Snippets

I bought Olivia new shoes for school this weekend. The shoes I bought are an adult size 8. She’s ten and a half. Yikes!

I think it’s starting to hit Alyssa that we are heading to Indy for a Pentatonix concert on Thursday. We get to see Julie and Riley – YAY!! Alyssa said yesterday, “Only four more days…” Then her eyes got all dreamy. She’s just so flipping cute.

This summer has been…different. We didn’t go on our ‘big’ vacation to Cedar Point this year. With my mom heading off to Alabama with her sisters and her mother to see her mom’s long-lost, newly-found sisters, we just didn’t fit the Cedar Point trip in the schedule.

Instead, we’ve done a day here and there and honestly, it’s been kind of awesome. We did the water park, the lake, the pool. Last week we spent a day at my mom’s and the kids just played on the slip-n-slide and ate outside on her deck and roasted marshmallows over candles. And I got to just be with them. We weren’t on a schedule, we didn’t have anywhere to be. It was really nice.

We’ve seen a few movies, gone shopping at the mall even when we didn’t actually need anything. Those are days where the stress is low and the fun is high. I’m all about those kinds of days.

Alyssa has had band ‘camp’ (I put camp in quotes because it’s really been more like band class, in that she goes to the school, plays her flute, marches and learns music and choreography for about seven hours a day and then comes home. To me, camp should be an overnight thing. But whatever.) and she’s enjoyed it. I think she’s like seeing her friends daily this for a few weeks this summer.

Olivia has spent a lot of time in a giant box Tom brought in and cut a door and windows into. He even cut a small hole through which she could feed the plug of her tablet through. She sits in there (the walls are decorated with pictures she printed off) and reads/writes fan-fiction about the Despicable Me girls and the Inside Out emotions. I leave clean pajamas for her to change in to each morning when she wakes up. She doesn’t get dressed in actual clothes unless we’re going somewhere, which is usually just on Saturdays. I envy her Summer of Pajamas. She’s growing up and figuring out her own interests. I’m excited to see who she’s becoming.

Tom works in the yard and the garden. He lists things on Ebay, sells crap from the end of our driveway and basically just takes good care of us.

I do the laundry, bake all the berry things and sit back and marvel that this is my life.

Mine

Last weekend, my mom and I drove to Defiance High School (about 45 minutes away from my house) to watch Alyssa perform in a flute solo, a mixed woodwind trio (two flutes, on clarinet…damn, those clarinets are SO loud!), and two choral ensembles.

It was requested by Lyss that we be at the school by noon even though her first performance wasn’t until 1:34. This request also included an order from McD’s for lunch. Alyssa ended up sending me at least five texts with new orders from her friends who’d heard we were stopping at McD’s and wanted in on the fast food action.

After picking up ALL the chicken nuggets, a burger with ketchup only (can I tell you how much I HATE ordering special crap like that…ugh!) and fries, we met with Alyssa and her friends at the school.

There is something about the smell of McD’s that brings every single teenager to high alert. There were so many kids surrounding our table, begging for just one nugget, or a couple of fries and, hey do you have extra water?

But it was fun too because, as Alyssa said later, since I’m always the mom with the food, I’m the favorite mom among all her friends. That’s something, I guess.

While we waited for it to be time for her first performance, Lyss and her friends took us to the gym where they’d dumped all their crap, um, I mean, their instruments and jackets and music and backpacks. Yeah, their crap.

While there, I took a few pictures of Lyss and her friends.

As she stood around with her group of friends, I leaned in to my mom and said quietly, “Sometimes, I look at her and I can’t believe she’s mine. She’s just so amazing, isn’t she?”

My mom literally wiped a tear and said, “She really is.”

The rest of the afternoon was spend going from one room to the gym, to another room, back to the gym and waiting and waiting and waiting some more. But the performances were awesome. These kids work so hard and have so much fun. I’m so glad that Alyssa is finding her place in the world. She has great friends, she’s enjoying music so much and honestly, I look at her and can’t believe she’s mine.

The scores were:
Flute solo - superior rating of 1
Woodwind ensemble - superior rating of 1
Mixed choral ensemble - superior rating of 1
Ladies choral rating - good rating of 2

No Comparison

Last Monday I took Alyssa to watch the high school choir and band concerts. It had been assigned as ‘homework’ to all of the junior high choir members to attend this concert. I think the choir director was trying to drum up an audience for the concert but whatever, there we were.

There is a freshman flute player who is amazing. As a freshman, she’s already the section lead. This freshman, let’s call her Harmony (Buffy shout out!!) also plays the piccolo and sings, as was evidenced during the concert, during which she had two solos (there were all of three songs…just saying.)

It should also be pointed out that Harmony’s mom also played the flute and Harmony has been receiving private lessons since she was seven. I know this because I spent an hour each way on a bus with her mom last year and well, what do band mom’s talk about other than their kids?

So yeah, Harmony is only a year ahead of Alyssa.

