If you’ve spent any time at all in BeckyLand, you’ll know I have three grown kids.
The oldest, my beautiful and exceptionally talented writerdaughter (yes, one word ”” the same way a firetruck can only be one thing, so it is true for her), lives and works in Oregon. She’s my go-to editor and first reader. Pretty sure she knows everything about grammar and story construction. And I’m going to pimp her business here, because this pleases me to the depths of my soul. She’s The Essay Doctor ”” helping novelists, students and business people with anything they do involving words. (TheEssayDoc (at) aol (dot) com)
The youngest is a Master at Arms in the Navy, stationed on Guam. MAs are what the Navy calls their police force and my kiddo made his first arrest recently. All my kids are gorgeous and funny as hell and this one regales me with hilarious cop and Navy stories all the time. But they all try to keep the heart-stopping ones to a minimum, for which I’m grateful.
My middle guy is a Navy Corpsman, stationed in Okinawa. He’s the unlikeliest of medical providers, owing to his hair-trigger gag reflex as a child. If I ate a banana with a bruise, he’d gag. It’s a testament to what a truly dedicated medic he has turned into. He delivered a baby in the back of his ambulance all by himself and there was no gagging at all. Remarkable.
He was home on leave recently and bought me a present. Three presents, to be precise. I am somewhat flummoxed by simple things like cake mixes, ATMs, and gas grills. The instructions are either too simple or too complicated. Or both.
But the worst for me is time zones. I can never remember what time or day my kids are living in and they constantly tease me about it. So before he left to go back to Okinawa, he presented me with these for my office wall …
What time is it where you are? Have your kids turned into remarkable people yet?
11 thoughts on “Clocks”
WOW, I think asking people if ‘their kids have turned into remarkable people’ yet might bring you record-breaking responses! Is there really some parent out there who DOESN’T think that? And of course mine have! But since I have 5 kids (and 2 of them also have remarkable spouses I consider my children as well) and I couldn’t begin to keep my admiration brief–I will leave room for someone else. I DO want to say the clock idea is magnificent because that has been an issue for me as well. Luckily, when I had 5 kids in 4 different states *some* time zones were shared–so I only had to remember if they were 2 hours ahead of me or 1 behind. Easy, right? HA.
No, Claudia, not easy at all. I remember once I had a skype date with a friend in Los Angeles for 11am his time. I called him at 10:30 my time because I figured he forgot me. Of course, it was only 9:30 at his house. Gah.
Amazingly, they have! 🙂 (but I’ve always known they would be).
The triple-timezone watch was a necessary gift for my hubby a couple years ago when he was frequently back and forth to Europe, our daughter was in Germany, and our extended family stretched across the States!
You’re a lucky mom.
A triple timezone watch … fancy! There’s absolutely no possible way I’d figure that out, however. I need the very simple at all times. You’re a lucky mom, too … especially since in addition to having generous and remarkable people in your life, you’re also clearly very clever to use such a watch.
It’s like the wall in the studio of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”! Like!
*throwing beret up in air*
What a touchingly thoughtful gift – it made me tear up a little. You must be one heck of a mom to raise kids who think of others like that.
Aw, thanks, Tracy. I will, of course, take credit for every good thing my children do, but I always wonder what we did right. And what we did wrong…..
So AWESOME! I’ve renamed the timezones after where my kids are:
Pacific is now TrevorTime
Mountain = Bridget
Central = Brennan
Eastern is Steffi Central (Because as the oldest, she’s the Center of the World)
I should do some clocks, great idea 😀
That’s why you’re waaaay more awesome than I am, MJ. Not only do you remember what timezone they’re in, you also remember their names! But now I know why I have so much trouble … I thought I was the Center of the World, so I’m always off by several hours every day. I guess Steffi and I will just have to duke it out. Tell her I’ll meet her at, oh, say 1:15 next Tuesday.
Becky, I am so happy I found this. Funny story, hopefully it won’t sound creepy. I was actually just Googling for fun because I am sick. I have a wonderful man in my life named Jeremy who is also stationed in Okinawa as a corpsman. Sometimes I like to Google about the Navy, keep updated on everything, learn all about it, & I’m on several boards with women with sons, husbands, & boyfriends in the Navy. Well, I got curious wondering if Jeremy knew your son Adam & looked at his friends list on Facebook, turns out he does know your son or at least they have met. They are friends on Facebook! This world is so small! Sorry, I just thought that was really cool. [: