Double Digits

Ten years ago today, Tom and I stood before friends and family and declared our love for each other. We promised to love, cherish and honor each other above all others.

We promised to care for each other in sickness and health and for richer and for poorer.

In the grand scheme of things, we’ve done pretty well. We weathered a 65 mile commute that pretty much had us under the same roof about three days a week for eight years.

We managed to survive the nightmare that was Olivia’s first six months of life when, as Tom put it, “We should be able to put her down for more than ten minutes without her screaming.”

There were some rough patches. I tell new moms with a smile not to make any decisions about their marriage/relationship during the first year of their baby’s life because things get better. They really do get better. But that first year? It’s tough. It’s tough on both parents and it’s tough on the relationship.

But we’ve weathered the birth of two children, the purchase of two houses, a brief stay in the NICU with a sick baby, the eventual diagnosis of a genetic disorder for that same sick baby. We’ve managed to get through therapies, IEP meetings, a sometimes surly but more often loving ten year old.

I have high hopes for us surviving two teenage girls and growing old together.

These days are the best ones yet. We laugh, we talk, we love.

We’re lucky and we’ve been very, very blessed. These things I know.

Embellishments

Olivia likes to write. She loves holding a pencil/crayon/pen/marker and making marks on paper, or her arms, or the table, or yes, even the wall.

These days, she’s better about only writing on paper but she’s not allowed to have markers unless a parent/caregiver is sitting next to her, supervising so as to ensure that no skin is marked in the making of art.

When I’m helping her with her homework (read: keeping her on task) I often have to remind her not to embellish her work. I remind her several times exactly what her teachers want on the homework page and tell her not to do more than is asked.

She loves to dot the i’s in her name with little squiggles instead of just a miniscule dot. I remind her that it’s a dot, not a squiggle. She giggles at the word ‘squiggle.’

One day she came home from school with some work she’d done in the class. Her teacher wrote this note on her work:

“We are encouraging Olivia to do her classwork on the front page of handouts and to use the back page for her squiggles.”

I love that they use the same word we do for O’s embellishments. I also love that they are trying to encourage her enthusiasm for ‘writing’ while also helping to keep her actual school work embellishment free.

Olivia can be a lot of work, but she’s also a whole lot of fun. I hope her teachers are having as much fun with her as we do at home even as they help to channel her creativity while keeping her on task to get her actual work done.

I admire kindergarten teachers. I really do. I especially admire Olivia's kindergarten teachers. So far, they're doing a great job of bringing my girl out of her shell and giving her ways to be herself.

Gifts

During one of the breaks I had during my conference this weekend, I went to the hotel gift shop in hopes of finding something, anything, to take home to A and O.

I knew things would be expensive in there but I also kind of knew they wouldn’t be any more expensive than gifts from the airport and I didn’t have time to go anywhere else to even look for souvenirs . So the hotel gift shop it was.

I walked past the shot glasses (inappropriate for a ten year old and a six year old, unless I’m a big old prude…which, if so, so be it.) I also ignored the coffee mugs.

I finally found the stuffed animals. This is a great gift for Alyssa. She loves stuffed animals. Olivia, on the other hand, thinks stuffed animals are stupid and hasn’t a clue as to what she’s supposed to do with them.

But, aha! I saw a plush panda that was riding inside a purse that was shaped like a panda head. Perfect! I would buy it, snip the little plastic thing that held the panda inside the purse, give the panda to Alyssa and the purse to Olivia. Two gifts for the price of one.

Brilliant. That’s what I am.

But wait. My eye is caught by something pink and sparkly. Yes, there it is, the perfect, absolutely perfect gift for Olivia. It’s a sparkly pink elephant on a ring. She loves pink. She loves sparkle, she loves rings.

But if I get the panda purse stuffed with a panda AND the pink elephant ring, that will mean O gets to presents and A gets only one. And that can’t happen.

I can’t not get the elephant ring. It’s too perfect.

So I hold the panda in its purse and the elephant ring and keep looking. What would be perfect for Alyssa? Some sun glasses that have “FBI AGENT” printed on the lenses? No, not even close.

A T-shirt? No.

A bracelet. Ha. Hahahaha. No.

What is that over there? What is that?!? An absurdly large pencil with real lead and a real, giant eraser? Oh my goodness! Yes, that is the perfect gift for Alyssa. It will remind her of the big fork from an iCarly episode.

So that’s what I got them.

And I was right. (I’m a mom, aren’t I usually right when it comes to my kids? Just don’t ask me to plan and schedule your travel arrangements and I’m good.)

