Tuesday, January 31, 2017

About Those Villages

Speaking of our village, it hit met last week that while I often feel like our own personal village is pretty small and self-contained we’re incredibly lucky to be part of other villages. (And yep, Julie, you are ABSOLUTELY counted as part of our village, even being over 180 mile away.)

Last Wednesday evening the friend of one of Lyss’s friends texted me. She wanted to know if her daughter could ride the bus home with Lyss on Thursday and someone (a parent, a brother) would pick her up after 4:30. There wouldn’t be anyone home that afternoon and even though Sophie is fourteen, it’s been freaking cold around here and her mom didn’t want her to walk the half mile from the school to their home and come home to an empty house.

Obviously, I said of course Sophie could come over. She could stay as long as needed.

It warmed my heart to help. I felt so lucky that Tom is home every day when our girls get off the bus and I wanted to share some of that luckiness with Sophie and her parents. And of course, if the situation were reversed, I know that they’d welcome both A and O into their home in a heartbeat. Heck, they’d even be so kind as to put their two Basset hounds in the backyard to preserve Olivia’s sensibilities. (I know this because they’ve done it on every occasion that we’ve gone into their house. They understand that Liv can’t help being terrified of their dogs and they don’t take it personally.)

The day before Sophie’s mom texted about Sophie coming to our house for a couple of hours, the mom of one of Lyss’s other good friends called to ask what she called a ‘huge favor.’

This mom and her older daughter are going on vacation. Her younger daughter, Lyss’s friend Tessa, doesn’t want to go with them because it would mean missing several days of school and she’s a lot like Lyss, she likes school and doesn’t want to fall behind. Well, obviously, a fourteen year old can’t stay at home alone for over a week.

Tessa’s mom wanted to know if Tessa could stay with us this coming Friday and Saturday nights. She went on to explain that because Tessa is in the high school pep band, I’ll need to take her (and Alyssa, because…duh) to the basketball game on Friday. She said she hated to ask, that she’d found other arrangements for Tessa through the week and that Tessa would be going to Sophie’s house on Sunday but she wondered if it wouldn’t be too much trouble for us to take Tessa in for a couple of nights.

Of course I told her this was no problem at all. I was actually flattered that she’d asked. I feel honored to be a part of Tessa’s and her mom’s village. I feel like making lovely friends with entire families is part of the charm of being from a very small town. There are several families in this area with girls in my girls’ classes that we could call in an emergency and they’d step up to the plate for us. Just like they seem know we’ll do for them.

Now that January is finally making its cold, snowy exit from 2017, I’m suddenly feeling a little lighter, a little less anxious, a little more hopeful for the future…a little.

Friday, January 27, 2017

Quality Care

It can be really hard to have a non-verbal child. It can be even harder when she’s actually only non-verbal in situations where vocalization is actually necessary for whatever is happening at that moment.

Take for example, our trip to the eye doctor yesterday. Guess who was the patient?

If you guess Olivia, you get a gold star! Go you.

Yes, Olivia needed to see the eye doctor. She hadn’t been seen since October of 2015 and it was time.

She was first seen by the technician who wanted to get a bit of an idea of how O is seeing with her glasses on.

Would Olivia read off the letters the tech was showing her? Nope. She’d barely nod when I asked her about the letters.

I tried to be patient. I knelt on the floor beside her chair and told her she could whisper the letters to me and I’d tell the tech. She sat there stone-faced. It was simply not going to happen.

Then…THEN this awesome young woman suggested that Olivia write down the letters she could see. How brilliant was that?

Liv was happy to write those letters for her. She wrote four different times, once for each eye to test her near vision and once for each eye for distance vision. I was seriously so impressed with the patience and innovation of this technician. I told the doctor when he came in how awesome his staff is.

Liv wouldn’t speak for the doctor either but lucky for her, he’s got other ways of figuring out what her prescription needs to be.

She got to pick out new frames for glasses that will be ready in about a week. She’s thrilled with the purple glasses that are on their way to her face.

