Live wire

A matter of days after my last blog post things with my Dad came to a head. Like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Hello Kitty float head.
We had gone to Houston and picked up my Mom that weekend which ended up in me just spilling my guts to my Mom about my health, depression and anxiety. Her eyes bugged out of her head, it was awesome. The trip all in all was good. It was great to see my Grandfather, steady as ever. Once we got back to Austin though, things changed, like always. My mom...sheesh, you know what, I'm not even going to go there. Lets just say she is drama personified.
My mom had been with us for about 24 hours when my Dad started being like Grumplestiltskin. Let me paint you a picture...he's 76 years old. Sleeps about 18/24 hours of the day in our living room. The only common space in our 1400sq.ft. apartment. So, naturally our kids are going to be in there too, and naturally, they're not very quiet. So he in turn gets annoyed very easily with their noise. They were being kids, around 8:30 at night and we were getting ready to put Parker down for the night. Parker loves shoes, and my Dad always leaves his right on the side of the couch, where he sleeps. So when my Dad got up and saw that his shoes weren't where he left them he got up, looked at my girls and yelled "Where are my God Dammed Shoes?!" when they were about 3 feet from where he put them. Howard hears this behavior (My dad NEVER acts up around Howard, EVER) and gets his shoes and hands them to him and says "You do not need to speak to the kids like that, ever, so please calm down" and then follows me into the room with Parker to put him to bed. My Dad gets up and follows us into the nursery, gets in Howard's face and starts screaming at him. Calling him 'boy' telling him that he can't talk to him like that, cussing and screaming. Howard very calmly puts Parker in my arms (yes he was holding him at the time) and backs my Dad out of the room, calls the girls into the room with me and shuts the door. They then go at it...my Dad is out of control...completely losing it at Howard. Howard at this point gives it right back and tells my Dad if he is going to be like this, he needs to leave right now. He went outside, and stayed out there until about 4am until he came back inside and went to sleep.

Since then, he has been pretty calm and hasn't had too many issues. He has not discussed this, nor apologized for his behavior. It's been over a month and the kids are still wary.

Thanksgiving was great. Family and friends were here, food was wonderful. Our awesome newlywed friends Jamie and Brion actually brought over a live dessert and cooking lesson....deep fried Snickers and Reese's peanut buttercups.

The past few weeks have been filled with getting ready for Christmas, getting all my ducks in a row for my PTA event in January and being sick. I can't seem to shake this cold, bronchial, sinus crap. NOT FUN.

This past weekend was spent at my Grandfather's house for our families Christmas gathering and my Grandfather's 90th birthday celebration...but that's a whole 'nother entry.

-Kristin