Derek Coward » family

Stephen’s Birthday Party

Derek Coward — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:43:54 +0000

Yesterday Stephen had a shared birthday party with his cousin Mya, who is a year older. It was at Chuck E Cheese’s and it was a pretty good time. I was tired so I found one spot and stayed there until I was told we had to move out of the party area and head to the general public area. So I found another spot and sat there until it was time to go.

When we first go there, Stephen didn’t want to do anything except sit next to me. That was until the pizza came. He ate, the kids opened presents and he ended up having a pretty good day.

There was really only one present he wanted and as you can see he got it. Not to say that he didn’t appreciate getting the other gifts, but it was very obvious which one was his favorite.

I think it is a little weird that he is so into Mario because I remember playing Donkey Kong on the Atari 2600 with my cousins. For some reason, he doesn’t think that Mario has been around for so long.

Gabryale also attended the party and spent some time with her granddad. Every time I put my phone down, she would pick it up and hand it to me. So I took a picture.

I tried a couple of times to get her to smile, but she wasn’t having any of that.

The Family Reunion

Derek Coward — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:36:57 +0000

July 25, 2009. We had a family reunion at David Shepherd Park in Oak Park, MI. We only got rained on once and everybody seemed to have a good time. I hope to get more pictures sent to me from others who were there, but in the meantime, here are a few that I took:

There are a few more at the Flickr site. As I get some more I will definitely share them.

Happy Birthday Jaymie

Derek Coward — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:37:51 +0000

Keeping with the tradition of me posting birthday wishes late, my oldest child Jaymie turned 27 this week. That makes me feel older than all the aches, pains and gray hairs combined. But that’s a good “old” feeling. She has always had the uncanny ability to make me feel old for no reason. Once I was driving her to school and the song “Da Da Da (I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me)” by Trio came on the radio. I think it was being used as part of an ad campaign at the time but I can’t exactly remember. So I said to her “You know, that song was the first 45 I ever bought.”

Without missing a beat, turning her head to look at me or even cracking a smile, she said “What’s that? One of those record things you’re always going on about?” She totally stopped me in my tracks, I took my eyes off the road and just said “Shut up.” That’s when the smile came out.

And as you can tell from the picture with my granddaughter Gabryale, Jaymie has a great smile.

Happy Birthday Aunt Cheryl (belated of course)

Derek Coward — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:27:01 +0000

July 19 is the birthday of my Aunt Cheryl. She wasn’t at home when I called her, but luckily we live in the Future Age of Technological Wonders and I was able to reach her on her cell phone. Our conversation was very quick, less than a minute quick, but the high points were “Happy Birthday”, “I love you” and “I’ll talk to you later.” In the long run, isn’t that really all that matters when you call someone on their birthday?

Five Generational Picture

Derek Coward — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:36:31 +0000

This is a picture of my grandmother, my granddaughter Gabryale, my daughter Jaymie, my mother and me. It was taken by my other daughter Jazmyn on Thanksgiving 2008. I have no idea why it was datestamped 6/16/2007.

This was the first time that Gabryale had met my mother and grandmother. At first she didn’t want to go to anyone but Jaymie (and begrudgingly to Jazmyn), but for some reason she wanted to go to my grandmother. After two minutes, she didn’t want to go anyone else.

My mother and grandmother had already been there for hours by the time the girls showed up and were ready to leave. My mother works midnights and while she had already took a nap on my couch, she wanted to go home and try to catch a few minutes before she had to get up again. However, I don’t think it worked out that way.

When my grandmother handed Gaby back to Jaymie, the baby started to cry and howl. Her reaction to being separated from her great-grandmother took everybody by surprise. The only other time that I had ever seen her that upset was when I was holding her and she didn’t want me holding her. She cried the tears of separation until my grandmother was no longer in sight.

She sniffled a little while and my daughters kept giving her a pacifier, which I immediately took out of her mouth every time and since she didn’t fight me about it, I guess I did the right thing. Finally she just looked at me for a while and let me hold her.

It occurred to me much later that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well. OK, actually Patti had to point it out that I should have gotten a picture with Jazmyn and Stephen as well.

Overall, it was a pretty good night.