I’m just happy we managed to luck into awesome medical professionals who take their time to treat Olivia like a person, like she deserves to be treated. I understand that at the end of the day, it might be hard to deal with a kid who just seems like she’s being a brat for the sake of being a brat but yesterday, no one did that. They saw my sweet girl and worked with her to the best of their ability to give her the awesome care she deserves, spoken words or not.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Rock/Paper/Freaking Scissors

Last night Olivia’s homework was to play Rock/Paper/Scissors with someone at least twenty times and keep track of who won so that she could figure out if it’s a fair game and if both people had the same chances of winning.

I HATE rock/paper/scissors. I remember being on a train from Chicago to my mom’s house (way back when I was in my twenties) and this kid was seated next to me. She was probably about six. She was cute, you know, for being someone else’s kid.

She wanted to play rock/paper/scissors non-stop. It was awful. Her mom was across the aisle with a younger sibling and so I was stuck with this kid, playing rock/paper/scissors from Chicago, IL to Waterloo, IN. That’s about a three hour trip. It was torture.

During that trip, I wondered why that child’s mother couldn’t be bothered to save the stranger across the aisle.

I realize now that she was probably just grateful for a momentary reprieve from rock/paper/scissors.

But we played it last night because it was her homework. After we played our twenty rounds she had to answer a few questions about the game. I sat with her while she read the questions and answered them. I let her write in her own words why she felt the game was fair to all who were playing it. That was cute.

And I forgave that mom from all those years ago. My twenty seven year old self is probably still a little miffed that she spent two plus hours playing rock/paper/scissors with a stranger’s child but my forty six year old self gets it. It takes a village and sometimes we even have to deputize strangers into our village just to get through the day.

Our current village is pretty small and self-contained but I’m on the lookout for more members, more ideas on getting through each and every day.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Maybe It's the Weather

This funk isn’t abating. I’m so tired these days. I’m tired and cranky and headachy and grouchy and snarky and it’s not pretty or fun.

My husband watches the news morning and evening and I can’t stand it when our new president is on the screen. My skin literally crawls and I need to leave the room.

My husband thinks I’m overreacting so I don’t talk about it much anymore. But it festers.

I live in a very small, very rural, VERY conservative area of the country and I’m surrounded by white working class individuals who do not understand my angst…at all. They don’t want to hear even a little bit about how loathsome I find this man.

And because I live in the freaking Midwest, there hasn’t been any sunshine for weeks. It has rained here almost every single day for almost a month.

So yeah, maybe this funk is weather-related. Then again, maybe the weather feels the same way I do and just want to hibernate for the next four years.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Either Or

I was in such a tizzy for most of last week. I think we can all guess why. Perhaps I should invent some ‘alternative facts’ to see if they make more sense than the actual truth.

Ahem.

Anyway, yes. Last week was tough. This week doesn’t feel much better, to be honest. I mean, please, it’s Monday. Mondays suck. Not as much as Tuesdays but still.

So I realized that along with all the bullshit that went down last week, I was also PMSing. That’s always great fun.

I picked up some hair color over the weekend because, duh, when one is 46, one either goes gray gracefully or one covers one’s roots.

I’m a root-coverer.

I even mentioned to Alyssa (and my husband and my mom) that I should probably consider going gray gracefully since, yes, I am 46.

But then I amended that. I declared that before I can stop coloring my roots, I have to lose weight because I cannot be fat and gray. I will be either fat, or gray. And right now, since I’m fat, I can’t be gray.

It’s a bit like having pimples (Hello PMS!) and wrinkles. It just seems so wrong. And just plain mean.

Friday, January 20, 2017

What To Watch

Since there is not going to be anything worth watching on television tonight, I’m trying to decide which DVD we should put in.

Right now I’m going back and forth between Anne of Green Gables and season two of Fear the Walking Dead. You can understand my indecisiveness.

I might just let the girls pick. But before I do that, I have to reconcile myself with the fact that we’ll probably end up watching The Secret Lives of Pets.

