MeInMaine Blog

Tag: maine families

  • When Your Kids Are In Their Home Beds, Behind Closed Door Safe And Sound.

    Maine Wildlife, Hitting Moose, Deer, Bear At Night.
    No Injuries, Well Except The Maine Black Bear Had A Goose Egg On His Noggin.

    Raising kids is the most rewarding privilege, honor a parent could ever have.

    And after years of feeding, clothing, teaching them right from wrong and saying their prayers with the stories before lights out, you never lose the worrying part. Because you love them. Family is the top priority no matter what. You, the Maine village, other family members, the teachers, sports coaches, pastor… all helped shape them into young adults. And would do anything to keep them out of harm’s way even after they leave home.

    You sometimes forget just how attached, connected, much you actually worry about kids who have left the nest when they return for a stint.

    The volume of that tug of the heart glows ET brighter. The two boys were able to work a couple weeks of Maine potato harvest this fall before both bee lined, headed due west to Colorado. And with a loaded up red jeep called Sally that four kids developed their earliest driving skills in, the pair headed down Interstate 95. And in Howland Maine in the highway darkness met up, tangled with a black bear. No other cars, no property damage but Sally took a hit. The bear had had better days too. Probably won’t forget the rendezvous. The dance spin into the back door of the jeep after kissing the front corner of the Grand Cherokee chartered for Colorado.

    So back to home base, regroup, down size the cargo freight weight for the heading west mission. Shoe horn, hop in the teeny tiny t roof black Del Sol Honda. All waxed, fluids checked, waiting and ready to be whipped into service when the call to the used car bull pen came in.

    The thought of boy I am so glad that thump from the Maine black bear that took out the front driver’s side fender, rear passenger door, one headlight eye and half the bumper did not cause the vehicle to roll.

    Skid out of control. Go end over end with gruesome results to the most precious cargo, the two brothers. As a parent you think for a moment of wheel chairs, hospital beep beep monitors and aluminum flip charts, funeral homes, visiting hours. And thank God, count our blessings instead. Because a little sheet metal can be fixed. Kids can not be replaced. You could never hammer out that hole in the heart left in the rest of the family, small Maine community that had a hand in the building of a young grasshopper into a young adult.

    As they head west in the shuttle not the Starship Sally Enterprise. With nightly calls, daily texts and using the communicator to beam in. Determine just exactly where they are now on the big USA GPS map along the way. And tie in those coordinates with lap top, tag teaming with James T Kirk. To help find the best for the least. A motel room near I-70 for once they’ve had enough collecting mile markers. The gong sounds. Signalling the end of the long driving day.

    To shift into sleep mode after putting on the feedbag for something not dropped out of a rest area, service center vending machine.

    The head to bed for the night and some much needed shut eye, Zzzzz’s manufacture. Getting off the highway just in time to stretch out, relax. See the Red Sox lose to the Tigers last night by 1-0 in the opener of the playoffs. Darn.

    Maine Kids, Protecting Them, Worrying About Them.
    The Replacement, Utility Hitter For The Ride West.

    Growing up, when you crack the door to their rooms after the nightly ritual of getting them ready for bed. To check in, make sure they are warm, covered. Pick up the caught trying to escape stuffed animal or their special, high mileage blanket off the floor. And with a peck on the cheek to stand back. To take a one by one last glimpse of the miracle, wonderment of having a quiver full of kids. That you would do anything to protect.

    Glad Sally got the boys through the head on with a hard charging Maine black bear.

    And with the help of local parts providers, a skilled auto body man wearing a mask, with a pry bar in one hand, a paint gun in the other she will get the wrinkles removed. To be tip top, ship shape and ready for another adventure when any of the kids come home. Need a rig to throw a canoe on the top to head to Baxter for a hike, some paddling, camping under the stars.

    We Mainers get attached to our vehicles because we hang on to them, take care of them and they are involved in major chunks of our life. Not traded every year for something new, shiny and that come saddled with a heavy payment booklet to boot. Small town Maine living is so so vastly different than the approach to life living in the concrete urban jungle.

