Author: Jen Rios

My son has a TON of cowlicks in his hair. Because of this fact, I have always kept his hair short after he got in his first haircut. Before then however, I appreciated his, “Bed head” and thought it was absolutely adorable! When Sean and I had our first apartment when he was three, we would go over to my Parents’ house for breakfast sometimes on the weekend. Once we get there, my Mom would ask me if I combed his hair that morning. I would shake my head and tell her that it was, “So darn cute!“ as my mom would comb his hair to make it neater.

Sean has always had a short haircut. In the summers, I was a bit lenient because I felt that it, “Was just hair.” Sean has sported mohawks in the summer and I would have his head shaved a little bit before school started. His hair grows pretty fast!

For his entire life up until this point, he is pretty much kept it short. In the high school, he let the top grow out a little bit but still kept the fade tight around his ears and on his neck. When he was in first grade, he told me that he wished that he had hair that grows, “down” (like his friends) opposed to hear that grows, “up.” Hence, the short hair.

That is until THIS summer! My son has not to cut his hair since just before prom and that was in mid May. His hair has gotten pretty long and because it is so long, it DOES grow, “down” now. A few days ago, I told him that I didn’t like it. I told him that it made him BOT look like my little baby because his hair was so long!

This morning, my mom was affixing my tens unit onto my knee and we do that in my bathroom. Sean was in the kitchen making himself some breakfast. He told us that we keep my house too cold but that is how it is! It’s better for me to be cold then too warm! So Sean got a shirt from his bedroom because he said he was freezing. He stopped at the bathroom door to ask if the shirt was too small on him. When he walked over, I got a look at his, “Bed head.”

I started to laugh and told him that the shirt looks fine on him and kept laughing. He asked me why I was laughing and I told him he looks like, “The guy from ‘Flock of Seagulls.’”

• 

The front of his hair is not that long but the sides stuck up just like this picture! I kept laughing and laughing! Once I showed him the picture, he looked at himself in the mirror and called me a, “Bully!” Which just made me laugh harder!

He does have senior pictures this year and I am hoping to get them done in the summer before school starts so it is a little bit cheaper. I’m not sure what he will do with hair athen but in the meantime, I will tell him every time he wakes up with hair like that not that it’s, “So darn cute” but that he looks like, “The guy from ‘Flock of Seagulls.’”

Maybe I am a, “Bully!” But I still think it really DOES look, “So darn cute!”

This morning, I sat in my kitchen as I sipped my Kiefer and my Mom sipped her coffee. That was probably the BEST purchases I have made! I bought a Keurig for my house. I don’t drink coffee and I think the smell of it is just disgusting but my, “2 Sacreds” (Sean and my Mom) drink it.

I knew that I could never pay for a house that smelled like coffee so getting a coffee brewer was not an option. Once Sean started drinking coffee, I bought and put a Keurig in my kitchen. It only smells while the coffee is brewing the one cup but I can handle that when they leave and my kitchen airs out.

So I sat in my kitchen by the stove and drank my Kiefer as my Mom made her coffee and drank it. We have kind of been dawdling a bit before we start our morning routine to get me ready for the day.and I had moved on to drink my protein shake when my Mom said that she wanted to pay a bill and then we could start right after. It would only take 10 minutes.

Now, my Mom is NOT adept at online payments for bills and chooses to make a phone call and speak to people. She refuses to learn how to pay bills online and would rather wait to speak to a person. She told me it would be very quick to which I responded, “Chure!”

I immediately gasped and exclaimed, “I miss you, Daddy!” My Dad used to say, “Chure” To my Mom when he didn’t believe what she was saying was true. For example, my Mom telling me that she could pay her bill very quickly was a lie and I knew it! If my Dad were here, he would have responded to her with, “Chure!”

I finished drinking my protein shake and left the room to put my contacts in as my Mom got on the phone to pay the bill. I was correct that it took longer than 10 minutes but not as long as it normally does. Saying that to my Mom and just like my Dad used to has made me miss him SO MUCH today but that is pretty much every day…

Pictures have always been important to me! I think that if my life and circumstances were different, if I were an able-bodied person, I would very much enjoy taking pictures for fun! I always thought that maybe I could do some kind of side work as a photographer or something…

For Father’s Day, I decorated a frame that holds a picture of me giving my Dad a kiss on his cheek in my high school’s cafeteria during my ring day ceremony. I remember really liking the picture and a member of the yearbook team, gave the picture to me because she thought I would like it. I can’t really remember giving it to my Dad for Father’s Day because he would have just had surgery but there was evidence of this on the back. I always date the back of the picture I give to people.

• 

I was thinking about this picture and the frame I made for my Dad that now sits on a shelf with a bunch of pictures in my Mom’s living room. Not too long ago, I asked her for the picture. My Mom brought it over and I thought to change my profile picture on Facebook for Father’s Day but I wasn’t feeling too well so I didn’t.

Sean noticed that the picture frame was on the desk under my TV that usually has a bunch of pictures which are in a box in the basement. He brought another picture frame out of his room. He said something like, “Oh, we’re putting out our family pictures now?” He placed a framed picture of his great-grandma and him that we gave to his great grandma one summer. The frame was at her funeral. Sean asked if he could take the frame home with him and he was told that he could.

I noticed that there was a small picture taped onto the corner of the picture frame. It was of his great-grandpa that he used for a timeline we made when he was in first grade. So there were two picture frames on either end of the desk under my television. They were of my Dad, Sean’s great grandma, and Sean‘s great grandpa. All three of these people have passed.