I think I might just be okay with that.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Precious

When I got to my mom’s on Sunday to pick up Olivia, the first thing I noticed was that her eyes were a little glassy. I asked her if she was okay. She did her weird dance that tells me she’s fine but doesn’t want to actually say the words.

We hung out at my mom’s for about an hour, waiting for my brother, who seems to have no concept of time, to show up and pick up his son. Jax gets a little weepy if we leave him at Gram’s alone. Not that he minds being at Gram’s but he’s a very social creature and so when Lyss and Liv leave him, he feels so very alone. But if we leave once his dad is there, he’s fine because he knows they’ll leave soon too and all is well.

Anyway, when we got home, I started making lunch for the girls and called Olivia in to give her some medicine for the sniffles that had become apparent when we were driving home.

As she settled in at the kitchen table, Liv announced that she was cold. I got her a blanket and felt her forehead. She MIGHT have had a fever of maybe 99 degrees…maybe.

As she sat there, all sad and forlorn, trying to eat her soup, she declared that she was achy.

I told her that if she didn’t feel like she could eat her lunch, I’d make her a ‘nest’ in the corner behind the recliner. She perked up a bit at that, because, hello, who doesn’t love a nest made just for them?

I got the beanbag chair that is shaped like lips and put it in the corner. Then I got O’s sleeping bag. She grabbed her tablet because, duh she wasn’t actually going to rest, you fool.

I settled her into the nest, putting the sleeping bag over her in such a way as to trap the heat coming from the register there in the corner. She relaxed against the beanbag chair and started watching The Mommy and Gracie Show on Youtube, much to Alyssa’s disgust because she finds Mommy and Gracie to be the epitome of annoying. Kind of like how I feel when Alyssa watches Pat and Jen on Youtube. Talk about annoying!

Anyway! Yeah, Olivia has a cold.

And guess what? She’s not taking it well. The child who had strep throat every three weeks for eight months has the sniffles and she wants to know, “Why does this always happen to ME?” (That’s an actual quote from her from this weekend.)

This is her first cold of any kind since her tonsils came out back in June. I’d say that’s an excellent record.

I’d also say that she got used to being well and realizes now that not being well sucks.

Poor baby. She’s just become too precious to handle sickness.

She suggested that if I had any sort of magical powers, that I use them to take the sickies out of her and put them in her sister. When I told her that even if I did have those kinds of powers I wouldn’t make her sister sick because, hello, her sister was as much my child as she was, she changed her mind and said that I could just put the sickies in her dad’s butt.

Now there’s an option.

Monday, January 16, 2017

The Usual Suspects

The gang was all there: Tessa, Sophie, Nora, Jennifer, Gabby, Amelia and a new face, Aidan.

They were all there for Alyssa’s annual slumber party. She turned fourteen on Saturday and it was an all-out bash to celebrate.

At one point, I called all the guests (and Alyssa) into the living room so I could take a picture. Tessa started in right away, wanting to be on the end so if anyone printed the pictures, she could be cropped out.

The rest of the night, whenever a camera (phone) came out, she was covering her face, declaring she looked terrible in pictures and to not take any of her.

I remember being that girl, the one who knew she wasn’t fat but felt like she was supposed say she thought she was fat. And so I did. I said it all the way through junior high and high school until it took hold in my head and became a running mantra. “You’re fat…you’re ugly…you’re useless…”

I wanted so badly for people to assure me that of course I wasn’t fat. I wanted to hear outside voices corroborate what my inside voice was saying in the beginning.

So the next morning, when she girls were packing up, I said gently to Tessa, “You know it’s okay to like yourself, right? You know that it’s okay to know that you’re beautiful. It’s also okay to know that you’re not fat and to not ever say you are.”

I then reminded every girl there that they were so much more than their physical bodies. I told them that their friendships, their musical talent or art talent, their intellect, their kindness, all of that was so much more important than what the world said was classically beautiful.