    Sally’s in sick bay, taking a pit stop. She, I will be waiting, on stand by until that moment of a kid’s return happens. When the children’s path brings them back to their Maine hometown. To be safe and sound in their original beds. Maine, it’s all about family. It starts, ends with the most sacred institution that affects, influences all the rest of life’s journey.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Special Times Spent With One Maine Kid At A Time.

    Spending Time With Your Kids After They Grow Up And Out.
    Maine Ski Trips, Easy Way To Stay In Touch, Enjoy Your Kids After They Grow Up And Out.

    There is nothing like a quiver full of kids, children to enrich your life when you live in a rural state like Maine.

    Activities outdoors, all four seasons are the norm for Maine family living. I had the priviledge to be blessed with four kids, two step children. All unique, special, individual just like you and me.

    Group trips to Akron Ohio for soap box derby racing’s World Series of downhill excitement were special the two times we all went west. Ski trips here and there. Cruise vacations with a boat bobbing on blue green water were fun with a bunch of kids too.

    But one at a time events with your kids.

    Where the child does not have to share you or take turns. Having you, plus you them, all to yourself is needed too.

    Today on the ride in to the real estate office from the lake I thought of oldest daughter Elizabeth. And just she and I jumping in a white Jeep when she was five. And heading to Beaver Cove Marina in Greenville to fetch a boat that was bought over the phone. Needing to be picked up.

    I texted her this morning and asked her if she remembered the trip. She lets me know what is happening where she lives in NYC with back and forth text communications. A call once in a while.

    Or the time just she and I went to her Mom’s brother’s wedding in The Forks.

    Because her Mom was not able to travel, had to stay home and due to have enough child soon. The child being the center of all your attention is healthy, special.

    Riding a Maine ski lift talking to just one or two of the kids due to seating. Or one child having to stay home due to last minute sickness. And shuttled to the farm for expert care from Nurse Nana. The trip not canceled, but one member missing the outing due to illness. With the show going on without them.

    Had one of those ski trips to Rangley Lake to swish swish down Saddleback Mountain.

    Where Elliot, the youngest had to bow out due to the flu that arrived just as we loaded him in to the jeep. Ready to leave the driveway when oh oh, here comes breakfast. Again.

    Building one soap box derby car at a time in the basement with each kid. Teaching them about allen wrenches, steering turn buckle cables, washers, nuts and bolts. Then guiding each down the lanes, advising as Mr Goodwrench for support.

    Or even spending time in the hospital waiting room while a bottle of vital Vitamin B mixture is IV pole dripped in to another step daughter. While watching a movie or delivering a pizza, something to eat.

    Or walking between little league fields to juggle two baseball games with different kids not on the same teams.

    Not on the same level of games due to age differences. Doing the best you can to attend individual games for hockey, baseball or basketball, soccer, tennis, track and field as well as group trips with all aboard. Helping find their first car within a budget. One on one. Trips for teeth brace tightening. To college campuses for tours on which one for the sheep skin.

    When college happens, loading up the SUV to deliver the kids to dorms, out of state schools becomes the new activitiy. Video those college trips, take pictures of cross country trips with just you and one child. As a parent, the teaching never stops to prepare each and every kid for the wild blue yonder. College experiences are the threshold of their lives on their own, not with you day to day.

    Trip To Colorado College With Youngest, Elliot Video

    Looking back before empty nest syndrome, you wonder how you did it all. But savor the times when lots of kids in the home. And many of their friends in and out growing up in a small Maine town. Enjoy your kids, one at a time, collectively. Finish raising those kids. Put them first and foremost. Video those college graduations. Keep taking those Maine ski trips, other family vacations. Make the time.

    Maine, the place to raise a family. Have kids with their heads screwed on straight and happy, productive, not with their hands out expecting something for nothing.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com

  • Maine, Working Hard, Family First, Keeping It Simple.

    “Well la de da”…. is not the typical way people in Maine lead their lives.

    Kids Feel Loved, Have A Place On A Maine Family Farm
    Learning To Work Hard For What You Have, Earning It On Your Own.
    Local wages are lower, the standard of living kept simple, plain, without excesses because of it. Out to impress, calling attention to yourself is not the norm in Maine. Family is. You provide for that family first and foremost. It should be the strongest purpose in life, the source of all your joy, contentment. Where you give and receive loving attention under the guidance of God’s daily instruction.

