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2024-03-19T06:24:00.001-07:00

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2023-01-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

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Happy 80th Birthday, Mom!

2011-11-25T16:02:00.001-08:00

Eighty years ago, on a stormy Thanksgiving night, Orville drove to town to fetch the doctor so that he could help Helen deliver her baby girl, Dolores.

Dear Mom,

I wish I could be with you in person today, but since I'm not, I'm sending you my love through the computer. Mom, thank you over and over for everything you do and everything you are. Thank you for always having a homemade dinner on the table when we were growing up except for the tuna casserole and brussel sprouts because those were gross. Thank you for helping me get A's on every school report I ever did. Thank you for all the dresses you sewed for me and for always dressing me so much better than Danny. Thank you for taking the time to put all of our family photos into chronological albums with captions because I now totally appreciate what a huge job that is. Thank you for being my biggest supporter since… forever. Thank you for every sacrifice you’ve made on my behalf. Thank you for loving me through every tantrum (even though I don’t believe I ever misbehaved!), every mood swing (what!?) and anything I ever did that caused you worry or concern or heartache.

I love you so much, Mom. Happy Birthday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T22:23:00.000-08:00

Justice for all

2011-10-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Last week Alyssa told me that they learned the Pledge of Allegiance at school. She recited it for me and did a pretty good job. But when she was done she asked, "Mommy, why do they say Justin is for all?"

Me: Ohhh, actually the word is justice. It's justice for all. Don't worry, Justin is all yours.

I was repeating this story to Amanda later that night and she told me that Alyssa had asked her why it says "Justice for all". She said, "Justice is a store. And I thought it was just for girls!"

Kindergarten is so confusing.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Quiet?

2011-10-06T13:18:00.001-07:00

The other day, Alyssa's teacher asked how she was doing, how she was liking school. I must have looked at her quizzically because she followed up by saying that she's doing great. She's just quiet, so she was checking in.

"QUIET?!?" was my shocked response. Alyssa? Quiet?

I told Ms. Plencner that from all the stories Alyssa tells me, she certainly seems to be having lots of fun. She loves school.

The quiet comment stumped me though. So of course I over-analyzed all the way home from school.

At home, Alyssa rarely stops chattering. Or singing. Or making some kind of noise. She puts on how-to shows complete with commercials. She tells me about her dreams and her nightmares. She asks billions of questions. She talks to her dolls and her dolls talk back. She tells long long long stories. It's constant.

Quiet?

Is everything okay? I see her teacher every day and we chat often. Was there a reason she mentioned this now? Did something happen? It's not that I can't imagine Alyssa being quiet. Amanda is the same way. Much quieter at school than at home. In fact, I remember having the same conversation with the same teacher about Amanda when she was in Kindergarten. And it took me by surprise then too.
I think it's just that I spend so much time with them and I feel like I know them so well that it's jarring to hear a report that doesn't fit in with the picture I've drawn in my head.

I understand that people act differently in different situations. I totally get that. I was more surprised by the quiet comment because every day Alyssa gives me long detailed reports about her school days and in her stories, she's not quiet. She raises her hand often and speaks up a lot... But not just a lot. In some of her stories she raises her hand more often than anyone else. More than once I've heard the line, "I was the only one who raised my hand." And I'm always happy to hear these reports. Relieved, actually. Because speaking up in class was something I struggled with.

It occurred to me then that I just have issues with the whole quiet thing. I decided it would have bothered me less if the teacher had said Alyssa had been disturbing the class by chatting too much. Now that's pretty screwed up. You'd think I'd know that quiet can be a good thing considering how often I wish I had more of it. But instead my quiet self freaks out and starts SCREAMING inside when one of my children gets labeled "quiet."

See, quiet was a label that followed me through all of my school years and even into my work years. It was the thing, that thing, that would show up on report cards and even on performance reviews. And perfectionist that I was, that was what I focused on. It didn't matter how much the rest of the report glowed with gold stars, hard work, successes or A+'s... It made me crazy that I never could conquer that quiet thing. Even when I tortured myself on a regular basis by forcing myself to speak up, the label stuck. And speaking up in large groups or even relatively small ones has never really gotten easier for me.

I've made peace with it now for the most part thanks in part to a wise friend who explained that trying to turn myself from an introvert to an extrovert was like trying to turn my brown eyes blue. Studies have shown that introverts are actually wired differently than extroverts. So quiet is just part of who I am. And that's not a bad thing.

Of course one casual comment from her teacher doesn't mean anything. But I did make a mental note to listen extra carefully to Alyssa after school that day. And when she pronounced it "the worst day ever" (totally different than her normally happy reports) I figured I was in for a good story.

Instead, she told me that the day had started like it always does with a few songs, like the Good Morning song... and then there was math. She slowly walked me through all of the math problems. Told me who raised their hand and if they'd gotten the answers right or wrong. We stopped to pick up a roly-poly (See photo above.) Then the teacher asked them if they knew any words in Spanish. Alyssa said she was the first to raise her hand and volunteer, "Hola!" (Completely due to our intense home-schooling efforts or whatever you call the hours she's spent watching Dora the Explorer) and then she told me what every other kid had said. (No actual Spanish was spoken after this point, but she put on a heavy Spanish accent and created a whole lot of interesting words and meanings to go along with them.) No amount of prompting got her to tell the story any faster.

We had a brief musical interlude when she explained and demonstrated, complete with snapping motions, how they'd learned a new song about the days of the week, sung to the tune of "the Adamms Family." (snap, snap.) She told me there was a girl in the other Kindergarten class wearing the exact same jeans as her. She told me she and a bunch of others got awards for getting happy faces every single day of school. She told me that Emma and Gabby are the tallest girls in the class and that Anthony is the oldest. She told me that Nicolas washes his eyeballs and that Luke's tooth fell out.

Twenty-eight minutes into the story, Alyssa finally explained why it was the worst day ever. It seems that "other Alyssa" was driving her around on a bike and they crashed into the fence. No, she didn't get hurt and neither did "other Alyssa". I asked if that was really enough to qualify it as the Worst.Day.Ever. And she said, "Well it was cold outside too."

Seems to me that if that was her worst day ever that her life must be pretty good, quiet or not.

