Jumping Daisy

I have been caught up in a whirlwind of attempted self-improvement, and totally missed my big one.  The five-year blogiversary!

Some things that have changed since I started blogging in 2006:

1. Instead of growing baby teeth, Leila is thinking about losing hers (first loose tooth discovered last night *sniffle*)

2. Instead of reading bedtime stories to Leila, she often reads to me as part of our good night routine.

3. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the responsibility of parenting one little girl, I have two!

4. Instead of enjoying the love and companionship of one little girl, I am blessed to have two!

5. Of course, my location (mommytolbc.blogspot.com -> jumpingdaisy.com

Some things that have stayed the same:

1. The tremendous amount of love that I feel for my family and friends.  That’s probably you.

2. The devotion that my husband and I have towards each other, and toward raising our family.

3. My constant desire to do better, feel better and live better.  My determination may wax and wane, but I never give up.

4. My struggle to stay in front of the tide of stress, worry and depression.  I may not be totally open about my struggles, but if you know me, you know this isn’t easy.

5. The importance I place on legacy.

Some things I have learned as a blogger:

1. You may be able to put too much of what is in your head into the internet, but you can’t put too much of your heart out there.  Share what you feel, you may show someone important how important they are to you.

2. A blog beats the pants off of a baby book.  (At least that is what I am telling myself, as I have two pretty much empty baby books in my house somewhere)

3. When having casual conversation with friends and family, they are probably hearing something from you that they have already read.

4. No matter how often you blog, someone will complain that it isn’t enough (MOM!)

5. Web hosting costs are the cheapest therapy available.

6.  Daisies may be hardy flowers, but they take time, which I rarely have and work which I am happy to give to a project I love.  This blog is a project I love, even though it may not seem like I am always devoted to it. I do have a pretty amazing garden to tend to so you can bet that I will be posting about my little daisies eventually.

*Note to self…take more pictures of the girls together!

Last night Leila was crying big elephant tears when I tried to put her to bed.  She told me she was missing her Daddy.  Leila does have a flair for drama, with a trip to Chicago on Monday and him leaving for Chicago early Tuesday morning, I miss him too so I gave her the benefit of the doubt, and a few extra snuggles.

It occurred to me that Leila has a states puzzle in her closet, so I got it down to look at with her.  I asked her if she knew where Daddy was, and we found Virginia on the map.  I traced the path that he had taken by plane to get there, and Leila had a giggle over how indirect it was…who goes to Michigan to get to  Virginia from Iowa?! 🙂

Next I showed her the path that he is taking tonight to get back to us before she wakes up in the morning.  He is flying much more directly, but through the black hole of delayed and cancelled flights that is O’Hare.  (Fingers crossed all goes as planned!)

Leila seemed a little happier, as she turned the Virginia puzzle piece over and over in her hand.   “Are you ready to go to sleep sweetie?”

“Yeah, but I am going to keep this with me,” she said, still holding tight to Virginia.  She rolled over and faced the wall and was asleep in no time.  This morning she was quick to tell me when she woke up that she missed her Daddy.

To compensate for her sadness I bought Curious George 2 at Target and am feeding the girls popcorn and skittles for dinner.  You can forward my mom of the year award any time!

I have some catching up to do to get us to this point, but I am going to jump right in with Leila’s first day of school anyway.

I have a thing about the first day of school.  It makes me so anxious I can barely stand it.  That is one trait that, at least so far, Leila hasn’t picked up from me.  Her first day of school started with a misplaced backpack, which didn’t faze her at all.  We walked over to the school and located it.  At that point Leila would have been just fine with us leaving her with Cassie at the Before and After School Program (BASP) but she will be doing that every other day, and I planned for this, and I was not going to miss her first trip into Mrs. Halverson’s classroom!

So to satisfy my own need I put her confidence aside and followed her around like the paparazzi.  To her credit, she wasn’t embarrassed.  I guess that means she isn’t totally grown up yet, right?

I know that somewhere in my parents house is a picture of chubby little frizzy headed girl in a teal dress and pink backpack who was equally excited for the first day of kindergarten.

