We have great neighbors. Really, I just love them. One of them is my boss. I love her the most. What? I can be shameless if I want to.

The neighbors immediately to our east are wonderful too. They take great care of us. And by take care of us, I mean bring us cupcakes and cookies and homemade jelly.

Not to mention that they have one of the most beautiful yards on the street. Just last night I opened a window and a lovely floral aroma wafted into my kitchen. No air freshener necessary!

But, the best thing is that there is no competition between us. I mean no competition. At all. As in, none. Here is proof of that…

These are their hostas.

These are mine. See those little green stubs? But, look! Mulch!

This is their pretty, potted plant.

These are mine. Oh, okay! These are last year’s potted plants which are still sitting on my patio.

These are their ferns.

These are my ferns which they gave me after dividing some of theirs a few years ago. Oh, the shame.

This is just one of their flower beds.

And, this is one of mine. At least my dogs have already started digging holes for me. Head start bonus!

This is their well-tilled garden plot from which they will gather vegetables later this year.

And this? Is where I will gather mine.

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Yesterday, a disturbed man entered our church in the middle of mass. He didn’t appear to be homeless, or otherwise in a bad financial state. He was wearing clean, white shorts, sunglasses and had headphones on with music blaring so loud that everyone could hear it.

He walked down the center aisle and sat in a pew near the altar. When our deacon came down the steps and asked him to turn his music off, this man began to yell. Loudly.

A group of men jumped to the deacon’s aide and they escorted the intruder to the back of the church and out a set of doors. One of those men was my husband. My kids began to cry.

I won’t get in to what my husband told me this man said when they were back there, but it was a lot of nonsense and there were some threats made. The police were called. Had I known the words that were coming out of his mouth, I would have taken my kids and ran. The entire ordeal was very unsettling.

I held my weeping son with one arm and had my other arm wrapped around my daughter’s shoulder, pulling her tight. She stared up at me. Then I leaned over and whispered, “Maybe we should pray for him.”

And, once again, I was reminded that she is growing up because she replied, “I already did.”

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Once upon a time there was a mistress named Momo who had two kids and a second set of kids who liked to do things like drink toilet water, eat squirrel poop and steal hamburgers right off the grill. That second set of kids are of the canine variety, though it is true that Momo’s daughter also drank toilet water. Just that one time.

One day, Momo had the opportunity to attend a pet-blogging conference where she could meet a lot of wonderful writers, and pet owners, and companies with representatives who might just know what you can put on one dog’s food to make the other dog stop eating its poop.

Momo’s dogs were quite happy about this event! They were hoping that mistress Momo would bring home some treats, and some more treats, but more than anything they hoped she would come home and just throw the dang ball already.

The End.

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My son was having trouble falling asleep last night. His room was hot, as it usually is, after having the sun shine through his window most of the day, so I told him to climb into my bed where there was enough of a cross-breeze to keep him comfortable.

I lied next to him and watched him drift off. After a few moments of sleeping peacefully, he experienced that sensation of falling where you gasp and your entire body jumps. Then he settled into his pillow and dozed off for the night.

That sensation is called a hypnic jerk and my son used to experience them a lot when he was young, especially when he was sick. And, he was sick all the time.

In the mere seconds it took for his body to jolt, my mind traveled from watching a typical kid going to sleep, to the very ill child I used to know. His hypnic jerk not only shook his body, but shook my memory as well.

I thought of the heart monitor that went off constantly and the sound of him gasping for breath as his nasal passages filled with the contents of his stomach. I remembered watching him play with toys in a hospital crib, three hour long appointments with neonatologists and geneticists and him crying in pain because we just couldn’t get his meds right.

I thought of him weighing 13 pounds on his first birthday and how his GI doctor was this close to putting him back on tube feeds because of it. I remembered therapy sessions where he didn’t do anything but lie there because he simply didn’t have the energy to do anything else.

I thought of his heart diagnosis, his surgeries, and his struggles with eating, crawling, walking and talking.

I remembered everything.

I was reminded that all of those things are deep inside the boy I know now. He is tough, yet parts of his body are still weak. He is strong, but he is very small. He is smart, but still talks like a three year old. He is healthy, for now.

Although his struggles are much easier than they once were, he still faces an uphill battle each and every day.

I needed to be reminded of that; to know that he tries his best and has to work twice as hard as an average kid. I have been trying so hard to make him typical that I have forgotten that he, quite simply, isn’t.

My son is different. He is one of a kind and I wouldn’t want him any other way, even though I forget that sometimes. He is a challenge, but that makes his accomplishments all the more special. I needed to be reminded of how far he has come.

Thanks for the jolt, buddy.

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