    I grew up in a household in Maine without the ravages of alcoholism. I did not have one parent that dominated the other, I did not see maniuplation or live under a judgemental critical spirit. There was no holier than thou tutelage taught to the household. We were neither in steerage or first class.

    What you saw was who we are. No better or worse than anyone else around us. All beginners in consideration for others, not our own selfish designs to impress or need to have anyone else envy us. We did not seek to call attention to ourselves. No one in our household was a carrier, would test positive for a character of unrepentive sin, idolatry of someone with a destructive Jezebel spirit.

    Everyone in the family was unique. A special instrument contributing to the harmony for the common good of what happened inside, outside those four walls. No one put on airs, a show outside the Maine home and there was transparency.

    There was not a sharp cutting tongue putting down anyone in our household growing up.

    No one tip toed because heads would roll if you did not. There was pure strong love. Both parents thought they had gotten the better end of the trade in the marriage.

    No one thinking he or she deserved more in a mate.

    No one pregnant, forced to get married and dragged to the altar for the knot tying or resentful because they were sure they deserved better. And did not care who knew it, inside or outside the four walls. No parent trying to change the other but working on adjustment, tinkering within themselves to improve the performance of the marriage.

    I saw a Dad that openly expressed love to my Mom. Affectionately calling her “Weeze” or “Mother” her special title as the ring leader for raising the four boys. Dad giving her a hug, kiss and saying I love you heard, seen, felt though out my childhood. Kids seeing that beam, both parents are working together. You felt the unending love. Conflicts, good and tough times came up, but there was a common connection. Family love was the glue that cemented it rock tight. They took turns, shared the reins guiding, shaping the family.

    The marriage started from scratch, lasting over sixty years and everything they had they toiled to earn together. No second marriages where one mate was out to better their financial station in life. Leaving one mate with distaste in their mouth and blamed for everything wrong in the marriage. To upgrade to one with a more income zero places on their tax return. And the sole attraction to tap in to a money pit to live a more lavish lifestyle to impress others with their new found financial success. That is shallow, arrogant, selfish and your kids placed second to the need for money to get attention and artificial happiness.

    A marriage is not supposed to always be happy, it is suppose to be holy.

    Both my parents were spiritual, and during discourse would retreat, lick their wounds and consider where their thinking needed adjustment. And apologies presented. Forgiveness on both sides extended and received. It was not one way where there was an alpha male or female dominating the wrinkle smoothing when offenses happened. You saw ownership of who did what that rubbed the other the wrong way. I did not see manipulation to get one to do what the other wanted. They did not play mind games.

    If one parent had always been the one beat down, to come up short, made to feel the blame and shame for not measuring up, resentment would have in time filled the family home.

    The toxins tainting the way the kids in that family grew up to raise their brood. In a healthy family relationship you all build for the common good of the household. Rather than develop unhealthy coping skills to survive and take care of yourself to get what you think you need and deserve.

    When you grow up on a Maine family farm, you see your parents, brothers, sisters more than the nine to five routine households.

    You eat breakfast, lunch, supper together. No one runs out the door to catch a train, do the morning commute to work. You live where you work. The barn for chores with critters, the neighboring fields to labor in. To create, plant, cultivate, harvest crops working around the weather and market conditions. To feed your family, with left over to sell to maintain that farm house, out buildings. To provide the shelter, food, surroundings for your kids and a place attached to the rear of the home for a set of elderly parents.

    At the center of a strong, down to earth Mainer’s life is the family. Bumps, bruises, warts and all. You’re in a family. Something to learn from, cling to during the ups and downs of life. Maine real estate buyers often comment that boy, these small town folks are friendly, helpful, hardworking but pretty much day to day life is centered around church, their families, outdoor recreation. It makes it harder for singles, couples without kids or extended families in the area because of it. Watch some Maine farm real estate videos. Not a bad place to raise a family, provide healthy education for your kids.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com