No new dress or backpack, but Leila wanted a turn with the camera, and I felt that I owed her that after the photo shoot I put her through.  I actually like this picture of myself…I especially like knowing that I have that face on because I am looking at my sweet big girl on her special day.

Just in case she forgot about me, now that she has moved into the big world of elementary school, I also added a note to her lunch box.   I think she had a great day, and has had two more great days since that day.  She loves school, and Cassie tells me she is well-behaved and a good listener! I am glad that she is exhibiting those traits somewhere.

And a small brag, because this is my blog and no one can stop me…when I walked down the hallway by her classroom this afternoon after pick up I noted that each child had their picture and a drawing that they had made under it, hanging on the wall.  All of the children also had block letters written by the teachers describing what their pictures were of, except for Leila.  Who wrote her description herself.

Yesterday was “meet the teacher night” at Leila’s school.  I think they would have been more accurate to refer to it as, “panic inducing evening of chaos.”  I have always been a big proponent of public schools.  I think that they are our key to a better society.  That said, I think they have a long way to come.  So far we have been invited to two events at the school.  Kindergarten round up, and this meet the teacher fiasco.  Both of them were scheduled for an hour.  In our allotted time yesterday we fought through crowds to put money on a lunch account for Leila, with no information on what they serve or how much it costs.  We met her kindergarten teacher, along with the other 23 students and forty six parents so we took our fair share of time, just over two minutes, to ask where to put her supplies.

So far, no one has done anything to assess Leila.  No questions, no testing, no asking her parents anything about her.  Don’t they know my girl is special!?!  All of these kids are special, and they all deserve some individual attention.

I am trying not to dwell too heavily on that number, twenty-four, because I can’t do anything about it.  I am worried about my daughter though.  One of twenty-four new kindergartners all  in one classroom.  With one teacher.  And one student teacher for the first six weeks.

She will be ok.  She is a smart kid, and she will seek out attention if she doesn’t get it.  I am a little worried about *how* she will seek attention though.

I know that the forced independence is a good thing, school is a good thing, but this is going to be quite an adjustment.  I hope we are ready for it.

Life is about continuous improvement.  Most days I feel like the forward progress I have made on myself is nothing to be proud of, but some days, the leap forward I accomplish gives me the energy to keep trying.  Last summer I made my first attempt to water ski.

I know a lot of people that can ski.  Most of my Howard family in fact have been skiing since they were kids.  It is really no big deal, for most people.  I think we all have things that come easily to us, and some of us find that most things require a hard fight.  I happen to be one of those hard fighting people.  Sometimes I feel like I have the force of thousands of gallons of water pushing against me when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, or when its time to load up the car and set off on an out of the ordinary adventure.  I feel that force when its time to meet new people, or visit new places.  Lately, I feel that force every day.

This summer I was bound and determined to accomplish the feat of water skiing. I bought a one piece swimming suit, though  I prefer a nice conservative tankini. I figured I would worry less about losing my suit while skiing if I had a one piece.  I packed my contact lenses, which I never bother with, so that I could have the luxury of being able to see while I was skiing.

I have heard my mother declare herself “too fat to water ski” many times in the past, and I knew that if she was too fat, I was also.  Which is probably why it took me so long to even consider attempting, that and my low self esteem and poor body image.  I joined a gym at the end of last year and I have religiously (who I am I kidding, much more regularly then I actually practice religion) attended strengthening classes.  I came into the summer of 2011 not having lost any weight since last years failure, but feeling stronger.  I have let my weight hold me back from countless activities over my three decades.  Countless.  I haven’t gained anything from that, except some more weight.  You know, pity pounds.

My first try I could feel the difference.  I knew I could do it.  Over the course of the 6 days on the lake, I want to say that I spent about 4 hours or so behind that boat, holding on as firmly as I could while I fought against the water I desperately wanted to get on top of.