And her story wasn't over. She went on to tell me that she'd exchanged phone numbers with Madeline (strangely, Madeline's phone number has only 5 digits.) She told me Brianna had a tummy ache and that Jake spilled his milk on her backpack. She told me about the upcoming field trip to the pumpkin patch and that Eric can speak Chinese. She counted to 100, more or less. She told me why she wrote her name in orange and that if she tilts her head a certain way and squints her eyes that things look funny. By this point my eyes had glazed over and I may have been drooling slightly. And that's when I officially decided I'm not worried about Alyssa being quiet at school. But I am a little jealous.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Random Photo Tuesday (on Wednesday)

2011-09-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

Here are my beautiful little darlings along with Beth's little darling, Emily, and they are coated from head to toe in Hidden Valley Lake dirt. Red dirt. We were visiting my mom's house and they went outside under the guise of searching for Lake County diamonds... but instead, apparently they were turning themselves and each other into mud pies.

You wanna know the most shocking part about this? My mom didn't even blink an eye when she saw the girls looking like this. MY mother who, when I was little and we went to visit my grandparents in Auburn, would spend half of our trip warning us about the dangers of RED DIRT. You know the kind that will never come out of anything. It will stain your clothes and mess up your brand new white tennis shoes and ruin your carpet and destroy your entire life if you're not careful. My mother stressed out a LOT about red dirt in those days. If you came in from playing in the yard with so much as a trace of red dirt on you then LOOK OUT.

I'm pretty sure I started shaking a little when I saw my children covered in the stuff with my mother standing behind me. I braced myself for lightening to strike. But all she did was laugh. She said, "You better take pictures." Umm. Okay. Who are you and what did you do with my mother?

This is Alyssa with Boo. Alyssa can't sleep without Boo. Or won't sleep without Boo. This is one of several Boos that we have. For a while we numbered them. There was original Boo. Then Boo 2. I think the one above is Boo 3 but I can't be sure. Now they're all just Boos and she'll sleep with any or all of them, lucky for me.

Here's one of Amanda with her best friend in the whole wide world, Rilie. She used to live next door, then sadly moved away, then moved nearby again... but now... far away again. Wah! We still get to have sleepovers now and then though.

Last weekend we went to my adorable niece, Tia's, 14th birthday party.

Here are the girls with my super cute niece, Katie.

And here's my handsome nephew, Giovanni, with some Swedish Fish. Long ago when Gio was new to the family, my sister and nieces were trying to Nelson-ify him and among other things, they gave him some Swedish fish. He sat in the backseat happily eating them for about 20 minutes when he finally said, "Wait a second! This candy is NASTY!"

Here's my mom at the bottom of the best slide ever. At the Chevron Rod & Gun club in Richmond. Stepping onto that playground was like stepping back into my childhood. I LOVED that slide as a kid. Thought I was pretty brave going down it again until my nearly 80-yr-old mother went down it a while later. She's posing at the bottom for this picture because we had Giovanni catch her at the bottom. As my sister Darin says, "It's all fun and games until someone breaks a hip!" I nearly landed on my butt when I went down but managed to catch myself in the least graceful way possible. (Thanks for not posting that video on Facebook, Katie! She posted an awesome one of my mom going down.) See below for Kate's photo of Alyssa in mid-air... about to fall on her butt. Only to get right back up and climb the stairs again. Because it is the funnest slide in the whole wide world. (And no, I don't care if "funnest" isn't a real word.)

And here are the the girls on the teeter-totter at Rod and Gun. Alyssa is obviously practicing to be an old lady who yells at small children for walking on her lawn.

A few pics of Alyssa playing on the monkey bars. She began perfecting her technique last spring when we would walk over to the school and wait to pick up Amanda. Now she's going for the record in speed.

Clearly, doing the monkey bars is EXHAUSTING!

Grandma-Daddy's-Mom got this outfit for Amanda. How cute is she? She never would have worn this for me. Yesterday she asked if she could try on the outfit she's going to wear when she goes to tea with Aunt Darin. She came out wearing this.

And then she posed.

And posed.

And posed some more.

And then it was Alyssa's turn to pose.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Alyssa started Kindergarten, Amanda started 4th Grade

2011-09-15T16:02:00.001-07:00

So yes, I'm working backwards in time here. A few weeks ago that much anticipated day finally arrived. At last, it was time to start Kindergarten! And 4th grade too, of course. Our morning went very smoothly. Except that we were ready way too early, which was a bit torturous for Alyssa who had waited long enough. (Years, people.) And didn't feel like waiting any longer.

My major worry was that Amanda would have to fend for herself when she was used to having me and my camera tagging along for her first day of school action, snapping photos right up until they have to ask me to leave. I knew she'd be nervous and I didn't want her to think that she suddenly didn't matter as much any more now that her sister had arrived on the scene. Of course she fed right into my guilt by announcing rather over-dramatically that she would probably be the only "parentless child in the whole class."

Oh, the tragedy! Orphaned at such a tender age by her annoying younger sister starting Kindergarten.

Alyssa and I walked her to her classroom, made sure she had some friends to wait with, and even snapped a photo or two before making our way to Kindergarten. Finally! My little orphan, Amanda did just fine, by the way. Most of her closest friends are in her class and she loves her teacher, who won the award for California's Outstanding First Year Teacher a couple of years ago. At the end of her first day, her teacher told me that what she'd learned about Amanda so far was that she's quiet and likes her own space. In an email she sent me last week, her teacher said this about Amanda: "She's doing very well. I enjoy her quiet, calm, insightful way!"

Now back to the first day of Kindergarten, Alyssa or "Alyssa T." as she'll be known this year (since some other parents had the nerve to give their child our child's name) did great. She marched right into that classroom like she's been there a million times before (possibly because she has been). She found her name tag and the teacher took our picture for her memory book. (Yes, they're going to make memory books! And yes, that's me, bringing cleavage to Kindergarten.)

Alyssa did get a tiny bit nervous once she was surrounded by all those new faces, but mostly she was just really excited. The parents were allowed to stay a while before the principal came to herd us into the Boo Hoo breakfast. Alyssa gave me hugs and kisses and then it was time for me to be a big girl and say good-bye.

