A Great St. Patrick's Day! She's Back........A Daughter Came Home for a Visit!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

As most of you know our daughter lives in Oregon.  We live in Pennsylvania, so we are trying not to take it personally that she moved just about as far away as possible as she could from home.

She claims she loves her job and good jobs are hard to come by in these tough times.  We have told her she could live in our basement and we would go back to giving her an allowance, but still she prefers having a job in Oregon and living with her husband in their apartment in Oregon.  We ask ourselves all the time where did we go wrong and sometimes late at night in bed, I will think about that old saying, “If you love something, let it go, if it comes back to you, it’s yours,” and revise it a little to say, “If you push a child out of your womb for 17 hours, let her go, if she goes to Oregon, you were an idiot to listen to a dumb saying.”

This week, she has a conference about two hours away from home and she elected to come home Saturday and spend the weekend with us.  We had to go pick her up at Dulles Airport.  Since I just got a speeding ticket and cannot afford to get another one, the driving was turned over to my husband.  I am a terrible passenger.  My friends and family know it is just better to let me drive, unless they like the sounds of large gasps and screams that imminent death is upon us, coming from one white faced passenger in the car mimicking braking and clutching her heart most of the ride. 

When my youngest daughter was learning to drive and I had to drive along with her, I did it once and have only been back in her car once since then and she is now 26.  Our first trip out, I noticed immediately she liked to make very wide turns and used the rural mailboxes along the right side of the road as her road markers rather than the large yellow centerline.

From my vantage point, in the passenger seat, I was terrified we were going to have to spend our life savings replacing every mailbox in our county and I may have been a tad vocal in my opinion of her judging abilities, because when we got home she slammed out of the car and announced I would never be driving with her again. At that point, I was on my hands and knees kissing the ground and crying, “I thought I would never see you again,” and all I said back to her was, “I expect you to keep that promise.”

My husband and I were so excited about seeing our daughter that we thought the mood would sustain us for the entire ride despite the fact that he was driving.  We were wrong. The first problem happened moments after we turned off our street and my husband said to me, “did you get the driving directions I printed off of the printer?” Since I didn’t know he had printed directions or that I was the official print out getter, I explained to him that the process might work better if, in the future, he just said, “could you get the directions I just printed from the printer?”  No matter, we had two GPS’s in the car, but that didn’t stop my husband from turning to me again and saying, “what way do you want to go?”  I used to fall for that and answer, but now I know it is just a ploy to get me involved in case we get lost, so someone in the car other than him can take the fall. I also know if I say, “go I-95,” somewhere down the road, he will say, “we should have gone I-70, but you wanted to go I-95.”

For this reason, I have perfected the perfect response to any question involving directions, “How the hell should I know?” and then I smile politely, so there are no hard feelings.  Fortunately, the GPS and my husband agreed on the correct way to go and off we went to pick up our daughter who we have not seen since Christmas and do not know when we will see again.

 

The trip went smoothly and we got to the airport in record time only to find out our daughter’s plane was delayed and would be arriving one hour later and coming in around 5:30 p.m.  Well, that proved to be another kink in our normal weekend plans because factoring in the drive back home, and how our daughter must have thought when we called her on her cell phone, that we said, “Simon says to take 145 baby steps from the plane to your parents,” instead of, “Where are you? The plane is landed and even an elderly person with a walker sporting tennis balls beat you to the baggage claims area,” we were already behind schedule.

On most weekends, we like to dine early with the senior crowd up at the local diner around 4p.m. and be off the road and back home by the time the young whippersnappers are just getting warmed up, so it was a true novelty for us to be eating out at 8 p.m.  Of course, since it was St. Patrick’s Day, we picked the most Irish place we could think of to eat and we all laughed when my husband said and was not kidding, “There shouldn’t be a line because no one will be at the Olive Garden this late.”

