Mom N’ Dad
WILL BE HERE IN JUST A FEW SHORT HOURS!!!! I know I’ve posted about their trip up here, but really, I get so flippen giddy and excited when my parents come to visit. In fact, I get giddy every time ANYONE comes to visit, but when mom and dad come, I get overly-giddy….
I ventured off into the military, the USCG, right out of high school, and have never lived close to home since graduating high school. I guess you could say I was an adventurist as a wee lad… I just wanted OUT of my home town, AWAY from my parents, and GONE from the place that I knew. I needed to explore, I needed to roam, I needed to be free from any thumbs. And boy howdy, joining the Coast Guard, it gave me all three of those things. It wasn’t until I received my orders to Keokuk , IA after TC school in Petaluma, CA, did I realize just how far away I was going to be. I mean, I went to bootcamp in Cape May, NJ, but being in bootcamp feels like being on another planet, and quite frankly, there was no time to even miss your family, and even when you had a few spare moments to ponder your own thoughts, all I really did was think about how nice it would be to take a nap!! Back to my point tho’… when I got orders to the midwest, I was so naive at how much I would desperately miss my parents. I wasn’t the easiest child to raise, and fought the rules till I was blue in the face, but I realized, during my stint in Iowa, that I loved my parents so much and ached in my heart everyday because I wasn’t near them. I see those commercials on T.V. where the soldiers from Iraq are returning and seeing their loved ones at the airport or on the dock awaiting the tie up of a ship…. those are the commercials that really hit me hard….. I know what it feels like… The feeling you get inside when you know you’re less than 24 hours away from home port….. it’s the most amazing sense of excitement, and it’s hard to put into words exactly how you feel at that moment when that first line is heaved over the fantail or the bow. There is no other place on earth you’d rather be…. at that very moment. You feel excited, you feel proud, you just feel so alive…….
And when my folks come to visit me and stay up here at my house, a similar feeling grows inside. There is a comforting calm that comes over me when they are here. All is right in the world. The anxiety I suffer from subsides, Erika can be Erika essentially…. They raised me, I moved, and now they come to see me… I’m so pumped…. just a couple more hours….
On a funny note… went to pick Maggie up from school today. I was one of the last parents to arrive, because I was in the office BEGGING the director to allow Maggie to do the “Nature Walk” camp this summer even tho’ she’s going to be a couple of months shy of the age requirement. I was told since the class isn’t full yet, it was probably a good chance, but she’d have to talk to the teachers running the camp. Anyways,,, so I get down to her classroom and one of her teachers, Bri, comes out and informs me that they were in the gym earlier in the day and Maggie decided it was a good time to find out exactly what happens when that little red knob on the wall that says “FIRE” is pulled. Curious little thing she is… So she pulled it, and the fire drill began. Typically, as most of you know, fire drills are always part of the day’s schedule. All the staff and faculty know about them weeks in advance so as to not be off guard. Well no one but Maggie knew about this fire drill….. and wonkkkkk WONKKKKK WONNKKKKKK… the school was in complete chaos,, everyone headed outdoors in their respective places… Now in retrospect, it was probably a good idea for it to happen, to see how the teachers would react in a real situation, not having the luxury of knowing about it… ha ha ha ahahaha… Walking out of the school after I picked her up, I heard a little boy tell his dad that they had a fire drill today and it was really loud and everyone was really scared, and that they had to run outside… And all I could do was just smile and chuckle….. Maggie Georgia…. keepin’ it real….
Enough blogging… I need to get this house straightened up before the folks get here……. I’M SOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!! wing ding ding…..
May 12th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Like no joke,,,,I bet those teachers were scrambling!!! HAHA Have fun with the folks. And I had no idea you were the problem child. You were a perfect angel….NOT!!!! My personal creed was “Just don’t do anything Erika did,,,and I’ll be fine!!!”