Alyssa loved her absurdly large pencil. She thought it was seriously awesome.

And as Olivia opened the tiny box that held her sparkly pink elephant ring she actually gasped with wonder as she pulled it off the cotton that padded the box.

Later she asked, “Did you know this was just the right present for me the minute you saw it?”

I told her I did know.

She continued, “Because it was so gorgeous, right?”

Yep, I told her. Because I knew she’d love the gorgeous ring as much as her sister loves that giant pencil. Sometimes, it feels really good to be right after such an enormous moment of being so very wrong.

Travel is Not for the Weak

I thought I was so smart. I scheduled my flights so I’d be home by 7:00pm on Sunday evening, in time to read to Olivia, to snuggle with Alyssa and tuck them both into bed.

I got to the airport at 10:00am, one hour and fifty five minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave.

I thought I was amazing.

Except, my boarding pass wouldn’t print. Huh. That’s weird.

I went to the American Airlines counter and asked for help.

She helped me alright. She helped me right out of my self-righteousness and right into a pair of pants designed and fitted for an idiot.

I’d booked my flight for October 27. The date I was trying to travel was September 29. Seriously.

Sit back and let it sink in.

I’d booked my return flight a month late.

And there were no seats on the flight I’d planned to take home. Well, wait. Not home. There were no seats left on the flight to Chicago which would put me closer to home and allow me to catch another flight to Toledo.

A ray of hope glimmered when the airline employee told me she could put me on a flight to Chicago that left Washington, D.C. at 7:00pm that night. It would connect with a flight that would put me in Toledo at about 10:00pm.

That’s a little later than I’d hoped. The girls would be asleep but at least I’d be home. I forked over the flight change fee and settled in for a looooong day at the Ronald Regan Airport in Washington, D.C.

I was lucky enough to spend a little time with Julie and Mary while they waited for their on-time flight to Indianapolis. That helped pass the time.

For the record, if you pack an absurdly large pencil in your bag, they will want to investigate said bag. Just so you know.

By 6:15, I was so happy that our flight was going to be boarding in 15 minutes. Except, almost immediately after I thought this, an announcement came that the plane that would take us to Chicago was running late. It wouldn’t be in until 7:15, which was 15 minutes after we were supposed to LEAVE. Yikes.

We were all asked to gate-check our bags to speed up the boarding process. I asked what the chances were to making my connection.

The airport lady (I have no other label for her and yes, label her I must) gave me a small headshake. “It’s going to be very close,” she said glumly.

Sigh. I called Tom. I didn’t cry this time, like I did when I called to tell him of my very embarrassing scheduling issue. I cry when I’m feeling stupid and this time it wasn’t my fault the stupid plane was late, so no tears.

The problem with missing the connection was that the plane I needed to catch in Chicago that would take me to Toledo was the last flight of the night to Toledo. If I missed that connection, I would be stuck in Chicago, a mere three hours from my home, thank you very much, overnight.

It felt like the travel gods were out to get me.

Finally, we boarded at 7:10 and were in the air by 7:30. My connecting flight was supposed to leave two hours and ten minutes after we left D.C.

It was going to be close. Very, very close.

I asked one of the flight attendants on the plane bound for Chicago if he knew what time we would land. He snottily replied, “I don’t know what time we left but this is a two hour flight.”

Thanks for the non-information, ASS. Seriously, dude used a totally unkind tone with me. I don’t get it. I’m a perfectly lovely person and I asked very nicely. Well!

The girl next to me was very nice. The instant we landed, she turned on her phone and checked gate information for my flight to Toledo. See, flight dude, there is kindness in the world.

She saw that we were deplaning in concourse H and my Toledo flight was boarding in concourse L. She gave me directions and said, “Run.”

The lady flight attendant, also MUCH nicer than her male counterpart, asked all other passengers to please wait while those of us with tight connections got our stuff and got off the plane. I had to dodge a couple of first class passengers but I was the first one off the plane and dashing up the thingy that leads from the plane to the gate.

I quickly checked the monitors, saw that my nice neighbor’s phone had been correct about the gate I needed to get to and made a last ditch effort to make it there before the plane left, which was scheduled to happen ten minutes after we landed in Chicago.

I was fine running through H toward K. I knew, because I can say my ABCs, that L would be right after K. But damn, K is a freaking long concourse.

Did you know that losing weight through changing your eating habits alone does not actually improve your cardiovascular health? Because, yeah, it doesn’t. I was so out of breath I thought I was going to pass out. I did have to stop a few times and do the whole fast walk.