 

The good thing about our family is we always pick up right where we left off.  Both dogs were ecstatic to see our daughter and Fudge slept outside her door the whole night and realized very quickly she was an easy mark for belly and head rubs.  Vern tried to give her lots of Doodle hugs and sloppy kisses, which she kept refusing based on the fact that Vern usually had just dunked half his face in his water dish.  As many of you know, she can be competitive when it comes to Frenchies versus Doodles and sometimes, Vern does not get the memo that we are trying to put our best foot forward and to wait until the screen door is opened, before charging through the door.  

Of course, that caused her to go on a bit about how her dogs might have done that once, but quickly learned their lesson, but Vern seems to keep losing his battle with the screen door.  I covered Vern’s ears and told her that just because she considered her dogs to be borderline geniuses, it did not give her the right to pick on Vern, who we feel is such a deep thinker and gets so lost in thought that he tunes out things like screen doors, and she said, “keep telling yourself that, because the rest of us have our doubts.”

 

The lighthearted banter picked up throughout the day….”Mom, why are you wearing pants that are two sizes too big for you?  Are you trying to make people think you lost weight again?  Mom, your pants are too short.  Mom, your belt is cinched in back and you look like Steve Urkel.  Mom, just deal with it.” It was just about the time I was asking myself what exactly were my objections to her moving to Oregon that she happened to see me getting into bed in my t-shirt and underwear and asked the age old question that all kids want to know about their parents (NOT)….”do you and dad still do it, because I don’t see how this look could be appealing to anyone?” that I realized there is a reason birds push their babies out of the nest.  How else can you realize how much you love being together if you never get the opportunity to miss someone?  At least that is what I keep trying to tell myself.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Anna!

Lisa, You are welcome :) Glad you laughed.

[Lisa, Daisy & Dexter]

Laughing is so good for me....that is the reason I read your blogs. The last picture is priceless!!!!

Love, love, love this blog! Maybe because I can relate in so many ways..husbands, daughters, competitive dogs!

Thanks Laurie!

[Anna and Achilles]

Sitcom for sure! As long as Laurie writes the dialog.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Doris, You are so lucky your son is moving closer and I bet he is more excited than he is letting on to be closer to home. I could end up looking really badly on a sitcom. My family could turn on me...LOL!!

[Doris, Knox & Flash]

I love Jane's (Rooney & Stuart) idea -- a TV sitcom for your family and doods!  It would be a hit! 

I have one baby bird that I left off in Durham, NC four years ago.  He's graduating and moving to Dallas in July.  That's soooooooo much closer and I'm so excited.  Him...not so much...when I told him how often I planned on visiting!  Mom, REALLY????

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

GBK, Sounds like Buddy and Vern are definitely brothers :) Fudge is the neatest little eater and drinker and then came VERN and BUDDY!! LOL

Pat, Thanks! She is flying back today :( I am trying to be good when I drive!!

Janie, At least you taught her how to drive. I delegated this job to my husband. His nerves are better, but I do remember one night he came home late with her and it had been raining and he let her drive. When he walked in the door, he looked terrible and said, "I need to be alone for a while :) " LOL

[GBK]

Great blog Laurie, love it as usual!  I can relate to the wet beard on Vern, he and Buddy must be brothers.  If Kona get's in my lap first when I get home from work, Buddy makes sure to dip his beard ALL the way in the water and come for his turn of loving with it dripping and spraying all over.  I try to love him up first most of the time, but my little monkey can be quick to jump in my lap first :)  I think they are in cahoots!

[Pat and Traveler]

Laurie, so glad you got to visit with your daughter, partly because it generated this hilarious blog!  Drive on, lady!

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

Love your blog and I relate to them all the time! I think I've been in my daughter's car once since she got her license. She will be 24 in a couple of weeks. I'm still not over teaching her to drive!! : o

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Bonnie, Thank you! We had a great time!

Nancy, I learned on a stick shift (3 speed on the column) and taught my DH. I do think everyone should know how to drive a stick shift, but I am with you, I don't want to teach anyone else.