and talked about boy stuff...things that make him smile...dogs, drums and football!   Y'all, that kid loves dogs, drums and football!  And I love hearing him talk about all of it! Ronnie met me at the high school field and took Will to his football practice so I was abl...

Today I am going to mix it up a little...this post is not about crying over a "Sappy Senior Mama" moment...it is about embracing treasured time with my family, overcoming fears to do so and making memories we will never forget!  These "SON DAYS" are the BEST DAYS!  These "SON DAYS" make me smile!  These "SON DAYS" bring joy to my heart!  And I am going to share our special "SON DAY" with you here... Y'all, we went deep sea fishing!  It was amazing and exhilarating!  Something I had never experienced and that our boys had not either. I learned quite a bit on that boat...actually the learning process started before I ever got on it... I was fearful of the "unknown."  I was fearful of what I had never done before.  You can believe that before I went to bed Friday night I was Googling deep sea fishing and all that jazz!  I even called to see if Todd wanted to go in my place because I was afraid my body with the inj...

The first week of school is officially over... I am not sure how I feel about that just yet... Blink...one week down. One week closer to graduation for Nathan... One week closer to middle school for Will... Making the most of the time we have together is really important to us. It has always been a priority, but now it just feels different ...kind of like running around with a bottle trying to catch it and capture every second...yes, that is what I feel like I am doing!  I don't want my bottle to be empty at the end of the day!  (crazy analogy, perhaps, but one that I see myself doing!)  Don't laugh, pick a bottle up and join me!   Football season is underway; that means practice for both boys, homework, games...you know, all of the busy-ness that comes along with sports and academics and the schedule that it brings! This schedule is one we are accustomed to and have been since our pee-wee football days with Nathan and then welcomed with open...