In the quiet round these here parts…

I continue to become larger and larger. Speaking of my expanding abdomen, Brian says, "It's like an Imperial Star Destroyer, you can't ignore it..."

Everything is perfect! Perfect I tell you! I kick my mommy ruthlessly, following in the footsteps of my big sister! Oh yeah, did I mention I'm a girl? And my name is Alice Elizabeth?

Note to self, girl’s got attitude. Also? Must find scanner, to scan in decent pictures of Alice’s cuteness. Also? Must buy new camera. Must.  Cell phone camera not cutting it.

We were wondering where poor Alice was going to find room to snuggle... I'm guessing Boo is going to be finding a new snuggle spot...

God, I REALLY need a new camera... This is a normal evening activity at our house. Emma will balance Alice on her, and then our circus act will be complete. It's nice to know we'll always have employment.

Letter to my daughter

Dear Emma,

You are everything I hoped you’d be. You are hugs and kisses, moments of exasperation, sleepless nights and nights where you sleeping next to me is the best feeling in the world. You are one exploratory minute after the next, and everyday I am amazed at your capacity for learning and endless curiosity and willingness to try anything.

You have such an ability for learning.  I’d say smart, but you made mama take college courses to keep up with you, and one thing I learned is that no one is smart, that our brains have infinite capacity and you are intent on using yours and doing the best you can. You are smart because you try so hard, and have such a hunger to learn. I am proud of you.  I am so very very proud. I went to parent teacher conferences and really, the things you have to work on are things you should know at the beginning of next year.  I’m silly because I got worked up when I felt like the teacher was criticizing you, but really, she wasn’t. No one else in your class can do what you do right now. No matter how much you know you will always have room for growth. I’m grateful for a teacher who can point that out.

One part of me is really really happy you are beautiful.  You look like me, but I can tell you that you will be a thousand times more lovely that I am when you grow up. You also somehow have athletic ability, which certainly didn’t come from me.  This Saturday is your first soccer game. Your daddy will be coaching you and he’s very excited. When I see the two of you together I am forever amazed at how perfectly you belong together.

I have regretted many things in my life, but I have never for one second regretted you. Looking at you makes my regrets worthwhile, since the paths I took led me to you.

Being your mama has led me down a path to being a better, stronger person.  The thought of you was what let me leave my first marriage, since I figured out I’d never be good enough in his eyes to be a mother.  The reality of you let me leave the second marriage, because you deserve every safety and protection a child can have.  You also deserve a mother who loves herself as much as she loves you. You deserve to see your mother loved and valued. Being your mother taught me to love myself and appreciate my strengths. Being your mother has taught me my own value as a human being, and taught me to stand up for myself, and demand that I be treated well.

I work harder, I pick up more trash, I recycle more cans, and I do it for you, because I believe I’d better leave you this world I invited you to join in the best condition I can.  And I am not alone. There are other people working just as hard as I am. So when you become discouraged because you don’t feel that you can make a difference, then just try a little harder. You will never regret trying harder, but you might regret inaction. I am proud that you, at age seven, are a protector of children who need help, that you do not stand by and let other children be hurt and bullied. I hope you can always continue that, even though I know sometimes it will lead to you being hurt.   I don’t want you to be hurt. But I also never want you to stand by and watch an evil being done either. I know you are good, and I have faith in you.

Becoming your mama has changed who I am, from my religion and politics,  my sensitivity to the horrors this world contains but also to the great good it contains. Little Sweetheart, Little Bella Boo, my SnuggaBuggaBoo, my little Lovey, the world is beautiful  and full of beautiful people and I see it better because of you.

You are everything that is right with the world.  You are the solution. You are everthing I hoped you would be and you are so much more.

All my love,

Mama

Inexplicable

Inexplicable how one minute they are tiny infants and the next they are reading and writing.

Had some pictures taken, this is one of the proofs. I'm evil- I couldn't wait for the disc to get here to share, so here is a sneak peak. This one is my favorite!

And have two wiggly loose teeth.  I’m not sure why the teeth have me all weepy, but they do.

Such is parenthood, I guess.  Always bittersweet.

In which we pat ourselves on the back for having a great child.

Emma is brilliant. No, that’s not just me being a proud mama, she is truly brilliant.  Her kindergarten teacher told me so!

