The Month of May

May was a rough month.  And not just because my hair is inexplicably falling out in clumps.  A dear family friend passed away very unexpectedly and another is in hospice care while we await the terrible phone call we're all dreading.  Several of my friends are having babies and I am smacked with the reality that I will never be able to have another one even if I want to.  Life, in general, has just been fairly stressful.

I'm sure Mayim and
I would be BFFs if we ever
met. But my love of bacon
would likely come between us.

But this morning I was inspired by a friend of mine.  Okay, she's not really a friend of MINE.  I've never actually met her, but I follow her blog and feel, as I do with Mayim Bialik, that if we were ever to meet we would get along splendidly and be the best of friends.  Yes, I'm a bit of a stalker.  I hang out with people under 4-feet tall all day long.  Sometimes reality gets away from me.

Anyhow, the inspiration:  She reviewed the month of May and posted a bunch of happy pictures of her family.  It seemed like she had a really great month.  She traveled a little and smiled a lot with her family.  I know that life isn't always happy and wonderful but when it's not, sometimes we just need to look at all of the pretty pictures and pretend that it was always happy until that's all that we remember.

So, here is the retrospective of the Gallagher Family's Month of May 2012.

The girls had their dance recital.  One of my children is a fairly good dancer.  The other has a really good time dancing.  We try to be supportive and not to judge.  Cartwheels are hard.

Emily (5) and Mya (8) posing before their dance recital.

We went to the Seneca Park Zoo several times this month.  We have a membership, so I'll often take my two little ones out in the morning after putting their older sister on the bus.  We're usually home in time for Emily to catch her noon bus to Kindergarten.  Usually.

Emily and Jack love to sit on this log.  It must seem really high up to them.

I never realized how big the Sea Lion is until little Jack was standing next to it.

This is just an absurd way for a wild animal to sleep.

We also went to the Syracuse Zoo.

For about four days we had a pair of ducks visiting our front yard twice a day.  We would feed them bread and they would hang out for a couple of hours before waddling down the street somewhere.  We don't know where they came from or where they eventually went off to, but we had a good time visiting with them while they were here.

The ducks let the kids get pretty close to them. 

I made a cake made out of bacon.  That's right.  A cake... with bacon.  It was awesome.

Bacon cake is a beautiful thing.

We planted our vegetable garden in May.  It seems to be doing alright so far, as long as I can keep the squirrels from digging up the plants.  We planted peas, beans, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, corn, tomatoes, carrots and pumpkins.  We also planted a grape vine and some asparagus seeds.  The asparagus takes two years to grow.  I don't know if I can hold out that long.  It seems like quite a commitment for a vegetable.

Peas, Beans and Lettuce in my little garden.

We set up our little pool in the backyard.  There's a great deal of satisfaction that comes with finding each and every tiny pinhole that has mysteriously formed in the inflatable ring while it was stored safely in the box over the winter.  We inevitably miss one and discover 200 of the 500 gallons of water flooding our yard the next morning.  But it's always worth it on a muggy August afternoon.

Practicing for when there's water in it.

Allowing them to "wade" in the pool until it was
filled turned out to be an ill-conceived plan.

We also spent some time at Bill Grays.  My kids are fantastic.

After this picture they decided to make goofy faces.

My three goofballs.

My beautiful Mya.

My precious green-eyed Emily.

My handsome Jack.

We also went to Seabreeze.

The girls got to dance on the stage with their dance teacher.  It was fun.

They are very serious about their moves.

And Memorial Day was epic...

So, when I look back at May 2012 I won't focus on the loss of my dear friend who was like family.  I won't recall that between the time that I wrote the first sentence of this blog and this sentence, I received the horrible call that my friend in hospice had passed away.  I won't think about my hair falling out, or the fact that I can't have any more children.  I won't think about our financial troubles.  I won't remember all the troubles because I will just look at all of the pretty pictures and pretend that it was always happy until all I remember is the smiling faces of my beautiful children and how much fun we've had together.  After all, God didn't promise me that life would be easy.  He only promised that He would get me through it.