Then I told them the group therapy session was over. They laughed but I hope they also took in at least a little bit of what I told them.

I hope I did too.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Shipping Her Off

As is our tradition, Alyssa’s 14th birthday will be celebrated with a slumber party for her and seven of her closest friends. This is not Tom’s favorite weekend of the year. He loathes having people over, especially so many, also especially for so long.

I reminded him, gently, that this is only one night a year and he can suck it up. Alyssa is a really good kid and this is something we need to do for her/let her do.

He rolled his eyes and agreed to the parameters of the party. Drop off is at 5pm tomorrow afternoon and pick up it at 11am Sunday morning.

It’ll be fine.

And best of all, my mom is kind enough to let us ship Olivia off to her house. Jaxon will be there to entertain Liv for the evening. I’ll drive her the three and a half miles to my mom’s house at 4:30 Saturday afternoon and pick her up at 11:30, or after the last party guest leaves, whichever comes first, on Sunday morning.

It would be fine if Olivia stayed home but it would also be tougher on both her and me. She’d want to be upstairs with Alyssa and her guests. Alyssa would NOT want her sister hanging out with her and so I’d have to keep coming up with ways to entertain the little beast ahem, I mean, my littlest love the entire evening until I finally managed to force her into submission by way of sleep.

Sending her to her Gram’s for the night is best for everyone, except, perhaps for my mom and stepdad, who will be stuck with a nine year old and a ten year old. I’ll remind them to be thankful that Jax’s little brother, C isn’t there too. C is two and a half and A LOT of work. So that gentle reminder should help them get through the night.

I’m a giver, I tell you.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

A Math Problem

The girls brought home their report cards last week.

Olivia, sweet, sweet Olivia is doing okay in most of her classes. I wish I could say she tries but honestly, I’m not sure she does. I mean, I think she gets a lot more of the material than her report card shows but I also think she finds school work boring and she’s the kind of kid who doesn’t do well when she’s bored. She’s just not motivated to do the work if it’s not interesting to her.

Alyssa, on the other hand, is motivated by A’s and the $$ that come from those A’s. And for the record, Tom and I do not pay for good grades but my mom and stepdad do, so…

But O’s math scores surprised me. She is graded in numbers from one to five. A one means she’s working way below grade level and intervention is probably needed. I am happy to say her report card had no ones on it.

A two means she needs to work a little harder. A three means she’s working at grade level. Fours mean she’s above grade level and fives mean she’s excelling.

She always gets fives in art, gym, and computers. The one that amuses me the most is the five she gets for ‘is consistently dressed appropriately for gym class.’ I mean, duh, she’s ten, her parents (mom) still pick out her clothes and tell her which shoes to wear on which day. So yeah, I feel for those kids who aren’t ‘appropriately dressed’ because that’s not their fail at this age, it’s their parent’s fail.

But about those math scores…she got a two in her comprehension of addition and subtraction. Yeah. We’re working on that.

In multiplication, a new subject this year, she got a four. FOUR! She’s mastered the times tables for 0, 1, 2, and 5.

I realize that multiplication is often all about memorization and that addition and subtraction require actually understanding the problems and doing the math.

But this was still an interesting situation. My child who is struggling with adding and subtracting even single digit numbers is excelling in multiplication.

Let’s hope we can bring up those addition and subtraction scores and maintain that multiplication score.

I guess if she continues to find memorizing the times tables interesting she’ll keep doing well. I hope I can figure out how to keep her interest going.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Putting It in Writing

Let’s just put this out there. I am NOT going to be in charge of Olivia’s class Valentine’s day party.

I’m just not.

For the past three years (Kindergarten, first grade, and second grade) one other mom and I have basically traded off being the Mom In Charge of the class parties.

This other mom, Mrs. Deck, is lovely and more than willing to do her share. I, too, am more than willing to do my share.

However, during this fourth year of class parties, we’re both over it. We’ve discussed this and we’re NOT going to be in charge of the party.

