Normalcy Returns...Whatever THAT Is

Since my last posting life has been a roller coaster, on ice, with the riders all smoking crack, puking, with the flu and me strapped to the tracks.

December 13, 2008

My five year old son Matt and I left hockey practice at the Mullins Center on the UMass campus both drained. I had that foreboding feeling you get when you know you are getting sick. Matt is usually a tiger on the ice, but today skated like a kitten. He starts a small cough as we pull into our driveway.

December 17, 2008

Matt and I are both coughing all night, but it subsides in the AM. Matt goes to school to endure his own sleep deprived hell, while I have to fight my lack of sleep while doing last minute Christmas preparations with my three year old Peter in tow. Pete hasn't gotten sick...yet.

December 19, 2008

Matt goes off to school in the AM. Amazingly, he hasn't missed a day off school, but is obviously not feeling well. He has a dry cough and is lethargic, but can function. I have offered to keep him home each of the last three mornings, but he chooses to go to school. He must realize that being home with me while I'm sleep deprived and sick would be worse than him being sleep deprived and sick sitting in his classroom. Pete still seems OK. Mom goes to work each day and seems oblivious to our plight. She is immersed in her yearly pre-Christmas mania. She won't be able to relax until sometime Christmas night. I am supposed to meet my friend Eric in Foxboro tomorrow for a night of drinking then a Pats game in the snow on Sunday. I consider cancelling, but figure that being sleep deprived and sick while drunk watching football in the snow is better than being sleep deprived and sick hanging out with a stressed out wife, sick kid and an energy filled unsick kid.

December 20,2008

I wake up feeling better than I have in days. Matt seems better too. I get out while the gettin's good. I drive to Franklin Mass where I meet my friend Eric who currently lives in Maine. We have gone to a Pats game every year for close to 20 years. Even when he lived in Cleveland we would meet in Buffalo for a game. We spent the night drinking, re-telling drunken tales of old, etc... I fall asleep in a queen sized bed to the sound of my own snoring.

December 21,2008

Eric and I trudge to the game in an eight inch snowstorm. I am not hungover, but only have three Bud Lights in the car in the parking lot outside of the stadium while cranking the heat and watching the snow melt on my wind shield. the snow piles up outside my vehicle. We are sitting eight rows up from the field in the corner end zone. The game is a joke. The Patriots are up 24 - 0 sometime in the second quarter. We consider leaving early, but are the types that don't leave cause you never know if a once in a lifetime play or occurrence will happen. In the third quarter it does. Cassell throws a screen pass out to his left to Randy Moss who has a 70 yard clear run to the end zone, our end zone. As he cruised down the sideline it was as if he was all alone and running toward me, only me. Like in a love story with two lovers running toward each other in a field of daisy's I made my way down the eight steps and got to the railing overlooking the end zone just as Randy crossed the goal line. He started walking toward me with the ball outstretched. I quickly realized that he was bringing the ball to a kid who was standing next to me with his dad. As he handed the ball to the starstruck tyke I was reaching down patting Randy on the shoulder pads. It was a real, live Coke commercial (you remember the one where Mean Joe Greene throws the shirt to the kid). We leave the game in the forth quarter with the Pats up 47 - 7. I get home and scour the Internet for footage of me and Randy's moment.

December 22, 2008

While I was on my "man" weekend Pete and Lori become ill. Pete has a 102 degree temp and Lori has an upper respiratory something. She goes to work, Matt goes to school and Pete pukes a half a dozen times. There always seems to be penance to pay after a "man" weekend. Pete naps numerous times throughout the day as do I.

December 24, 2008

Pete is getting better, but still whiny. I drop him and Matt at my sister-in-laws while I drive to Boston to pick up my Uncle Mac. I stop at my mother, aunt and grandmother's grave site and leave them a Christmas gift then head to BC where my uncle has worked for 45 years and picked him up for the 100 Mile ride west. We get back to Northampton around 2 PM and spend the afternoon watching "A Christmas Carol", doing last minute wrapping and watching the kids get wound up for Santa. We go to my sister's house for a turkey dinner about 6PM, but get out of there by eight to put the kids in bed, for Santa.

December 25, 2008

Christmas morning was magical, until I dropped our digital camera in my coffee, ruining it. If I dropped the camera 1000 times it would not have fit perfectly in my cup as it did. The day was great, otherwise. We hosted dinner at our house. While the kids played with their new toys the adults drank wine and Irish coffee, gorged themselves on my wife's dessert creations and watched "Bad Santa".

December 26, 2008

I dragged my ass from the couch playing the Wii Santa brought for the kids and placed plastic down on the area I had snow blowed last week on the side of my house. My rink will be bigger and better than last year. My uncle helps lay down the plastic, but falls hard on his ass, but is OK. He won't be the first person to fall on his ass on the rink this year.

December 31, 2008

In the midst of his first school vacation Matt is in a Wii induced coma, rarely leaving the couch to eat or use the bathroom. At one point I think he shit himself and just when I'm about to yell at him I hear the cat was scraping around in the litter box. We have a babysitter come over around 5 PM and we go out for a quick, but intimate dinner at the Whately Inn. We go home and play the Wii until 11 PM. We go to bed and are asleep 1/2 hour before the New Year.

January 2, 2009

Matt and I are skating on our rink. Pete went skating for the first time earlier in the week at the Mullin's Center free skate and was able to stay up by himself by the end of the skate. He has no interest in skating today, but says he'll skate with "mom" when mom skates. Fricken "mama's boy"! There are a few rough spots, but it's skatable now and will only get better with consecutive icings and colder weather.

January 3, 2009

Hockey practice was nothing short of awesome. Matt and I were both back to our normal selves, skating hard for the first time since early December. We just introduced sticks and pucks to practice which makes it feel like hockey instead of skating practice. Tomorrow we'll skate on our rink at home then it's back to school Monday. Time to get off the roller coaster.