Luckily I had plenty to do that morning so I didn't have time to fret about the fact that Alyssa was probably having so much fun that she didn't miss me a bit. One of the things I was working on was a "My Life in Five" project for Shutterfly. The idea was to choose five photos (actually 6 with a cover photo) and captions to represent your life. This was for a new hub on the Shutterfly website and the idea behind "My Life in Five" is to show others how easy it is to tell your story in photo books. A few photos and a few words and voila!

Normally I don't have a hard time telling my story but I was struggling with this assignment. Later I made this one about Alyssa starting Kindergarten just to help get myself in the groove. She helped me with the captions.

Alyssa's Life in Five

My name is Alyssa. I'm 5 years old and guess what? I just started Kindergarten!

The night before school started I was so excited! My mommy read me stories but I had a hard time going to sleep.

In the morning I ate my breakfast, brushed my teeth and got dressed as fast as I could. I couldn't wait to go to school but Mommy said it was too early so she wasted time by taking a million pictures.

Finally we got to go to school. I got to take my new lunchbox and backpack! This is my teacher, Ms. Plencner. She was Amanda's teacher too. She's really nice. Do you want to know what we did at school? Everything fun! And not just kinda fun. REALLY FUN!

My teacher gave me this smiley face. It means I followed all the rules and had a good day. Do you want to know my favorite part of Kindergarten? Lunch.

At Kindergarten we played and sang songs. I made a new friend named Katie and had so much fun! I wish I could go to Kindergarten every day!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Amanda turned NINE last week!

2011-09-14T17:30:00.001-07:00

Dear Amanda,

It's pretty hard to imagine that you could actually be nine years old. Nine years seems like such a long time but it went by so insanely fast. It's scary to me that the next nine years could fly by just as quickly. Before you know it, you might have some crazy idea about moving out. I hope we're still sticking with the plan you came up with when you were three or four, which was that you'd either live with me forever or maybe move next door.

For some reason, the fact that you're getting older always gets to me on the day before your birthday instead of on your actual birthday. If you think about it, the idea that it's your first day of being nine is pretty cool and exciting... full of possibilities and all that. But the idea that it's your last day of being eight is just sad. And I guess I don't like saying good-bye.

Eight was fun. And extremely agonizing. And completely wonderful. Eight was full of anxiety. Worrying about math class and wearing the wrong jeans and getting kidnapped and what will people think ifs.... Worrying about so much stuff that shouldn't be worried about at eight. Eight was about making up songs and choreographing dance routines. Eight was always putting on plays and talent shows in our living room or backyard with your sister and friends. Eight was full of singing like some diva pop star at the top of your lungs when umm... weren't you supposed to be doing your homework? Eight was still playing with Barbies with your friends (I won't tell if you don't) and creating the most intricately detailed life stories that make me sure you have a future in writing novels or for TV. Eight had quite a flair for the dramatic and an ability to embellish details in a way that always made a story more interesting.

Eight was incredibly excited about the idea of being a teacher one day, and even more-so being a teacher now. Eight loved nothing more than playing school with your sister, your cousins or your friends' little brothers and sisters. Teaching them the alphabet, shapes, math, drawing or whatever you could think of. And eight was GREAT at this. Eight tirelessly made "lesson plans" and wrote out worksheets. When it came to teaching, eight was calm, patient, tolerant and unruffled. No, eight was not always like this at other times but something about teaching brought out the best in you.

Eight was inquisitive and curious. Eight was downright nosy sometimes. Eight was careful, cautious and responsible. Yes, eight was extremely conscientious about most things. Eight was a good student, always got her homework done on time and would have rather eaten worms than be late for school. On the other hand, eight hated to clean her room, hated to take baths and avoided eating vegetables if at all possible.

Eight loved to write stories and draw. Eight taught herself how to ride a bike and how to hula-hoop. Eight loved to invent complicated desserts, drinks and snacks. Eight was unbelievably goofy. Silly like you wouldn't believe. Eight was laughing until your sides hurt on a pretty regular basis. Eight could also be moody. And picky. SO PICKY. Over food, as always, and clothes too. Even socks. Really picky. But then how cool was it that eight absolutely knew your own mind? Knew what you loved and what you couldn't possibly tolerate. Eight truly hated to pick up after herself but somehow loved to organize things. Even loved to clean out my car or purse. Eight didn't like boys yet. Thank goodness. Eight loved her friends though. Eight was loyal and caring and trustworthy.

Though I've loved eight more than I can explain, I have no doubt I'm going to love nine just as much... maybe even more.

There's a page in one of your scrapbooks about your last day of being two. On that day I took pictures of you at the top of the slide and then got all weepy when I saw them because you looked so grown up.

So on your last day of being eight I briefly had some crazy notion about making you get back up on that slide so I could take some new pictures. But then I came to my senses. You were too busy doing your own thing anyway. You were on a play-date with Holly when I thought about it. (I forget... am I still allowed to call them "play-dates" or is that not cool anymore?) Anyway, fast forward to last night when we were killing time while Alyssa was at soccer practice and when I spotted you on the playground at the top of the slide, I ran for my camera like a crazy lady and you kindly allowed me to take a bunch of pictures. Actually, when I stopped, you asked me to take more, so for the record, it's not like I was forcing you.

And just like when you were two, the pictures kind of stunned me. Not so much because you're looking grown up exactly... oh trust me, you are... but that part has been stunning me for quite some time. But just the way you seem to glow. You have such a great smile and you're gorgeous! I know, you think I HAVE to say that because I'm your mom, but it's true. You're beautiful inside and out and I love you like crazy. Happy birthday, Sweetie!

Love,
Mommy

P.S. Here you are on your last day of being two:

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Heard on the way home from Alyssa's soccer practice today

2011-08-30T20:04:00.001-07:00

Alyssa: Guess what I just found out? I LOVE soccer!

I wonder who told her.

Also, Alyssa asked me how street lights work and I explained as much as I knew, including the part about sensors in the street that cause the lights to work correctly.

Amanda (shocked): How do you know that?!? What else do you know? Are there cameras in my bathroom?

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

As long as you don't post it on the internet

2011-05-24T17:04:00.001-07:00

Alyssa and I were in the garage when she spotted this frame and started hamming it up. When she asked me to take her picture, of course, I said yes. But when she asked if she could take my picture, I said, "No way, look at me!"