Sean put this picture of his great-grandma on the desk under my TV just before he left for school. So both of these picture frames have been in my living room for a while. Not too long ago, when Sean came home, I told him that both his great-grandma and his great-grandpa were staring at me all day. He asked me if I wanted him to take the Picture away and put it back into his room. I looked at him a little bit aghast and told him that “I loved them too!”

They are not my relatives but I would take Sean to their house often when they lived in Deerborn and Sean was still in a car seat carrier. I took Sean over to Canada to their condo that they had there. His great-grandparents also took me out to eat for my 24th birthday. Just me and them. We went to Olive Garden and they still clearly remember that dinner! I met both of them before Sean was born, even before I was pregnant with him.

I have recently found myself staring back at both of them and reminiscing of times I spent with them and drinking Vernor’s. It got me thinking. I always date pictures when I give people frames that have a picture. A few days ago, I grabbed that picture frame and opened it up. Well, at least I can say that I am consistent:

• 

Once I found out that I had written on the back of the picture, I began to cry. Both of these pictures have my rating on them, back when I could still write. I appreciate both of these pictures and I am not in a hurry to move them. These pictures make me think fondly of all of them.

I have a couple of blog posts rolling around in my head right now. I’m just trying to get them fully developed. I know that I have an old picture of Sean, (he was probably about two years old) in the end table by the door in my living room.

I decided to look for that picture for one of the blog posts I plan on writing. Instead, I found this picture:

• 

Because I was not expecting to find this picture, it stopped me in my tracks! I gasped! I stared at the picture for a very long time! I know that this picture was taken almost 20 years ago but my hair is almost the same. I don’t know where my NHS stole or my honor cords are; they probably are at my Mom’s somewhere. But the longer I stare at this picture, I began to cry!

Also, because I have begun to think about Sean‘s graduation and planning his graduation party for next year, I think about how wonderful it would be for my Dad to look at him like he was looking at me in this picture!

Seeing this picture really stunned me and caused the gasp so I think it will take a little bit of time to get over! I hope that I can write another blog post for today but we will see…

I seem to be living my life focusing on fond memories from my recent past these days. Today, it was a dental implant commercial that sparked this memory. A woman spoke highly of her dental implants and how when she wore dentures, she couldn’t eat corn on the cob. I have NOT eaten corn on the cob in a very long time! In fact, I’m not sure that I am still able to eat corn on the cob.

I really haven’t eaten corn at all for a few years now. Hearing her talk about eating corn on the cob made me think of eating corn on the cob, my Mom, and Sean. I have always eaten corn off the cob in horizontal rows. My Mom, however, eats corn off the cob in vertical rows. I remember thinking that was really weird when I saw her half-eaten corn on the cob

When Sean started eating corn, probably about 18 months, I used to cut the corn kernels off of the cob for him to eat. The summer he was 2, almost 3, he wanted to try to eat and off the cob like the rest of us (my Parents and me). I cut the corn cob in half and showed him what to do by biting the kernel off of the cob.

I showed him eating the kernels of the cob horizontally and my Mom used to eat the corn off the cob vertically but Sean chose a completely different way to eat the corn off the cob!

It wasn’t until a friend of mine said something about it that I noticed that Sean ate the corn off the cob by just randomly taking bites off of the cab. There was no rhyme or reason, or any order to how he was biting the corn.

When this was brought to my attention, I thought it was absolutely adorable because you could see his little tiny bites (just two or three kernels at a time) being bitten off the of the cob. This friend told me that Sean used the, “Chaos method” when eating his corn. I’m not sure how Sean eats his corn off the cob now but I really could go for some grilled corn on the cob right about now!

This morning, as I brushed and flossed my teeth, my Mom went into my room and asked me which shirt I wanted to wear. She rattled off a couple descriptions of T-shirts and then gave me a third option, “The breakfast people.”

I laughed because I knew she was talking about my GMFB shirt!

• 

That was the shirt I wanted to wear! Duh?! I wear that shirt sometimes two or three times a week! It’s so comfortable! It’s getting really worn out but I preferred to think that it is really loved!

• 

My Mom told me that they do not even eat breakfast so she doesn’t know why they are called, “The breakfast table.” I couldn’t even set the record straight because I knew she didn’t care. So that is the shirt I am wearing today! I can’t wait until the breakfast table or, “The breakfast people“ are back from vacation!

Yesterday, Sean had his annual physical. It is the last physical that I will accompany him to. He will be 18 by the time he has another one. Because we were already out of the house, we went and saw Toy Story 4. This is what he looked like when we saw Toy Story 3:

• 

He looks a little bit different now but he wanted to see it as well! We went with my Mom last night. At first, I was a little bit skeptical about the storyline and what it could possibly be. I don’t want to be a spoiler but I have to tell you that it did NOT disappoint!!!

My new favorite characters are Ducky and Bunny!!!

• 

I don’t want to give too much away but they are Carnaval toys. They are voiced by Keegan-Michael K and Jordan Peele:

• 

They were ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!!!

• 

My favorite part was hearing my, “2 Sacreds” (My Mom and Sean) laugh hysterically! That made me really happy to hear them being so entertained simultaneously as I was being equally entertained!

I have had a soft spot for, “Boudy” for the past 15 years, ever since his second Halloween where my friend Ami made him the BEST Woody costume possible! It made this scene even better!:

• 

I appreciated that Sean a greed to go with me because he knows that I do NOT get out of the house very often! Two birds, one stone! I searched this morning to find out who voiced the two characters and I came across this which I will DEFINITELY be buying (after payday next month, of course!).

• 

Simple pleasures, man!!!0