I shared a nice meal tonight with the girls.
It was a very quiet meal.
Actually, I'm not sure I "shared" the meal with them at all. It was more like we sat at the same table, in the same restaurant, and all three of us ate.
Alex and Maryssa brought books with them to the restaurant. I should have known better, but I let them bring the books.
We ate our meal in silence, with short breaks of "Hey, this is good," and "Can you pass the ketchup?" in between. They were immersed in the books and I was happy to just sit there.
It felt rather odd, though, to be in the middle of a restaurant eating in silence while other families and groups of friends laughed and chatted around us. Only one lady noticed what was going on, and she came by to make this astute observation: "They could be doing worse things!"
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Waiting for Christmas
I’ve been wrestling with this question quite a bit, and actually, hiding from what the answer might be. The question is:
“At what point will my children stop being “children” or even “kids” and turn into the dreaded pre-teen, have-an-attitude, don’t-mess-with-me-mom-you’re-not-that-cool, middle-school, tweens that I know are hiding inside of their little bodies?”
A friend of mine gave me some perspective yesterday, and I hope you don’t mind me repeating this, Joanne, but she said this:
“The first half of fifth grade is very different from the second half. In the first half, it’s a lot like fourth grade. But then in the second half, oh boy, watch out. You’d better enjoy Christmas this year, because it’s the last one like it you’ll ever have.”
I’m assuming my friend knows what she’s talking about. She has a daughter who’s in middle school, so she’s been there. And she has another daughter who’s a bit younger, so she knows she’ll have to go through it again.
So I thought, is it really that late? Christmas is only 124 days away, so that’s not really much time to fit in all the fun kid-things that we’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time to schedule. I mean, we haven’t even gone to Disney yet!
On the other hand, I suppose there’s hope in the fact that my friend didn’t say things were BAD after Christmas, she only indicated that they were DIFFERENT. And I know her daughter, she’s sweet and nice.
So I’ve decided not to worry too much about the question I posed earlier. Change will come, and chances are I won’t quite be ready. And if worse comes to worse, I’ll just call my friend Joanne and have her bring her daughter over for a few hours.
At the end of the day, I think I’d rather live with my girls the way they are now and have as much fun as possible instead of waiting for Christmas to get here.
“At what point will my children stop being “children” or even “kids” and turn into the dreaded pre-teen, have-an-attitude, don’t-mess-with-me-mom-you’re-not-that-cool, middle-school, tweens that I know are hiding inside of their little bodies?”
A friend of mine gave me some perspective yesterday, and I hope you don’t mind me repeating this, Joanne, but she said this:
“The first half of fifth grade is very different from the second half. In the first half, it’s a lot like fourth grade. But then in the second half, oh boy, watch out. You’d better enjoy Christmas this year, because it’s the last one like it you’ll ever have.”
I’m assuming my friend knows what she’s talking about. She has a daughter who’s in middle school, so she’s been there. And she has another daughter who’s a bit younger, so she knows she’ll have to go through it again.
So I thought, is it really that late? Christmas is only 124 days away, so that’s not really much time to fit in all the fun kid-things that we’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time to schedule. I mean, we haven’t even gone to Disney yet!
On the other hand, I suppose there’s hope in the fact that my friend didn’t say things were BAD after Christmas, she only indicated that they were DIFFERENT. And I know her daughter, she’s sweet and nice.
So I’ve decided not to worry too much about the question I posed earlier. Change will come, and chances are I won’t quite be ready. And if worse comes to worse, I’ll just call my friend Joanne and have her bring her daughter over for a few hours.
At the end of the day, I think I’d rather live with my girls the way they are now and have as much fun as possible instead of waiting for Christmas to get here.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Scary Milestone
Milestone = bra shopping.
So I bought the girls their first bras yesterday. I don’t know if it counts as their “first bra” or not, though. Because I bought athletic bras, and I basically went to Target and bought the smallest size they had in two different colors.
No trying on, no sizing or measuring. No embarrassment.
So in the whole scheme of things, it was relatively painless. Other than the mental issues I had as I held up those athletic bras – which I could tell would still be too big – and imagined how to explain why they needed to wear them.
The surprise came when I told them what I'd bought and showed them the goods. I got a shrug and an “ok, that’s cool.”
No blushing.
Shouldn’t this be harder?