She responded, "Mommy, I just wanna take your picture, I'm not gonna put it on the internet."

That totally cracked me up and I would love to do that thing where I play stupid and say oh I don't know where they come up with these things...except I have to admit that's a phrase that gets tossed around occasionally at our house.

Like just last Friday.

I took Amanda to the dentist for a check-up and the dentist reported that the good news was no cavities! And the bad news is that he wanted to extract three teeth. Three top front teeth. That very day. Remember my last post about how Amanda's first top tooth took so long to come out? Well that's because it's crowded in there. She should have already lost those front teeth but the crowding was making it too hard for them to come out... meanwhile her permanent teeth are ready to come in. (Yes, he also mentioned she's going to need braces! Wheeee!) Amanda is not a big fan of losing teeth. Unlike me, who would have yanked every single one of mine out when I was six if it were possible. So when we got home, her smile sporting three new gaps... she said, "I know you're gonna wanna take a picture Mom, but do NOT post it on your blog!!!"

Who me? I would never do that?!?

Alyssa's comment was funny but it also got me thinking... it's all fun and games when I'm the one doing the blogging but the thought of them posting humiliating photos and stories about me isn't nearly as delightful. Is it too early to talk to a lawyer about that?

Random Photo Tuesday (February catch up)

2011-05-17T20:24:00.000-07:00

One of the first things that happened in February was that Amanda finally lost her first top tooth. I say finally because it was kind of a long drawn out process. Not only did it take a long time but it was obvious that the permanent tooth was trying to push out the baby tooth, and it just got lower and lower and lower... but it wasn't very loose. Not loose enough to pull... Wasn't Amanda's best look though. I'm not going to show you the before picture but if it had gone on much longer I was afraid she might start to look like this:
But how cute is she in the after photos? These photos were taken the day after she lost her tooth and her new one was already about a quarter of the way in!

In February, Alyssa got a new bike!We saw Gnomeo & Juliet.We saw Disney on Ice. I also decided I should attempt some creative Valentines this year. The photoshoots went something like this:
And the Valentines turned out like this:Do you know what this cat really needs?
A pillow!
Also more comfortable with a pillow: Justin Bieber.

Alyssa did a lot of playing in February. Alyssa pretended to be an artist. She pretended to be a chef.
She pretended to be a princess. (For the record, that is MY faux fur coat... I'm guessing circa 1974-ish.) She had a pretend wedding where she got to be the beautiful bride, complete with pretend flowers and pretend tattoos.She had spectacular pretend wedding rings.And a pretend groom who was not all that excited about pretending to get married. It's never a good sign when your pretend groom has to be dragged down the aisle by your pretend maid of honor.After a brief discussion, the pretend wedding was called off.But from the looks of this photo, the pretend reception must have gone on all night.

And then we could all end up in jail

2011-05-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

I was looking for my phone before the girls and I ran to the store. Alyssa asked why I needed it and I explained that I always like to have my phone with me when I'm driving just in case something happens.

Amanda pipes in: I always think something's gonna happen. That's why I always take my jacket everywhere I go... and shoes... and quarters (for quarter machines not phone calls) because you just never know.

Me: You are SO your Grandma N*'s granddaughter!

Amanda: Well you just never know. There could be an accident or we could end up in jail.

Me: Why would we end up in jail?

Amanda: Well I don't know what you're gonna do!

All of my life I've felt like sort of a goody-two-shoes. I've never been in trouble for anything. Never got a speeding ticket. Never even got called to the principal's office. But in the eyes of my 8-year-old, apparently I'm just a wild card. Capable of anything. You better take a jacket and some quarters because at any moment I might choose to steal a car, beat up a police man or rob a bank.

Random Photo Tuesday

2011-05-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's not Tuesday but you'll get over it, right? In an effort to catch you up a bit on what's been going on with us while I was on the longest blogging break in history, I'm going to share some random photos. These are all from January. Next week I'll get to February. I know I've been gone a lot longer but neither one of us wants to go back that far, right? I'm hoping that flipping through these photos will remind me of what we were doing so I can fill you in on the details a bit too. (Above is Amanda with the camera that Santa brought for the girls. (water proof, freeze proof and shock proof. Yes, I'm trying to train the next generation to take pictures of every single thing.)

We were at Universal Studios the last week of Christmas vacation, so that's where we celebrated New Year's. They brought "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" to life and it was so much fun hanging out in Whoville! There was real snow to play in and there were "Whos" everywhere we turned. It really felt like we were walking around in the middle of the movie and I LOVED it. After Universal, I have to say that January is pretty light on cute kid pictures. That's because I was hugely focused on decluttering my house. It was sometime last year that I started watching all those hoarding shows. You know the ones that start by taking you on a tour of a house that is packed to the ceiling with a lifetime full of stuff? Those shows fascinate me... and scare me... a lot! I noticed that the people with hoarding problems all seemed to have similiar stories: "I was always kind of messy and I liked to save things but nothing too unusual. But then _____________ (fill in the blank with divorce/death of a loved one/children leaving home/random disaster) and things completely spiraled out of control..."

Most of the people I've talked to about those hoarding shows respond the same way, saying something along the lines of, "GROSS! I can't imagine how anyone could ever let that happen." But me, I totally empathized with them. I thought, "Uh oh! I am kind of messy and I like to save things! I could be just one major life tragedy away from becoming that crazy lady with stuff piled to the ceiling and 23 cats!"

So last year I started changing a lot of bad habits and I got rid of a ton of stuff. Okay I didn't actually weigh it or anything but I swear there had to be a ton. To be honest, I expected that getting rid of all that stuff meant my house would suddenly be clean. That it would practically clean itself and that it would stay clean all the time. Totally didn't happen. Not even close! I mean things improved quite a bit but not nearly as much as I'd hoped. Imagine my disappointment.

By this January I was feeling pretty defeated, especially after the major influx of STUFF from the holidays so I decided to get hardcore about it. I decided 2011 was going to be the year I turned it all around. By then, getting rid of my own stuff had become easy but I still struggled with letting go of the kids' stuff... and looking around it was pretty clear that their stuff was a major part of the problem. Their stuff took up A LOT of space. Their rooms were always a mess. And they dragged their stuff all over the house on a very regular basis because their rooms were too messy to play in! But they were attached to their stuff. Alyssa was far more attached than Amanda because Amanda liked to watch the hoarding shows with me. The phrase "crazy cat lady" was all I really needed to inspire Amanda to part with her overabundance of things. But ask Alyssa if she wants to turn into the crazy cat lady, and hulloooooooo does anything sound more fun than that? (Speaking of cats, below is our ONLY cat taking advantage of the fact I'm cleaning out a drawer. I bet the crazy cat lady's cats don't get to do this!)

