A couple of days ago, I sat down with my husband and kids to watch an Oprah rerun featuring Dr. Oz. He was discussing the diabetes epidemic in America.

I wanted my 11 year old daughter to see the show, because she loves food that is horrible for her. If I let allowed it, she would eat doughnuts for breakfast, bologna on white bread for lunch and chicken nuggets for dinner. With extra dipping sauce.

I don’t let her. I buy plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole wheat bread and pasta and she is not allowed to drink soda unless it’s a special occasion or if she sneaks one at a friend’s house. Don’t think you’re fooling me, girl. She is in the 50th percentile for height and weight. She is healthy. For now.

I wanted her to see that, given the opportunity, she needs to make her own good decisions about nutrition. I don’t want her to end up like me. I can’t even keep sweets in the house because I have no self-control. If only I was as obsessed with laundry as I am with sugar. No one would ever run out of underwear.

My eight year old son loves all food. My mom can’t believe it. Really, it’s like a grandparents dream come true. He never asks what’s for dinner, he just sits down and starts eating everything on his plate. He weighs 42 pounds, so I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to bulk up.

My boy craves pine-nut hummus and red peppers. He eats blueberries and raw veggies like they’re going to stop harvesting them. Given his congenital heart disease, this is a good thing.

At the risk of losing readers who are also PETA members, I will admit that I have long said that I would be a vegetarian if someone else did all the food prep. All that washing and cutting…ugh.

Although I think I could survive without meat, you can’t deny that it is awfully easy to make chicken. Boiled chicken, grilled chicken, baked chicken, rotisserie chicken hot and ready for consumption on the end-cap of my local grocery store…

I don’t think my son would complain if I put him on a vegetarian diet either. Of course, he enjoys chocolate too. He’s a lot like his mother.

Which can only mean one thing.

Someday, he is really going to like beer.

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Dear Gram,

Although you have been gone for almost twelve years, I think about you every day. I really miss you.

I miss the way you closed your eyes and threw your head back when you laughed. I do that too.

I miss how you welcomed the chaos that was a house full of grandchildren. I miss the taste of your spaghetti sauce and the way you would roll out and cut your own noodles.

I marvel at how you cooked huge, Sunday suppers in that tiny kitchen, with no counter space, no air conditioning and no dishwasher. I can barely get a meal made for four.

I miss you yelling at me and my cousins to get out of the trees before we break our necks, to quit jumping around in a house with old wiring because we might start a fire and I miss you giving us a grocery list and sending us on our way. We took so long to get back from the store because we stopped to pick mulberries along the way. I suppose you always knew that when we came back with stained fingers.

I loved how you would say, “Everyone needs to be quiet because my story is coming on!” and within five minutes of As the World Turns starting you would be sound asleep. I miss you glaring at us in church when we had the giggles.

I miss you letting us go through your makeup drawer and use your little, Avon lipstick samples. I miss the smell of the roses in your back yard. I miss playing kickball and using your azalea bush as home plate.

I miss watching you take care of Kevin with strength and grace. I am still amazed at the way you would wrap your arms around his chest and “walk” him from room to room. It was the closest thing he had to doing it on his own.

I hate that I was pregnant with my daughter when you died. I wish she had known you. I can’t think of a better role-model, mentor, relative or human being than you. I am so proud to be your grand-daughter.

I know it was a gift to have you around as long as we did, but that doesn’t mean I will ever stop wishing that you were still here.

Love,

Diane

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Very early this morning, one of our nephews boarded a flight to California where he will join his older brother. They are two members of the same Marine unit and after training out west will deploy in August to, most likely, Afghanistan.

The older of the two has seen combat before. In 2005, while serving in Iraq, he lost 22 fellow Marines and one Navy Corpsman…out of the 160 who deployed with him. This unit suffered one of the greatest losses in the war. When our nephew made it home safely, I cried every time I saw him for quite some time.

Since then, he got married, had a son and his younger brother decided to follow in his footsteps. Now there are two of them going off to fight. Two children of the same mother and father who are some of the strongest parents I know.

I know that every other Marine is considered family, but I’m happy they have each other too. I am already counting the days until I can cry tears of joy because of their safe return.

I was going to end this by saying, “Be safe, boys”, but that wouldn’t be right. They are men. They are brave and strong and I’m glad they are on our side.

I’m proud to know them and call them family.

Semper Fi.

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1. When spring rolls around with her warm breezes and gentle rain, and the air outside is rich with the scent of lilacs, my old house starts to smell like wet dog and rotten wood.

2. When school softball, summer softball, track, baseball, going away parties, graduation parties and weddings all start to overlap, I begin to think I should increase my dosage of Zoloft.

3. Throw in a spring musical and it’s time to get my Ambien refilled too.

4. But, taking Ambien makes me get on Twitter and say things like this: ‘There is missional impossible musci blarking behind my head and it makes me want to put on black leggies and snaek around nmy houser’.

5. And, this: ‘Now t here ‘s a baby crying and it’s making my ovaries hurt. If I start lactating, that will just be weired’.

6. Then people named AmbienRehab start following me on Twitter.

7. My family likes to spend time playing the Wii together, but Super Mario Bros. was invented by someone with a sick and twisted view of family togetherness.

8. My son jumps around on his Hippity-Hop so much that he looks like he has a permanent, blue hemorrhoid.

9. If you go to a wine tasting and the Sommelier starts talking about “shoulders” in your wine, you may think you drank too much.

10. And, if your husband hasn’t had dinner and attends the same wine tasting, he may eat half a cheeseball made of Jarlsberg cheese.

11. So when next year’s invitation doesn’t arrive, we shouldn’t be all that surprised.

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