So I bought the girls their first bras yesterday. I don’t know if it counts as their “first bra” or not, though. Because I bought athletic bras, and I basically went to Target and bought the smallest size they had in two different colors.
No trying on, no sizing or measuring. No embarrassment.
So in the whole scheme of things, it was relatively painless. Other than the mental issues I had as I held up those athletic bras – which I could tell would still be too big – and imagined how to explain why they needed to wear them.
The surprise came when I told them what I'd bought and showed them the goods. I got a shrug and an “ok, that’s cool.”
No blushing.
Shouldn’t this be harder?
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Camp
Remember camp? Day camp, overnight camp, whatever. Most people I know went at some point.
I remember certain things, mostly the days where I learned "new stuff" or was terribly embarrassed by something.
The girls went to Camp Ranoca this summer (R-A for Raleigh, N-O for North, C-A for Carolina, of course! as the song goes...) One night during the week there was a sleep over and apparently this is one of those days they’ll remember, because they learned about spin-the-bottle.
I know! Ahhhhhhh!
After a bit of prompting, however, they revealed that there were these other girls who snuck out of their tent and got in trouble because they were playing spin-the-bottle “hug version” with some of the boys.
Should it make me feel better, that they didn’t play, and that it was the "hug-version"? Maybe, but it doesn’t.
I remember certain things, mostly the days where I learned "new stuff" or was terribly embarrassed by something.
The girls went to Camp Ranoca this summer (R-A for Raleigh, N-O for North, C-A for Carolina, of course! as the song goes...) One night during the week there was a sleep over and apparently this is one of those days they’ll remember, because they learned about spin-the-bottle.
I know! Ahhhhhhh!
After a bit of prompting, however, they revealed that there were these other girls who snuck out of their tent and got in trouble because they were playing spin-the-bottle “hug version” with some of the boys.
Should it make me feel better, that they didn’t play, and that it was the "hug-version"? Maybe, but it doesn’t.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Time to reflect...
What makes you reflect? On life, times, memories?
My children turned 10 years old on June 1st.
For those of you who know me, you know that I and whatever’s happening around me move pretty fast. Always something going on, some project, some event or episode. So it should come as no surprise to you that this 10 year milestone came as a TOTAL surprise to me.
I don’t know why it shocked me so. I mean, they’re only 10. Not teenagers, not college students. Just 5th graders with a bit of an attitude. But it did shock me enough to go look at old photos, look through their schoolwork from kindergarten and almost pull out the videos.
What really got me, though, was not the nostalgia. Years of cute smiles, giggles and girly pink dresses didn’t get to me nearly as much as the fact that – I actually made it 10 years! And they’re not screwed up! I’m not screwed up!
Really, what did you expect? A mushy memory-ridden musing? From me? Never.
People, I have brought up two children to the 10-year mark who have good grades, polite manners, can tie their own shoes, know how to swim, can make (or open) their own breakfast, bathe themselves and have pretty hair.
I consider this the greatest single accomplishment of my life.
Add to it that I did this while holding down a full time job, and remaining married to my husband, and I feel like Wonder Woman!
One can only be left to wonder what the next 10 years will be like…
My children turned 10 years old on June 1st.
For those of you who know me, you know that I and whatever’s happening around me move pretty fast. Always something going on, some project, some event or episode. So it should come as no surprise to you that this 10 year milestone came as a TOTAL surprise to me.
I don’t know why it shocked me so. I mean, they’re only 10. Not teenagers, not college students. Just 5th graders with a bit of an attitude. But it did shock me enough to go look at old photos, look through their schoolwork from kindergarten and almost pull out the videos.
What really got me, though, was not the nostalgia. Years of cute smiles, giggles and girly pink dresses didn’t get to me nearly as much as the fact that – I actually made it 10 years! And they’re not screwed up! I’m not screwed up!
Really, what did you expect? A mushy memory-ridden musing? From me? Never.
People, I have brought up two children to the 10-year mark who have good grades, polite manners, can tie their own shoes, know how to swim, can make (or open) their own breakfast, bathe themselves and have pretty hair.
I consider this the greatest single accomplishment of my life.
Add to it that I did this while holding down a full time job, and remaining married to my husband, and I feel like Wonder Woman!
One can only be left to wonder what the next 10 years will be like…
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