I've realized that my attachment to things has very little to do with the actual things but everything to do with the memories those things evoke. So after the girls and I spent at least an hour playing I-spy with this photo (below) that I took several years ago of some of my Christmas ornaments, I realized that they already knew the stories behind many of the ornaments... Amanda would say, "This one full of sand and seashells represents my first trip to the beach." And Alyssa would say, "This is from the time that the Not-Real-Santa called me Booger Baby!" Even without the STUFF in front of them, the memories were still there.Okay, I'm a photo nut so of course I'd already thought about taking photos of all the stuff... but I'm also lazy and couldn't actually imagine taking photos of each and every THING, whatever it was, separately. We had a LOT of stuff after all. And what was I going to do with all those photos anyway? Become the crazy lady with a house crammed full of photos? You know who I'll be showing all those photos to? My 23 cats.

But the girls love I-spy books. If you've never heard of I-spy books, they're books that have these cool photos that are crammed full of all kinds of stuff and there are riddles that go with each photo and you have to find the answers in the photos. So what if I gathered up all the stuff I can't bear to get rid of into groups, snapped some pictures and turned those photos into an "I-spy" book. Then once we have the photos, BYE-BYE stuff!

So here are a couple of those photos. They include stuff from my childhood as well, recovering-could-have-been hoarder that I am. Can anyone spot Justin Bieber, who Alyssa plans to marry, in the top photo? Can anyone find Giraffe, who Amanda used to referred to as her husband, in the second one?

Alyssa also learned how to tie her shoes in January. When Amanda learned to tie her shoes she was actually a couple of years older than Alyssa. Mostly because she rarely wore shoes that needed to be tied. When I did finally teach her it took a while. A bit of practice and a bit of "I'll never be able to do this!" before she caught on. It was a much faster process with Alyssa.

Amanda taught Alyssa how to tie her shoes. She demonstrated for her ONCE and then watched as Alyssa tied them. And that was it. Alyssa's been tying her own shoes ever since. Leading Amanda to conclude that I am really, really LAME at the teaching thing. We also did a lot of painting in January. One of my most vivid memories of Kindergarten is from the day we put on smocks and got to finger paint. Just thinking about that day can still make me a teeny bit giddy. I only remember doing it once but I remember thinking it was the best thing on the planet earth. So I'm going back to my kindergarten roots and just PLAYING. My paintings are probably only slightly better than they were back then but I'm just as giddy... Yeah those are mine, not the girls... Scott took one look at the one of the house and said, "That is the worst designed roof I've ever seen. The rain is all gonna puddle up at the ends and it's gonna rot." I wonder if he was this practical in Kindergarten.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

So when my Mother’s Day plans came to a crashing halt, I was feeling rather cranky… and umm… sorry for myself. But then I stopped and thought, what do I really want to do on Mother’s Day anyway? I want to hang out with my kids, the ones who make me feel unbelievably grateful to be a mom… I want a new photo with the two of them because I’ve been avoiding the camera lately (see above) AND I want a bit of alone time to finally update my blog which I haven’t touched in oh, let’s see, over a year! I was thinking that I’d wax poetic about how grateful I am to be a mom... and I am... well most of the time....but then I decided that what I really want is to say thank you to all of the most important moms in my life.

Thank you to my mom, who after being told by the adoption agency that she and my dad were too old for a newborn and getting blessed with my delightful 6-month-old brother who drank cold milk straight from the fridge and slept through the night, she OOPS got blessed with me, a NEWBORN! She somehow managed, in her old age (38!), to carry me for 9 long months and survived all those sleepless nights of heating bottles and changing diapers. She kept me safe through my childhood, put up with me when I was way less than delightful... when I turned up my nose to the meals she prepared, used up all the hot water, when my room was so horribly messy that the police had to tell her it had been ransacked by burglars and my mother had to explain that, no, it’s always like that. She fed me, clothed me and always reminded me to take a jacket. She believes with complete certainty, as only a mother could, that if Oprah were to stumble across the blog I never update that I would be skyrocketed into fame and fortune as a bestselling author.

She’s the reason I thought it was perfectly logical to take up painting at 41. Actually she’s the reason I feel like I can take on pretty much any craft, hobby or home improvement project that strikes my fancy. Because she did. She can do ANYTHING. She can sew a wicked ball gown, build a Victorian dollhouse completely wired with electrical, trace the family history all the way back to Adam and Eve. The woman has had more hobbies than anyone on the planet and I only hope that I’ll have the nerve to take up golf lessons, bear making, genealogy, astrology, meditation, visiting haunted houses and cemeteries, belly dancing or giving birth while under hypnosis… no wait… not those last two. I’ll never learn to sew either. Probably because Mom never let me touch the good sewing scissors. However she’s probably responsible for my photo book making addiction because I spent a lifetime watching her make personal, heartfelt and usually very funny gifts for all the people she loved. She will be 80 this year and she’s still going strong and still taking on new hobbies… like gardening, fishing and collecting frogs. She’s the best mom in the whole world.

Thank you to my mother-in-law, Andrea. When I hear other women complain about their mother’s-in-law I always breathe a huge sigh of relief because I totally lucked out in the mother-in-law department. She appreciates photos and photo books more than the most expensive gifts which is a very good thing because I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about choosing the most expensive gifts. She never criticizes me or tells me how to do things. She never gives me grief about the areas I am lacking in… Even when the areas I’m lacking in are ones that a mother would find important in one marrying her son or raising her grandchildren. Cooking and cleaning? Eh. And if I could choose any grandma in the world for my kids, I would choose her. She adores them completely, lights up when they walk into the room, reads to them, gets down on the floor and plays with them endlessly, will spend hours talking to them on the phone even if they’re telling her the same story for the fifth time.