They’ve changed grading systems this year and while she can’t test for advanced placement in kindergarten she says Emma is more than advanced.  She seemed surprised that I didn’t know.  I’ve always known Emma was smart, I just never considered she might be smarter than other kids her age. (Well, after volunteering I knew, but I don’t ever want to be the stuck up parent who thinks my kid is SOOOO smart!)

I really like her teacher, she’s so sweet (just like a kindergarten teacher needs to be) and when I walked in she said “I don’t feel like you even need to be here! You’ve volunteered enough to know how we run things and you know how smart she is! Emma is so sweet and so kind to the other kids, and she helps the ones who don’t quite get it.  She so bright and fun and clever and sensitive and affectionate, I wish I had 20 like her in my class!  She makes my job easy!”

What mother wouldn’t like to hear that?

She also told me there is a little boy with some undiagnosed learning problems who can also be not very nice (probably because he’s frustrated, poor little guy, I’ve worked with him) and she says Emma is always kind to him.  Which makes me happy.  Smart and Kind. That’s my girl.

 

In which I mix children’s tv shows and cusswords.

Since I have a young child I’m fairly well versed in all the shows on PBS.  We don’t have cable or satellite because #1 I’m cheap and don’t see the value and #2 we are trying to save money and pay off debt so we can breed.

I let Emma watch no more than an hour of TV every day (not counting the movies we watch together) in the mornings after she’s gotten ready for school.

I’m pretty cool with MOST of the programs on PBS except for one program which I can’t stand.  Its called Caillou and its fucking BAD.  I LOATHE IT!  The main character is a little boy who clearly needs… I don’t know what he needs but I can’t stand him.  I’ve worked in daycares, volunteered with kids of all ages, babysat and I’ve never met a kid like that. It’s like the creators took every annoying quality a child can have and multiplied it by TEN.  And his voice…..Shudder….  I mean, I don’t think the kids parents even like him very much.  One of the few episodes I ever watched Caillou’s mom took him to work for the morning. Lunchtime came and then his dad came to get him.  She couldn’t even handle a full day with him.  I bet she was whispering into the phone “Come and get him! He’s so fucking annoying my coworkers are going to throw him down the elevator shaft!”  (But kudo’s to whomever had the dad be a SAHD, that totally rocks!)

I don’t know if I have a point other than the fact that Ya, PBS, BARNEY is better than CAILLOU!  FUCKING BARNEY!

Thing that make me smile

http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/

My sister in law’s www.babysites.com page.  I’m going to be an auntie in March again!

Tomorrow is Friday.  I am giving blood.

This is our weekend with Emma.  This makes us happy!

Corn maizes!

We are going for a train ride!  Emma will get to pick out her very own pumpkin from the pumpkin patch!  How awesome is that?

In other news…

The foreclosed meth house that the police officers told me had to be torn down (because of the meth lab underneath the house) now has squatters!  OH!  The JOY!   What kind of idiots want to live in a house like that and what can we do about it?  The bank so far is not doing anything with it, because it’s only worth the land it’s on.  Low on their priority list.

I’m joining the Idaho Athletic Club and it shall be great and glorious.  But I’m not doing it this week because I’m slightly not feeling good.

A first grader called my almost six year old daughter “HOT”.   Brian has threatened to murder him. She has also asked about “sex”, especially after her other dad let her watch inappropriate things last time she was with him.  I have taken proactive steps and ordered the books “Everything you never wanted your kids to know about sex, but were afraid they’d ask : the secret to surviving your child’s sexual development from birth to the teens” and “What’s the big secret? : talking about sex with girls and boys”.  So now I have to practice saying “The penis goes in the vagina”.  I told Brian that and he asked if we really had to tell her about “all that”.  I said, “Yes, if she’s old enough to be told lies then she needs the truth.”

I’ve officially started my life list.

I swear, by all that is holy, that I am going to hang ONE DAMN PICTURE this week, if it kills me.

I am taking a parenting class on Wednesdays (cause I wanted Jeff to take it and he only agreed to it if I’d take it too, except he still hasn’t taken it and he’s going to be pissed when he gets in trouble with the judge for not taking it) and I’m the only parent there who hasn’t A: lost custody of my child and B: Done Meth.  I’m the only one there by choice and while I have lots of things I’d rather do with my Wednesday, I’m actually enjoying what I’m learning, even if I’m not learning as much as the other people in the class.  The other people in the class are all really nice, and really trying and that makes me happy.

