The Original Sweet

The jury is still out on whether or not Melissa and I will ever have any children of our own, but fortunately for us BOTH – disregard anything Melissa might try and tell you otherwise – we’re surrounded by plenty of phenomenal kids in our lives, which we LOVE! When you read the word “kids” you probably thought of someone who’s like eight, but know that I always use the term in a pretty broad sense given that a couple of these children are now like nineteen and in college, but they’ll forever be kids to me.

Luckily for me, none of these children regularly read my blogs, so there is little to no chance of any of them ever arguing against what I’m about to tell you and believe me, argue with it they would. If any single one of them – well, except for maybe like three – read the statement I’m about to make, they would call me a liar, but I can assure you, I’m not. The statement that would be so hotly contested amongst the masses is this: I don’t play favorites.

Plain and simple, I just don’t do it. It causes chaos and controversy and you all know me, I’m not about either of those things. I’ve always found it best to treat every single one of those little darlings with the same level of respect and attention they each deserve. Which, naturally, I apply this same mantra to everyone else in my life as well. Playing favorites is such a foreign concept to me that honestly, I’m not even really sure that the word “favorite” is in my vocabulary.

Despite this, I can say that I’m not at all on a two-way street here and I often find myself embroiled in a “who do you like better” tug-of-war style competition between two seemingly warring factions: “The Originals” and “The Replacements.”

These two factions make up the bulk of the children I know and are undoubtedly the most prominent in my life, but again, because I don’t play favorites, this doesn’t make them any better than any of the other groupings. This cold war style battle that these two groups have put themselves in began three years ago when I moved back to St. Louis from California. For my part, I’ve remained completely neutral since this whole struggle is a back and forth of who the original ones in my life were, versus who replaced the other set. Despite my neutrality, I cannot mention either group to the other without receiving an onset of scowls, sighs, and severe looks of disdain all before a barrage of commentary about why the other group is inferior in every which way.

Now who is an “Original” and who is a “Replacement” very much depends upon which group you ask. I wish I could remember which family coined these terms first, but I’ve heard them tossed around so much over these past three years that it’s almost as though they both came up with them simultaneously. Not to mention that by this point it’s not worth figuring something out that both parties will take credit for anyway. Each family thinks that they’re “The Originals” and uses “The Replacements” as a derogatory way to slander the other. “The Originals” means that those kids were the original ones in my life before the others came along to be “The Replacements.” Well, I think it is finally time to lay to rest which family is truly which.

Owing to the fact that I’ve known two of them since birth and the other two since they were the ages of four and two, the Howard children are by default, “The Originals.” I didn’t meet the Montroy kids till they were all eleven, so solely judging on the basis of time, they’re technically, “The Replacements.” BUT AGAIN, these are the terms they all like to use – not me – because as I’ll remind you all once more, I don’t play favorites.

Now remember what I’ve said time and time again throughout this post about not playing favorites because this next passage is going to sound a lot like I do, but again, I don’t. Amongst all these kids, I’ve taken to donning a handful of them with the title “Sweet” ahead of their name. So, we have Sweet Daniel, Sweet (Baby) Garrett, and Sweet Cody, the latter of which is turning eighteen on July 5th and the true reason for this blog. I obviously realize that I just listed three Sweets and a handful of paragraphs ago I said that there’d be three children who’d argue against me playing favorites, but I can assure you, these numbers are purely coincidental and have absolutely nothing to do with favoritism.

Cody is the second of four children to one of my best friends, Jody. Her oldest, Tyler, turns twenty this November, Alex just turned fourteen on June 27 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALEX! And then we have Abbey who’ll be thirteen this September. All four are absolutely hilarious and phenomenal in their own ways, but Sweet Cody will always hold a special place in my heart – a place of course that is just as special as all the others who also weren’t even named in this passage.

Back in 2011 when I began my first period of unemployment (this Coronavirus furlough I’m STILL living with is my third!) I started working with Cody on strengthening his reading skills and helping him with all his daily homework. Melissa and I would meet Jody at Tyler’s soccer practices where I would leave Melissa to hang out with Jody, Alex, and Abbey, while Cody and I went to the Edwardsville Public Library to work on his school stuff.