Thank you to my Grandma T* who I feel so fortunate to have. I had wonderful grandmas who I dearly miss but I really lucked out when I married Scott. I get to share his grandma and I love her as much as I loved my own. I love that my children have a great-grandmother to share stories and time with. We love going to her house where the girls head straight for the stacking dolls and the Rubik's cube. She's always so excited to see us and she always makes us feel so welcome and loved. It doesn't hurt that she feeds us well too!

Thank you to my oldest sister, Deni who gives the best and most practical advice. Turns out you shouldn’t attempt to cook a turkey in a 175 degree oven until it reaches an internal temperature of 325. Turns out there’s really not much you can cook in a 175 degree oven. Who knew, right? Deni did. And why do they let me set the oven to 175 then? Deni can tell you these things. And Deni won’t make fun of you until after the crisis passes. Then and only then will you two laugh about it until you cry. Deni is one of the few people on the planet who understands with frightening clarity how my brain operates. Because genetics blessed her with a very similar brain. So I don’t have to explain how or why I did the latest stupid thing I did because she just GETS it and can probably tell you a story about the time she did the same thing. Oh and if you have spent all day giggling with Deni via instant messenger over random stuff and suddenly remember at 5:14pm that you haven’t even thought about what to have for dinner… you can throw out any two ingredients you happen to have on hand and she can give you at least five ideas for what you can have on the table by 6. She’s AMAZING that way. She’s also always there when I need her and I couldn’t ask for anything more in a sister.

Thank you to my other sister, Darin, who served as kind of a second mom to me growing up… and I am still growing up. She didn't do it in a bossy know-it-all way but in a super cool older sister I-want-to- be- just-like-her- when-I- grow-up kind of way. Darin got me through the drama that was adolescence. She was the one I went to with the important questions about boobs, boys, zits and life. Darin taught me how to get out of cleaning my room so I could get back to reading. Darin taught me about hovering over public toilets and how to prepare for a job interview. Darin found me the PERFECT BRA (and yes, that one deserves capital letters). Darin is the one who, when you feel like your entire universe is falling to pieces, can somehow explain in two paragraphs how you can put it all back together again. And she’ll make you feel like you would have eventually come up with the solution yourself. Darin is like a cheerleader in my head telling me I can do anything. Darin is incredibly wise and wickedly funny. Darin is the one I wanted by my side when having both of my babies. And Darin is the one I hope to hang out with in the old folks home. Actually I sort of look forward to those days of adult diapers because Darin very frequently makes me laugh til I nearly wet my pants.

Thank you to my sister-in-law, Cara, the little sister I always wanted and finally got when I married Scott. What I didn’t expect was that I would spend so much time looking up to my little sister. I have always adored her and admired her abilities to pull off superhuman feats like cooking gourmet meals or entertaining a houseful of people as if it were nothing. She’s the only one I know who truly appreciates a great font as much as I do. She’s a brilliant proofreader AND she’s the one I have always been able to count on to give me a brutally honest opinion if I ask. She’s funny and smart and can tell me what to wear no matter what the occasion.

But she has gone through so much in the last few years while trying to become a mom. Some of the things she has faced I can only imagine might have sent me to bed for months, yet somehow she has faced it all with unbelievable self-assurance, grace and incredible strength. Sophia and Ava are lucky little girls to have her as a mom… and I am incredibly lucky to have her as my sister.

Thank you to my sister-in-law, Michelle, who is like the Kate Middleton of our family. Not only would she look super cute in a tiara but she has the kind of poise, elegance and grace that would have fit right into a royal family. Yet somehow she landed in ours. And she seems truly thrilled to be one of us. (Sucka!) She is unbelievably sweet, kind and lovely and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her get mad. If I were to tell her that my brother is incredibly lucky to have her I know… I KNOW… she would tell me that, in fact, SHE is the lucky one. She’s just like that… All head over heels in love with my brother… All sweetness and light. And we are so lucky to have her.

And lastly, thank you to all of my mom friends who keep me sane on a regular basis… The ones who, on the days when I’m feeling completely overwhelmed, because my house is never clean enough and the cat just threw up and and finding a pair of clean matching socks or my keys seems like an impossibility... they remind me that it’s not the end of the world, that we all have days like this and tomorrow will be better.

Thank you to Beth M. who will go to Target with me three times in one week and the only one on the planet who could laugh so hard with me in the container aisle while discussing Space Bags that the rest of the customers had to think we were drunk or crazy. The one who “attended” the Royal Wedding with me in tiaras, boas, a ton of plastic bling and sweatpants. The one who will trek from one end of Safeway to the other to help me track down a missing cart full of groceries and never lecture me for leaving it unattended. The one who can drop by unannounced and I don’t feel even the tiniest need to make excuses for what a disaster my house is or why it’s 1pm and I still haven’t showered. The one who is always a phone call away if I need someone to pick up Amanda from school, need to arrange a last minute playdate or if I just need a Starbucks break. The one who drops by for coffee and doesn’t mind watching me fold laundry. The one I can call in the middle of a recipe if I need to borrow a can of chiles or a teaspoon of a spice I’ve never heard of. She's also the one who will order a pizza for me if dinner can’t be saved. My mom used to talk about friends like her who lived around the corner and dropped by to chat over coffee and I thought, “Someday I hope I’ll have those kinds of friends” and now I do.

Thank you to Wendy, my SSFL, who arrived at precisely the moment when I really needed a friend. And who, if I were to have written a description for that friend I needed, would have exactly fulfilled that description in every single way. Wendy, who is so like me in so many ways that I had to call my mom to make sure I didn't have another sister she never mentioned. Wendy, who always takes the photos I forgot to take and usually emails them to me before I remember I forgot to take them. The one who would have gone to her deathbed with the story about the toilet seat cover stuck to my butt. The one who has shared room-mom duties with me for three years now even though every year we say we’ll never sign up again. Who is always just an instant message away when crisis strikes. Who cheers me up when I’m having a bad day after listening to me whine in horrifying endless detail about that bad day. Who always knows what homework is due and if today was a minimum day and which teacher we need to hope our kids get next year. Who is always smiling and makes me laugh like crazy. Wendy, who gets as excited as I do about all things crafty and who can usually remember which blog had that super cute idea about whatever it is I happen to need super cute ideas about. Wendy who encourages me endlessly and makes me feel like I can do anything.