At one point, as I lay back on the water, skis planted under my backside with only the top 6 inches or so present on top of the water, I remembered something from years ago.  Dad had purchased Cassie and Clay a car to drive to school and back.  The car was a stick shift and we were all taking turns driving it.  My sister Cassie was stopped by a neighbor woman, a woman I had gone to high school with, who told her that the key was to just pretend you already know what you are doing, and do it.

I used that strategy a few times, but my body knew better than my mind, which my mind found totally infuriating.

On my second day out on the lake, with just Andrea and Dad in the boat with me, I worked and worked towards my goal.  When I couldn’t take it anymore, I climbed in the boat and Andrea took her turn, and around we went. Dad gave us a pep talk.  He told us about the day that he remembers sitting out at a lake for hours, all day, while my Grandpa Warren, the best 77 year old slalom skier around, worked and worked towards his goal to get up on skis.  If it took Grandpa a day to learn, I knew I had my work cut out for me, but I also knew that if you are dedicated to putting in the effort, it will happen eventually.

Finally, I got up on the skis! I didn’t know what to do next and I quickly found myself with a face full of water, but as the boat turned back towards me I yelled out to my Dad, “I am not too fat to waterski!”  Maybe too clumsy, but not too fat.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I watched lots of other people pop out of the water onto skis and take off.  It looks so simple, so smooth.  They swing themselves outside of the wake that froths up from the back of Dad’s boat and skim across the wide open, calm water.  It looks effortless.  Maybe it is, though I have a hard time seeing it ever being that way for myself, I do have hope.  I don’t plan to give up.  By the end of vacation my hands were blistered and sore from my marathon sessions of water torture.  I sat across the boat from Leila as her Daddy skied behind the boat.  Leila looked at me, pointed at Cory and said, “See Mom, that’s how you do it.”

Thanks Leila.

On the nights that I am really tired, I will ask Leila if she wants to read to me, instead of me reading to her.  I hadn’t really given it much thought until recently, but that is pretty impressive.  She starts kindergarten next week (Unbelievable!)  and last night she read this entire page to me, from a book that she is not familiar with, without hesitation and at nearly the same clip that I would expect out of an adult.  The very last line of the page she asked  for help with the word “landing,” but words like “Through” and “might” did not phase her.  

I have been brewing this idea for some time.  I found it on a blog link that was pinned on pinterest.  The concept didn’t work perfectly, but well enough to contribute an evening of fun to the Coobs family!

The homemade bubble solution includes a secret ingredient…well, not secret anymore.  It’s KY personal lubricant.  I didn’t buy it at Hy Vee just in case someone were to tell my brother that I was buying lube. But now all of you know.  Its for the bubbles!

Leila practicing her technique.  It was actually more difficult then I expected and Leila is pretty easily frustrated when things don’t come easy to her, but she hung in there and had a good time with it!

Then she got to learn another trick…how to use Mommy’s camera.

For all of the details on this fun, inexpensive project, check out this blog post!

We made our annual trek to Warsaw Missouri at the end of July, and we had a great time.  We ate a lot, we drank a lot, we got to spend time with our Howard and Morgan families that love so so much and don’t get to see often enough.  We sat on a boat, we floated in a lake.  We laughed and played cards after the babies went to bed.  It was everything I could have hoped for, with the exception of waterski results.  More on that at another date.

On the hottest day of the trip, we decide to keep the kids indoors so they go to watch Cory water-ski and Cassie knee-board from the comforts of the Truman Lake Dam Observatory.  An excellent view!

One of the funniest quotes of the vacation was Sawyer, in his most pathetic whine voice came out of the bedroom and said, “Leila says I’m a whiny baby!”  Part of me felt really bad for him, since he was obviously really sad about it, but it was so hard to not laugh!  As you can see, they always managed to make up and snuggle when sleep finally took over.

The way that Grammy is looking at those babies? That’s how we all feel about them.  Love.

My loves really enjoy the jet skis.  I on the other hand, do not.

I do really enjoy smores…evidently more than Thea does.

This little guy just got his Daddy back from a year long deployment.  We gave his parents a little break and brought Quincy along with us to the Coobs Reunion.