We chopped down a bunch shit and dug up a bunch of shit in our yard. It’s looking better. Our grass is coming back. I love my house!

We are all well, for the most part and healthy and happy, life is good!

What if?s

Emma is at the age of “what if”.  Usually she’s worrying about something.

Today it’s me who is worrying and playing the what if game.

My sweet girl is going to kindergarten.  In about 2 hours.

What if someone is mean to her?

How will she handle it WHEN someone is mean to her?

What if she is mean to someone?

Milestones.

She is ready. She is smart. So why is my heart hurting so much?

I wrote her teacher a letter about her.

Dear Mrs T!

I just wanted to let you know a few things about Emma.

She loves stories and songs and making up wild tales.  There is an ogre who lives in her Auntie Jenny’s attic, and a troll named Bluebell who lives in movie theaters.

She still believes in Santa Claus and fairies.

When Emma is happy she is usually singing.  She’s a huge fan of Taylor Swift and Sarah McLachlan.  She also likes the musical Wicked.  She can memorize songs very quickly.

She loves dancing and dressing up.  She loves to be read to and will beg for more stories until my throat is sore.  She LOVES to learn. She says she’s going to take every class in the world so she can know everything.

She loves camping and movies and ice-cream and dark chocolate.

She is eager to please and loves to help.  She is affectionate, she loves to hug and snuggle and we are trying to make her understand that she doesn’t always have to hug her friends, that not everyone likes hugs as much as she does.

She is afraid of the dark (sometimes), thunderstorms, and cats (most of them).  Because she is imaginative and creative she is always thinking up bad situations and asking what if.  I don’t know if that is normal, as she’s my only one.   I know I was the same way when I was her age.

We let Emma choose her outfits. Sometimes they are a little wild, but we don’t like to stifle creativity and we get such a kick out of them.

She’s basically this busy little dancing singing fairy.  She is SO MUCH FUN. We both think she’s the neatest child in the world and we are so proud of her.

I went on to talk about the family situation, the legal stuff, and volunteering.

Milestones.

So I guess, on the up side of “What if”…because it’s odd to contemplate that my sweet 5 year old daughter will someday be a woman, What if she turns out to be every bit as awesome as I think she’s going to be?

Sometimes the crazy takes over

When I picked up Emma from the evil one’s house, I was greeted by this:

She fell and bashed her face into the ground.  (This picture taken AFTER I put ice on it for 15 minutes and washed the blood and dirt off her face) She was crying and asking for ice and J & S shrugged and said “We put ointment on it”.

So I stopped at a Jack in the Box and bought her a milkshake and they made me an icepack.  (Thank you Jack in the Box! I heart you!)

Emma has a high pain tolerance, and she was in pain all night.  I applied an ice pack several times- and then she would sleep better.  I just don’t understand why two people who are in health care won’t do basic first aid on something like this….

Accidents happen, but according to Emma it happened when she was running up the street to catch up.   And that worries me because IT’S A STREET.  I’m sorry, if you are walking in a street, or a parking lot, shouldn’t you have your child close to you?  So you can, you know, pull them out of harms way if say a car is coming? And Emma panics if you get far away from her- in a park, in a store, more than 15 feet and she starts to worry.

I just feel like I’m a MILLION times the parent he is…And I have a hard time not blaming him for being a better parent.

WHICH brings me to the next topic:

When Emma was picked up on Saturday I watched out the window to make sure she was seat belted (I always do, as this has been a point of contention in the past) and noticed that the baby was sitting on the evil ones’ girlfriend’s lap, nursing.   Jeff finishes seat belting Emma and gets in the drivers seat and does the gf get up and put the baby in a car seat? NO!  They just drive off, girlfriend not wearing a seat belt and holding the baby on her lap….

And you wonder why I might question his/her parenting? It’s not any one thing (although hello??? seatbelts? carseats? Pretty big issue there) it’s the entire picture….

Brian says it’s just another example of Darwinism.  I just feel bad for the children involved.

Brian says “Why are you always taking pictures woman?”

“All we are doing is testing out a potential camping chair and snuggling and you are always taking pictures!”

Not really, he just looked it.  He doesn’t like his picture taken.

The chair? Super comfortable- much easier to snuggle small child than in conventional camping chair…