Thank you to Beth B. who has known me since I was 12… the friend I don’t talk to daily but am able to pick up with as if we do whether it’s been 6 minutes or 6 months. The one who knows all of my secrets and never judges me, the one who taught me how to drive (yes, go THROUGH the stop sign) and who caught all the balls that happened to come my way in right field saving me from countless head injuries. She’s the one I shared my first apartment with. The one who has such a huge heart for giving that she not only will stop on the side of the road to help random strangers (Don’t get in the van, Beth. You’re in the van, Beth. Just don’t drive away, Beth. You’re driving away, Beth!) but who has also been a surrogate mom to four babies helping other parents get the children they desperately wanted. Beth is like Superwoman in my mind. Multi-tasking extraordinaire. Able to leap tall buildings while driving a van full of children, and putting on a fundraiser and a school play while baking 8 kinds of pies and she’ll swing by Starbucks to grab me a coffee on the way. The one who I have had countless sleepovers with, the one who loves a good tearjerker as much as I do, who. The one who, if it was suddenly determined that laughter can make me you lose weight, I would spend every last second with. She reminds me of who I am, how far I’ve come and how far I can go.

Thanks to all of you amazing moms who make my life better in so many different ways. I love you all. Happy Mother's Day!

(Yes I know this was posted in 2011, but when my mom requested a copy of my blog book she insisted that this post be a part of it and I wasn't about to say no. I love you, Mom!)

Tooth Fairy Duty

2010-04-14T19:43:00.001-07:00

I was on tooth fairy duty last night, which means I didn't get much sleep. It was my fault because after quite the long battle, I finally bribed Alyssa with a movie at bedtime to get her to let me take her Band-Aid off so I could clean her icky stitches. (Yeah, I'll have to write a post about those. She stayed perfectly still and didn't make a peep when the doctor was stitching her up, but try to get a Band-Aid off of her and you would think I was trying to cut her toes off with a pair of scissors.) The thing is, I'd taken Benadryl, which totally knocks me out, to deal with the mysterious rash covering my entire body. (Between the ER rooms and Disneyland, it's a small world full of yucky germs. And yeah, I'll have to write a post about those too.)

So the plan was: take Benadryl, put the girls to bed, go to bed and sleeeeep. Instead it was: take Benadryl, do 14 other things I'd forgotten about, argue with Alyssa over a Band-Aid for probably half an hour while in a Benadryl haze, finally bribe her with a movie at bedtime, which was already way later than it should have been. Then have Amanda suddenly remember she had to write a note for the tooth fairy, then check every 10 minutes to see if Alyssa has fallen asleep yet, then wait 10 more minutes to make sure she's REALLY asleep so I can finally do tooth fairy duty because I know there's no way I will be remembering it in the middle of the night. Alyssa watched the whole darn movie of course, which is why I'm exhausted today.

I'm even more paranoid than usual because Amanda nearly caught the tooth fairy the last time she visited. It was about 2 AM when Scott got a phone call from work and I jumped half out of my skin because in my mind, 2am phone calls = a death in the family. I was annoyed at first (What? Nobody died?) knowing it would take forever to get back to sleep and then suddenly remembered: tooth fairy duty!!! That is why I have to do it before I go to bed. The whole I'll just lay down for a few minutes thing may not end well. So I did my TF thing and, of course, Amanda woke up, mid-visit. Turns out I think faster on my feet than I would have guessed. The tooth fairy got away before she was recognized.

Amanda's usual fairy leaves a lovely sprinkling of glittery fairy dust. Her very first fairy left fairy dust not just on her pillow but all over the entire backyard! I personally thought it resembled frost glittering in the sunlight but Amanda KNEW it was fairy dust and has been quietly disappointed in the laziness of the fairies she's gotten since then.

Hullooooo, she leaves a trail of dust and sometimes a certificate in beautiful, scrolly lettering. Excuse the hell out of her for not making the yard sparkle.

Some people think there is only one tooth fairy, like there's one Santa Claus or one Easter Bunny. I don't buy that. I mean Santa and the Bunny each have one day a year. And then a whole boatload of vacation time. But the tooth fairy, I can't imagine how ONE person, err fairy could handle that job, what with the zillions of children all over the world popping out teeth at such an alarming rate.

So yeah, I actually think there are a bunch of tooth fairies, and that they're all totally different, though all approximately three inches tall.

This explains why Brandon has a boy fairy, why Adam only gets cash, never a certificate or fairy dust. And why Luciana's fairies are soooo much better than ours 'cause the certificates she gets are much cooler AND Luciana gets to choose from a chart which fairy she wants (all better than ours, by the way) plus the fairy leaves money AND gifts.

I'm not sure we'll always get the same fairy every time either, 'cause fairies have lives too. They go on vacation, they work different shifts, they get sick and have personal issues. They might even take a long unexplained leave of absence and we might get stuck with a crappy temp or we might luck out and get some fab overachiever who typically works in another county.

Sometimes I like to imagine the fairies at performance review time. I like to think about the well-paying over-achievers who leave teeny tiny notes written in teeny tiny calligraphy stuffed into teeny tiny envelopes next to brand new ipods getting big raises and promotions, while the ones who toss a quarter in the general direction of the pillow and spend the rest of the night chain smoking cigarettes and watching porn getting fired or at least put on probation.

For the record I think our normal fairy is slightly above average, what with the glitter and the certificates. However she is a terrible procrastinator and has asked me NEVER to remind Amanda that it's time to leave the tooth for her. She likes her sleep okay?

Oh! Speaking of sleep, the best part of this story is that after torturing myself to stay awake last night, Amanda didn't even remember to check to see if the tooth fairy had visited! She left for school and never even checked. I didn't remind her to because I didn't want her going back into their room and waking Alyssa.

I do sort of hope that Amanda suddenly remembered after arriving at school and got to experience her own torture … the sweet agony of waiting, certain that by the time she gets home her little sister will have stolen her money and destroyed any fairy evidence. Is it wrong that that the thought of that makes me feel a little better? I can't help it. I'm mean when I don't get enough sleep.

posted from my iphone

Stuck Inside

2010-01-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Rain. Tons of it. Endless amounts of rain. I actually LOVE rain. But it's starting to get just a tad bit old, even to me. So for your viewing pleasure, a few pictures of how we've been keeping ourselves entertained these last couple of weeks.

