Happy Birthday

The birthday boy is pictured on the left.The one on the right is his brother, another one of my all-time favorite people.
I have read on a number of blogs how mothers are amazed at how time passes so quickly...in the blink of an eye. Don't I know that!
Birthday boy, I know that you have forgiven me for leaving you at kindergarten, those many years ago, when there WAS NO school that day, when I got half way home and the light bulb exploded in my head!
I know that you have forgiven me the day I took my time coming out to check on you, the day your little brother kept running into the kitchen to tell me you had fallen off of your skateboard. Three times he ran in and three times I said I was coming. Your brother finally yelled, "MOM, Kevin's fallen off of his skateboard, and he is lying in the BUSHES!" I went out to find you and, sure enough, there you were in the bushes with a broken arm. My only excuse is that you were a tad bit overly dramatic in those days.
I have forgiven you for breaking my tail bone when you were born. You won't remember, but the rubber donut and I were inseparable for a year.
I have forgiven you for having to listen to your first grade teacher tell us that in all of her years of teaching, she had never had a child like you in her class. This was not uttered with a smile on her face.
I have forgiven you for your thirteenth year, something best forgotten and filed away under "teenager" self-absorption.
I love you with all my heart, I love you for your integrity, your sense of loyalty, your "hard work" ethic, and your unstoppable sense of humor. I love you for your constant affection for your parents and your true love for that other special guy up there in the picture.
I know I am a few days late in writing this, but my pride in you is absolute and the joy I receive from having you in my life knows no bounds!

Oh! p.s. Sweetie, I've also forgiven you for taking my BRAND NEW Le Creuset frying pans into the back yard, building a little camp fire with pine wood and cooking some hamburgers. I also forgive you for encouraging your little brother (in the above picture) to make, as he whispered in my ear one time, "Frank Phone Calls".
And I forgive you both for taking the Hungry Jack refrigerated biscuits and placing them on a red hot burner so that you could watch them explode.
(If any readers are tempted to call Children's Services over my neglectful ways: it's too late to do that.)

Kaleidoscope of K

...totally unrelated K stuff.
I have pictures of my new kitchen (well, it's a year old new) but I can't find them on my computer! So no pics to look at. I do love having cabinets that close, that look nice and that don't have 26 years of yuk on them. I appreciate an oven door that closes all of the way and actually opens fully so that I can get a casserole in and out of it. I like having a sink that hasn't rusted so much along the edges that it's rising up out of the counter. You can get that picture I'm sure!

K is for my first born, Kevin. There were times when I wasn't sure I would survive him. Perhaps I should have paid attention to the fact that he actually broke my tail bone during his entrance into this world. I should have taken that as an omen. He pretty much challenged every dang thing that came along. Well, he's all "growed" up and is a joy to be around. I am very lucky to see him almost every week day as he works in the nursery. He's funny, he's good with people, he's a wonderful father and I just love being with him.

K is for Kitcat...my cousin Clodagh. When my grandfather left Ireland in the late 1800's, he brought part of his family to Hawaii. His sister Lily married the Rev. Kitcat and they went to New Zealand. I vaguely remember Auntie Lily. I do remember Clodagh because as a wee girl I just thought her name was hysterically funny. I was also fascinated by her because my Uncle Angus used to refer to her as "the eyebrow raiser" (he also called another relative "flannel brain"). Anyway, Clodagh would come now and then to visit us in Hawaii. I would perch on the edge of my chair and be mesmerised by those active eyebrows. They were like fuzzy woolly bear caterpillars which moved across her forehead with every word she uttered. Alas, I am sure that the Kitcats of New Zealand are no more. I am sure that Clodagh died 40 years or so ago and I know she never married. Here's to you Clodagh Kitcat. You were something else!