Mrs. Deck planned and ran this year’s Halloween party. I took charge of the Christmas party.

In years past at the open house (the evening before the first day of school) the teachers always had sign-up sheets for the holiday parties. These sheets were for parents to sign up to either help at the party or run it.

This year, Mrs. H didn’t have that. Instead, in early October, she sent home sheet that asked parents interested in helping at the parties to sign up with their emails and phone numbers. A couple of weeks later she sent home sheet of paper with all the parents’ (okay, moms’, let’s be real, there were only mom names on that piece of paper) names and numbers on it. Noted was, “Here is a list of everyone who signed up to help. Please call each other and plan this party.”

Yeah…okay.

For the Valentine’s day party , I am taking a snack, some drinks and a game/craft to do. It’s up to everyone else to figure out what they want to bring. Mrs. Deck and I are sick of being the only two moms with kids in that class who take initiative. I mean, seriously!

And, get this, we are both also the only two moms who work full time. Any of the other moms who work only work part time and that’s just a handful. The rest don’t work at all (outside the home…granted, they probably work really hard while at home…just saying.)

So yes, this is my rant. I am not planning, texting, calling anyone for the party that is coming up in exactly a month.

Of course, I said that before the Christmas party and look what happened. But I’m serious this time. I mean, look at all those words up there. It’s been put in writing. I am not planning this hears third grade Valentine’s day party. I’ll be there with red (or pink) on and will facilitate a game or a craft. But everyone else needs to step up and figure it out. I’m done handing out assignments.

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

It Must Be Tuesday

Once upon a time there was this television show call Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I loved this show so, so much. I wanted to be strong and smart and quick with the witty comebacks like Buffy. I wanted to be loyal and kind like Willow. I even sometimes wanted to be the sort of person who simply told it like it is like Cordelia.

Anyway, in its seventh season, Buffy aired on Tuesday nights. There was this awesome episode in season seven called Once More with Feeling. It was the musical episode. I love it so much. It mixed the awesomeness of Buffy and vampires with music and that’s just too fun ignore.

There was a line on this episode that just made me giddy when Buffy first uttered it. Her little sister had been kidnapped by that episode’s ‘big bad’ and when Buffy found out, she said with resignation, “Dawn’s in trouble, it must be Tuesday.”

I often feel like that. ‘Something’ is happening and it seems to happen all the freaking time and so…it must be Tuesday.

Like today…Tuesday. School was closed due to the weather. It must be Tuesday.

UPS was late to arrive, it must be Tuesday.

Oh, there’s a meeting that requires lunch being brought in. It must be Tuesday.

I’m beginning to understand exactly how Buffy felt about Tuesdays. They just really, really suck.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Random

Last Friday I woke the girls as I always do (by turning off the noise machine and then cheerfully apologizing for it being morning…I know.) and then went about my morning. Olivia lumbered down the hall to join me in my bathroom (as she always does.) She examined the clothes I had on the counter for her and asked, “Why do I have to wear those?”

Because I wasn’t grouchy that morning, I asked cheerfully, “What would you rather wear?” (On my less cheerful morning, I might growl at her or whine and say something more obnoxious like, “Why do you have to make things so hard, just put on the stupid clothes.” I’m grateful for my less grouchy days is what I’m saying…)

So yes, I had a positive mommy moment when I asked her what she wanted to wear.

She gave it about two seconds of thought and then declared, “I want to wear something random. Like a blue shirt and some pink pants.”

“Sooo, you want to wear something that doesn’t match?” I asked her, wanting to be sure I was hearing my little fashionista correctly.

She gave me a smile and said, “Yes! That’s what I want to wear.”

Okay then.

We made our way to her room and looked in her closet. It’s really freaking cold here in the Midwest these days and so I pulled out a navy blue turtleneck and offered it to her.

She nodded, donned the shirt and we found some hot pink pants. She put on the pants and I gave her a once-over. I told her she needed to wear something over the turtleneck because her pants were actually leggings and even when you weigh 80 pounds, well, leggings are not pants.