But guess what? I made it. I got to the gate, gasped, “Toledo, plane? Too late?”

The guy behind the counter said, “You have plenty of time.”

The lady said, “We haven’t quite boarded yet.”

I asked if I had time to use the restroom and she looked at me skeptically and said, “Hurry.”

I said, “I’ll wait.”

And then we boarded. And I started coughing like a fool. See, all that running had me breathing hard and that dried out my throat. See why running is bad! Bad, bad, bad.

The nice fellow next to me offered me a tissue and a cough drop. I tried to explain that I wasn’t actually sick, that I’d just had to run, like really far. He shook his head and told me he didn’t speak English.

Poor guy probably thought he was sitting next to patient zero in the next flu epidemic.

I think he must have gotten over that fear, though, because just before we landed, he tried to hand me his phone number.

What? I mean…really? I was flattered and confused and it was weird. Who does that?

Anyway, I made it home at 12:30am. Only five and a half hours later than I’d originally planned.

I spent over nine hours in an airport in Washington, D.C. I ran for a plane for the first (and please, dear God, last) time ever and I made it home to my sweet family. Though, guess what? My bag, the one I had to gate check in D.C.? It didn’t make it to Toledo. It is supposedly being delivered to my home today.

Thank goodness my car keys weren’t in that bag.

Getting Away

Olivia asked last night, “When are we going to get to spend a day with you?”

Oh, dear sweet child. I get that being in school full day has been tough on her but she usually spends every single Saturday and Sunday with me and every evening between. But she’s sensed that something is amiss.

See, I’m heading to DC tomorrow to meet with some of the most amazing moms I’ve ever had the honor of meeting. It’s a conference for the March of Dimes and this will be the fifth year I’ve been able to attend. So…she realizes I won’t be here this coming weekend and two days and two nights away feels like forever to her gentle little heart.

Tom teased O this morning about who was going to read to her while I was gone. I told her that her daddy is perfectly capable of reading to her and that I’d checked out enough books last week to cover them on Friday and Saturday night. I’ll be home early enough on Sunday to do to the reading myself.

She worries about these sorts of things. Who is going to read to her? Who is going to pick out her pajamas? Who is going to make her breakfast, lunch and dinner and provide snacks between? Girl has her priorities straight, that’s for sure.

I only go away once a year. One time a year. Which means two nights out of 365. I don’t feel guilty for this. Not even a little. But I do feel O’s heart bruising as I walk out the door. I know she misses me. Alyssa does too but at ten, she knows that two days isn’t all that long and she consoles herself with the fact that she’ll get some quality time at Gram’s (and unlimited ice cream bars) at least for a few hours on Saturday, which totally trumps missing Mom.

Olivia, on the other hand, is a mama’s girl. She can’t help it. She tells me that no one is as soft and squishy as I am. I thank her, wondering if that’s really a compliment but accepting it in the manner it was intended. Daddy is just too angular for her tastes. Too muscular and not nearly soft enough in the bosomy area. Poor fella.

I use this weekend to reconnect and recharge and yes, to sleep in a bed all by myself. I come back ready for the next year, to mother them better, to be a better wife, to give back to my community more.

I need this weekend and I know that Olivia will be just fine with her dad reading her books each night. He’s also perfectly capable of making breakfast, lunch and dinner. No matter how much he protests to the contrary.

Smarty

I’ve always prided myself on being smart. You know, not Einstein smart but smarter than the average bear.

In kindergarten, we all knew that the purple reading group was the top readers and the black reading group was for those who needed extra help. I was in the purple group and I was proud of it.

In sixth grade, I was in a group of six who were allowed to read whatever we wanted because we’re already read everything in the set curriculum. It was awesome.

In seventh grade, five of us were sequestered in an empty classroom to teach ourselves eighth grade math because we were all beyond what they were teaching in seventh grade. The next year, we were put with the freshman and taught algebra. Each year after, we continued to be with the class of 88 (we were the class of 89. Gosh, I’m old, huh?) for math. I hated math. I hated algebra and trigonometry and geometry and calculus but I stuck with those classes because, damn it, it meant I was smart. It had to mean that, right?

High school was easy. I went to a tiny high school. There were only 44 of us in my graduating class. It was easy to be smart in a school that small.

College was a little tougher. Not much, but a little. I went to Indiana University. I LOVED college even though I had to work a little harder for good grades.