We've had playdates. Lots of them. We've played Barbies. We've danced.We've set up some tents in the dining room. (Thanks Aunt Jacque and Uncle Brad, we LOVE them! Scott says next time we visit he's going to bring them and set them up in your dining room so he can show you exactly how much he loves them!)We had our own version of American Idol/So You Think You Can Dance. By the way, Alyssa got a golden ticket! She's goin' to Hollywood. Pretend Hollywood, that is. We've done homework.
We've played some more Barbies. We've rough-housed a bit. We've played school.
We've made monsters.We've climbed the walls. We've danced some more.We 've baked cookies. We've pretended to sleep.We've made weird faces. We've cooked.We've laid down and been covered in clean laundry, straight out of the dryer. I swear these two will drop anything for the thrill of warm laundry. And when it stopped raining, we finally got to play outside!!!
By the way I wrote this post yesterday... We had actual SUNSHINE today! Woo hoo!!!

The Great Gingerbread Village Fiasco of 2009

2010-01-25T18:13:00.000-08:00

I was watching two of my friends' kids for a couple of days, so I had a total of five kids ranging from three to eight. Two of them were boys who aren't nearly as impressed with our Barbie collection as the girls usually are. At some point they cried boredom and what did I do? A saner person would have put a movie in the DVD player and pushed PLAY but what did Dione do? She said, “Who wants to build a gingerbread village!?!?!”

The words just came flying out of my mouth before I'd considered the consequences. I thought it would be easy actually. I thought it would be FUN! I had a kit after all. Five adorable little houses for five adorable little kids. FUN!

Five happy little voices were saying, “YAAAAAY!!!” and for that first glorious moment, I was thinking, I ROCK!

And then the fight broke out over who was gonna get which house. No problem. We'd draw numbers to see who got which house. Perfect! This was going to be FUN! Except for the adorable kid who got the stupid house they didn't want. But then, in an incredible act of generosity, adorable kid #2 offered to trade with adorable kid #1... unfortunately kid #2 got stuck with a house with broken pieces... and it went on and on like this. Nobody wanted to put their own house together, so I had five freaking adorable little houses to put together and five adorable children saying, “Make mine first, make mine first!!!”

When one of my friends called to say she was almost home and to let her know when to come pick up her daughter, I said, “Here's what I want you to do. Pull up in front of my house with the engine running... I'll jump in and you FLOOR IT!”

I then explained my gingerbread house insanity. I said, “We haven't even gotten to the decorating part yet but I know how it's gonna go. These kits... the box always says Lots of Icing and Candy but there never is. They don't factor in all the eating that goes on while the frazzled grown-up tries to get four walls to stick together and somehow hold up a roof. Five times. Pretty soon I'm gonna have five adorable kids completely wired on sugar trying to decorate five stupid, stupid adorable little houses and fighting over 14 gumdrops, six red hots and a candy cane to do it. What was I thinking?"My friend said, “I'm in front of your house. Come out here, I have something for you.”

Really? Hmm...Help had arrived. I went skipping out to her car wondering what she could possibly have for me. She started fishing around in her purse as I said, “Whatcha got for me? Ya got valium? Ya got prozac?”

She started laughing. “No, no... it's here, somewhere...”

“Whatcha got for me? Ya got vodka? Ya got a pitcher full of margaritas?”

“No. It's candy.”

“Candy? Oh chocolate? Okay it's not prozac but chocolate can solve a lot.”

“No, no, not chocolate,” she said, and then right before my eyes, she started pulling sealed packages of candy out of her purse. Not just any candy either. This candy was green, red and white. Candy that was born to live on a gingerbread house.

I said, "I swear to you, I'm not judging... But you have gingerbread house candy in your purse, why?"

She explained that a couple of days before she and her daughter had been to a gingerbread house decorating party and this was some of the leftover candy. She said, “Hold on, I think I've got frosting in here."

“Yeah umm. Seriously? Frosting in your purse? I love you. This just another prime example of why we're friends.”

She never did find the frosting. I know. Only a friend of mine could lose frosting in her purse. And it only made what happened twenty minutes later even more funny. I went back into the house to show off all the new candy. “Oh. But it's only to look at, adorable children! No eating!”

So then I went back to building five tiny little stupid houses while five adorable children dipped themselves in sprinkles. When my friend Wendy showed up to pick up Brandon and Jaden, I told her all about my gingerbread village fiasco and then added that you'll never believe what Beth showed up with, "Candy! And not just any candy. The woman was pulling gingerbread-house-decorating-candy out of her purse. Seriously. She even thought she had frosting. Only my friends. Can you imagine?”Of course Wendy responded, “Oh... do you need frosting? Hold on a sec.”

She then went out to her car and popped open her trunk as I stood there, with a you have got to be freakin' kidding me look on my face and, I kid you not, the woman started pulling tubes of frosting out of her trunk. And not just frosting, but a vast assortment of Christmas themed decorative toppings...

“Really? You just happened to have this stuff in your trunk, Wendy?”

She explained that one of the activities at her office party that day had been sugar cookie decorating. They had a lot of stuff left over.

As I watched Wendy drive away, and waved good-bye to Brandon and Jaden, I stood there on my porch, admiring the twinkling lights decorating my neighbors' houses, basking in my own personal Christmas miracle moment. Thinking how lucky I am to have exactly the right friends and family for ME. Always there with exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. I felt extremely blessed. Then I went back inside and smiled at the three adorable children who remained. Admired the lights on my tree which sat in the midst of my lovely house which looked as though it had been ransacked by angry monkeys.

I smiled at the glittering beauty of my dining room floor, which appeared to be covered with freshly fallen snow... sticky green & red snow, to be exact. I admired the hot pink frosting in my seven year-old's hair and I pried the gummy bears out of my four year old's sticky little hands. I remembered that my adorable husband would be home at any moment and that I had absolutely no clue what we were having for dinner.And I thought to myself that as incredibly lucky as I am to have the friends and family that I have, there's still an opening for a friend who carries a cleaning crew in her van... and one who delivers take-out. Plus I really wouldn't mind that vodka/prozac friend. Email me. PLEASE.