I pulled out a dress that was gray with hot pink, navy blue, green and purple polka dots of all sized on it.

She declared it perfect, pulled it on over her shirt and pants and declared it the most random outfit ever.

Shhhhh, don’t tell her that the dress pulled the entire outfit together and sort of ruined the ‘randomness’ of it all.

She looked adorable and best of all, she felt good in her ‘random’ outfit. It was the win-win sort of situation I wish we could have more often.

Friday, January 6, 2017

Switching Things Up

As we move full speed ahead toward Alyssa’s fourteenth birthday, we’re moving things around in our house.

I’ve been telling Alyssa for quite a while now that whenever she decides she’s ready, we’ll move Olivia out of her room and Alyssa can have the room they currently share all to herself.

She’s hemmed and hawed for about a year, saying vaguely, “Soon…”

But last week, she declared that she thinks she’s ready.

So we’re working on it.

I’m cleaning out the master bedroom because it’s become a storage room over the past couple of years because yeah, no one has been sleeping in there. But as of next weekend (the 14th) I will be sleeping in there and I can’t do that if there are boxes everywhere. I need my room to be calm and uncluttered and not a storage room.

I also need to make room in the master bedroom for a couple of dressers that are currently in the room that will be Olivia’s in about a week. Her bed, her new Monster High curtains that we’re picking up tomorrow, her clothes, everything will make its way in there and I need to make room for all that. Thankfully, the master bedroom is HUGE and can manage a couple of dressers. Oh and we can’t get rid of those superfluous dressers because they once belonged to Tom’s mom and he meticulously cleaned them up, re-stained them and basically returned them to their former glory and even if we don’t actually need them in our house, they are here to stay.

Alyssa wants to keep the bunkbeds and the full-sized bed that currently reside in her room. She wants those in order to have a place (places?) for her friends to sleep when they visit.

Lucky for her, we have a twin bed still set up in the master bedroom (don’t ask why…just don’t) and it will move to Olivia’s new room this weekend.

This is a grand new adventure and we’re all excited about it. I think Olivia is going to be fine. She’ll still be next door to her sister and I have a feeling she might visit me a few times here and there but I’ll continue the habit we’ve developed over the past year and just walk her back down the hall to her room if she tries to join me in my bed before 6am.

Here’s to a whole new chapter in the life of Ordinary sleep.

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Rings, Life and Death, and ooh, Look, Shiny

Olivia loves jewelry and shiny things. She has many, MANY cheap, sparkly rings which she wears almost constantly. She’s very much a girly girl and loves to accessorize.

My mom has given Liv most of the rings she currently has in her possession. Olivia likes to gaze upon these ‘jewels’ and asks me often if they’re real diamonds. I always gently tell her that they’re not actually real diamonds but they sure do sparkle, don’t they? She will smile and nod in answer to the sparkly question.

I have very small diamonds on my wedding band and the engagement ring that came with the band has a larger center diamond.

Over Christmas break, I showed Liv my engagement ring and its diamond. I don’t wear the engagement ring with the wedding band these days because, well, my fingers are fat and I don’t like the feeling of the two rings together smashing my finger-fat between them. The wedding band doesn’t come off but that’s okay, it’s not actually cutting off the circulation to my ring finger yet so…yeah.

As she gazed in awe at the ‘real’ diamond, I told her that when I die, she can have the engagement ring. I also told her that Alyssa can have my wedding ring if she wants it. I told them both not to bury me with them because, yeah, what a waste of perfectly good, lovely jewelry. And I’m not even that big on jewelry but why bury it in the ground with a corpse?

My mom happened to visit one day last weekend and I was telling her about my conversation with Olivia about the rings and Tom piped in with, “So you’re assuming I’m going to die before you?”

What? Where did that come from?

I asked him, “Why would you want my rings if I’m dead? Are you planning to remarry and give them to your new wife?”