I once dated a guy who turned out to be a jerk. He was manipulative and selfish and when he realized our relationship was almost over, he tried to tell me that he’d heard a rumor that was going around. He acted like he didn’t want to tell me. He hemmed and hawed and finally told me that the rumor was that he and I met in a strip club.

I must have given him a blank look because he elaborated, saying as gently (ick) as possible, “The rumor is that you were a dancer.”

Then I got it. I realized what he was trying to do. I laughed and said, “People think I could be a stripper? Awesome!”

I could see by the look on his face that his plan had backfired. He’d hoped that this ‘rumor’ would hurt my self-esteem, that it would make me doubt myself.

See, this dude wasn’t used to dating women smarter than he was. Or, wait. Maybe all the women he’d dated were smarter than he was (it wasn’t hard to be smarter) but he was used to dating women who already had low self-esteem and he played on that.

I want my girls to grow up knowing how smart they are. Yes, we tell them all the time how pretty and funny and creative they are. But I want them to take pride in their intelligence too.

Alyssa has, in the past year, become quite the reader. If she’s not out riding her bike or doing cartwheels, she’s reading. She came home the other day and announced that she’s currently got the second highest score in an extra-curricular reading contest going on in her class. I am so proud of her. More importantly, though, she’s proud of herself. She loves that she’s in the top two, that she’s doing better than most in her class.

I don’t want to necessarily foster competition with anyone but herself but I love that she already loves being smart. I love that she’s pushing herself.

All I ask of either of my girls is that they do their best. It doesn’t matter where they land in the group as long as they can honestly say they did the best they could.

When O’s teacher told me that in a couple of areas of kindergarten academics, Olivia is actually ahead of the curve, I was pleasantly surprised. Not surprised that O is smart, but surprised that her teachers were able to ascertain that.

I mean…she’s got 5p- syndrome. An intellectual delay is a given, right? Except, maybe it’s not. Maybe we need to continue to expect her very best and not be surprised when her best is just as good as, if not better than, those around her. She shines, just like her sister. And I am so proud of both of them and always will be as long as they continue to do their best, no matter where that lands them in pack.

There's Something About Olivia

My mom and I were talking last night and Olivia kept interrupting us to tell us another story, another joke, show us another trick as she danced with her shadow that was created by the late afternoon sun shining through my mom’s kitchen window.

When O finally left the room to go tell Alyssa something, I said, “Have you noticed she’s talking even more lately? I mean, I know she’s always talked to us really well but…she’s having full-blown conversations, telling stories with a beginning, middle and end, engaging with us. There’s more eye-contact and if she’s interrupted by her sister or her cousin, she stops them and tells them she’s trying to talk.”

She’s standing up for herself.

My mom agreed with me that Olivia seems to be coming alive, even more than ever, right in front of our eyes.

My mom told me a story about her time with Alyssa, Olivia and Jaxon from this past weekend.

All three kids spent the night with my mom on Friday night. Saturday morning, she laid out clothes for Olivia and Jaxon. J got dressed first and then Olivia, once dressed too, joined him on the couch.

Jaxon looked at her outfit and announced, “I hate pink and I hate Hello Kitty.”

Olivia gave him glance and replied, “Well, I hate dinosaurs, I hate green and I hate boy underwear.”

Then they went back to being best friends.

My girl can hold her own.

I hope this sense of self she’s building is going to school with her each day. I hope her confidence, her humor, her strength ride along in her backpack and follow her around.

She’s been on an antibiotic since last Friday. I give her the morning dose, Tom gives her the mid-day (ish…she gets it when she gets off the bus at 3:15) and I give her the evening dose.

Tom and I both marvel at how well she takes medicine. She picks up the little medicine cup, downs the medicine and takes a drink of water. No fuss.

Alyssa always at least gives a bit of a whine before taking her medicine. She’s never really fought it, though either.

We got lucky, I know. I have a couple of cousins who were terrors when it came to medicine. They’re mother would have to hold them down, plug their nose, blow in their faces to get them to open their mouths and dump the medicine down their throat, hoping to get enough down there that they couldn’t spit it all back in her face.

Ugh! What a nightmare.

I feel like at this point, Olivia is learning to pick her battles. She knows she can’t win when it comes to medicine so she doesn’t fight. She also knows we can’t make her eat her lunch at school and so…for now, she’s not doing that. She does eat it when she gets home so we’re not fighting her either. We just continue to pack the lunch each day, she takes it to school and then brings it back and eats it at home.

While her tenacity can be frustrating, I’m grateful for it. It will take her far in this world and there is definitely something to be said for good old fashioned stubbornness.