Cody has always embarrassed easily and one of my favorite memories came as a result of his embarrassment. He and I were downstairs in the children’s section at the library working on his homework when this little girl came around the corner and stopped dead in her tracks at the sight of a then nine year old Cody. After a noticeable pause, which caused both Cody and I to look over at her as she just stood there staring at him, she yelled out probably as loudly as she could, “THERE’S A BBBOOOOOOOYYYYY!” before seating herself at the table closest to us. While she had plenty of books out on the table before her, she wasn’t reading any of them as she was much too busy gazing and smiling at Sweet Cody. It was absolutely adorable and made Cody blush so badly that for the entire rest of the time we were there he looked as red as the bullseye in the Target logo; which so happens to be the place where Melissa and I worked with Jody and began our friendship.

Following that day, I always felt like Cody was secretly terrified that we’d run into that same little girl each time we went to the library thereafter, but alas, we never did and it ended up being a one time thing. Something that was far from being a one time thing and instead was an every time thing was that after each library session, I’d take Cody to Annie’s Frozen Custard. He and I would always get the same things each time: me a chocolate shake and Cody a cookie dough concrete. We’d then sit out at their umbrellaed tables and eat our ice cream until we were both finished before heading back to everyone else at the soccer fields. No one ever knew we went and got custard each time after his studies, for if they did, it would certainly give his brothers and sister grounds to accuse me of playing favorites, which we have all well established I do not.

Another fond memory came when I was speeding through Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and got pulled over by campus security. I told Cody to sit there and look as cute and sweet as possible with his little library book in his lap, so when the police came to my window, they’d see him and let me off with nothing but a warning. Long story short, it worked! They told me to slow down and they were right! Shame on me for speeding when I was chauffeuring such precious cargo!

I could tell of countless more memories of Sweet Cody like how he’d always be my ride buddy each time we’d all go to Holiday World or Six Flags; or how when he and I went to see the 3D release of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, he decided to leave his hat in the car because he didn’t want to block anyone’s view of the movie who might be sitting behind us (he was ten at the time); then a handful of years later, HE DROVE ME and Alex to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi; or that he’d play restaurant and cook and prepare dinner for his younger brother and sister time and time again; and it should be noted that Cody is the ONLY ONE of the eight in contest that has never used the terms: “The Originals” or “The Replacements” because he’s just that sweet. In the sixteen years I’ve known Cody, I’ve never once heard of him ever doing anything bad, which I know has been a real blessing for my dear friend, Jody, given how alternatively amazing her other three have been. I can only hope that should Melissa and I ever have a son of our own, he turns out to be even just 1/100th as perfect as Sweet Cody because he really is the best – better than all the rest.

Understand that last part to be nothing more than just Tina Turner song lyrics and not an endorsement of Cody as my absolute #1 favorite.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CODY! I hope your eighteenth year is every bit as phenomenal and amazing as you are and I cannot wait to create a whole slew of new memories with you as the years play on!

I need everyone to know this now: Spring of 2021 is going to be an unbelievably difficult time for me emotionally as Melissa and I have seven of our kids graduating high school. Our niece, Madison; our could-be nephew, Sweet Daniel; Colsen and the triplets: Gabby, Sweet (Baby) Garrett, and Logan; and lastly, Sweet Cody. I’m tearing up now just typing all this out and these graduations are essentially a year away! Just know that I’ll be spending all of next May and June wallowing in my emotions. There better be a vaccine for COVID-19 by then because after all those graduations, I’m going to need an emergency vacation to Disney’s Aulani Resort in Hawaii!

As always, thank you all for reading and please feel free to leave a comment below – unless of course it happens to be your misconstrued version of a time when you believe I showcased favoritism because I think by now we have all established those times simply do not exist! I’ll return next week with an all new post, but until then, I hope each of you has THE BEST week ever!