He managed to laugh and just said, “Well, maybe I’d want to keep them as a memory of you and then give them to the girls when I’m closer to death.”

Which…all together, aww. And yet…whatever. I told him that was sweet and we discussed how men tend to not live as long as women and hello, dude is ten years older than I am.

Sure, I do travel more often than he does (even if it is just to and from work, that’s still almost forty miles a day, five days a week, while he works from home so…no travel.) And okay, he’s actually in better physical shape than I am but my family medical history is actually better than his and I get regular dental care...just saying.

And yeah, this is all getting kind of depressing. All I wanted was to say that I told my girls they could have my rings when I’m dead. And when I told Olivia she could have my REAL diamond engagement ring, girlfriend started planning my funeral.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

So Anyway

Yeah, happy New Year and all that.

The girls started back to school yesterday after thirteen days off. That’s including weekends because, well, they had those days off too.

And yesterday afternoon was rough.

Alyssa had what she called ‘five thousand pages of homework.’

Olivia had just one but then we had to work on multiplication facts. Ugh!

Tom was annoyed because we (the girls and I) stayed at my mom’s house longer than he thought we would/should and so dinner was later than he’d have liked. And let me stop here and say that he wasn’t annoyed because I didn’t have HIS dinner on the table at a specific time, no, he was annoyed because the girls ate at 7 instead of 6 and they both resisted eating what he’d served because they ate quite a bit at my mom’s and it was just…annoying all the way around.

Alyssa was frustrated with all her homework and didn’t want to do the actual work that was necessary to finish said homework. At one point of ‘helping’ her with her homework (I was looking up the damned answers in her book for her…I know! Enabling much?) I said to her, “Huh…it’s a good thing most things come easily for you.”

She glared at me for a minute before sighing and getting back to work, actually doing the work herself instead of whining and wanting me to do it for her.

I suppose we can call that one a parenting win for me. I’ll take all the wins I can get at this point.

We’re all tired from the belly flop we did back into the real world yesterday. But we’ll keep on keeping on. I’ll go home today, help Liv with her homework, quiz her on the rules for multiplying 0s and 1s and 2s. We’ll practice her spelling words, she’ll take a bath and all will be well for another day.

Then we get to do it all again tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Nope (Unless the Answer is Yes)

This year I am not going to make any resolutions. Nope, not gonna do it.

Do I want to lose weight and be healthier? Sure. But am I going to try and make it happen by ‘resolving’ to do so? Nope.

Will I try to drink more water because I know it’s better for my skin and my metabolism? Sure. But am I going to make a resolution about staying hydrated? Nope.

Am I beating myself up over all of this? Nope.

Maybe that needs to be my word for 2017…Nope. I want to nope out of guilt and negative self-talk. I want to nope out of things I don’t want to do and yes my way into things that are fun and good for me and my family.

Alyssa and I have been invited to join a community band. My band director from when I was in high school ran into my mom at Kohl’s, they spent some time catching up and then he gave her his number to give to me. When I didn’t call after a couple of days, he found me at work and mentioned that he directs a community band a couple of towns over from us. He said that he needs flute players and would like for me and Alyssa to join them.

I laughed and reminded him that I haven’t played my flute (not really, like as in played an actual song) in almost thirty years. He told me I would pick it up way faster than I realized. We’ll see.

I think this would be awesome for Alyssa if only because it would give her more opportunity to play her flute and her piccolo and it would be so awesome for her to work with this director. Of all the teachers I’ve had in all my years of being educated, this man was my favorite. He was the one who showed me that I had a lot to offer. He taught me that I had a lot to be confident about. He reminded me that hard work paid off and that even if I was never going to be the best out of everyone, if I gave the best of me, well, that was enough.

I want that for Alyssa. I want her to see how amazing she is and how much hard work can do for her. I want to tap into her self-confidence and see it grow.

So we’re not going to Nope out of this community band because I think it will be worth the half hour drive to practices once a week and the time away from Liv and Tom and you know what? They’ll be fine because they’re awesome too.