On the way home from the concert, Lyss mentioned the number of singing and flute solos Harmony had that night.

I shrugged and said, “Yeah, she’s pretty good.”

We drove in silence for a bit and then I said, “You know you can’t compare yourself to her, right?”

“Oh, I know,” Alyssa assured me.

But I wasn’t assured. I mean, Lyss works so hard, has so much talent and there’s Harmony over there with just as much talent and she obviously works hard too. And she’s a year older, so she’s got that working for her.

But I had to try and remind Alyssa of how amazing she is, without any comparison to Harmony in the mix.

“I’m sorry Harmony’s only a year older than you are,” I said with a bit of a laugh.

“Yeah,” Lyss joined me in laughter. “She’s going to be there until I’m a senior!”

“But you know that no matter how good she is, that doesn’t make you any less good, right?” I said.

She gave that some thought and then brightened up a little. “You’re right. She might be good but so am I. Just because she’s section lead doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be if she weren’t already there. And really, it helps that she’s older. I mean, imagine being one of the senior flute players and having that freshman come in and take your place? At least I KNOW she’s always going to be there.”

“And her being there doesn’t diminish how hard you work or how talented you are.”

“I know!” And this time, I was reassured. My girl’s strong sense of self-worth was fully intact.

Now…if only I could practice what I preach.

BGSU Middle School Honors Band

I got an email earlier this week congratulating me on the fact that my child had been accepted into the Bowling Green State University Middle School Honors Band.

As I read the welcoming letter, I vaguely remembered Alyssa bringing home some paperwork that she filled out and I signed requesting that her teacher write a letter of recommendation for Alyssa to apply to this very thing.

And look at her now, fully accepted.

There were more forms for me to fill out as well as a link to the site at which I could make the $65 registration payment.

I decided to go home and check with Alyssa to be sure she still wanted to do this honors band thing before forking over a non-refundable $65 dollars. I mean, if she had decided not to do it, that’s not a little (at least to me) amount of money to be leave my account for nothing.

When I got home Alyssa was so excited to share the news with me that she’d been accepted into the one-day intensive program. She told me that her band director had emphasized to those who were accepted that their parents were NOT supposed to pay the $65 registration fee, that the school’s music boosters program was going to pay for everyone.

Well, that was nice to hear.

But the best part was how much Alyssa is looking forward to this. She takes her music very seriously and is very excited.

I’m excited for her because I know it’s something she’ll take seriously and that she’d enjoy and remember fondly for years to come.

Obviously I’m very proud of her and want to continue to support her in things like this as long as it makes her happy. I love that she's willing to work so hard at this sort of thing. She admitted that she's a little bit afraid of this opportunity because it starts at 8am with rehearsals that will go throughout the whole day and end with a concert performance that evening but she's going for it because she realizes that some things are worth working very hard at in order to do them well.

She's a pretty darned awesome kid even if I do say so myself.

Always Amazing

Yesterday was the second Sunday in July, which, duh, means that we attended Tom’s family reunion. It was the 91st reunion of Ezra and Elizabeth Ordinary’s descendants. Tom’s father was a grandson to Ezra and Elizabeth. So that makes Tom their great grandson and our girls are their great great granddaughters; kind of awesome when you think about it that way, huh?

Over the past few years, Tom’s older sisters have lamented that the kids at today’s reunions aren’t are involved at they were when they (the sisters) were involved. They reminisce fondly about the old days when the kids put on a talent show for the adult attendees.

This year, a couple of months ago, Tom suggested to Alyssa that she take her flute to the reunion. She rolled her eyes at him (have I mentioned she’s thirteen?) but then about a week later, I hear her practicing The Star Spangled Banner. She practiced on both her flute and on her piccolo.

As the weeks flew by, she practiced a little less because suddenly gymnastics were at the forefront of her mind. She’s been stretching her muscles instead of playing her flute.

But at the beginning of this week, Olivia reminded Lyss that the reunion was just a few days away.

Lyss asked Tom if he was serious about her playing at the reunion and this time, it was his turn to roll his eyes. “Of course I was serious,” he told her.

So with just a few days before the reunion, she started practicing again. This time, she only practiced on the flute. She explained, “Tiberius (the piccolo) is just so high pitched that every little mistake is very obvious.”

Ha! So she became acquainted with her flute all over again and remembered who much she loves it.

At the reunion yesterday, several people asked about the music stand that Tom carried from his van. He would smile and give a vague shrug.

Finally all the food was eaten, Tom had taken care of the business part of the reunion and one of his sisters piped up, “We need these kids to entertain us!”

Laughter filtered through the pavilion and Tom replied, “Funny you should mention that.”

He looked at Lyss, who opened her flute case, put her flute together and set up her music.

And the crowd went silent as she played the national anthem with nary a mistake to be heard.

The applause when she finished was huge. She couldn’t keep the smile off her face. Her confidence when she’s playing amazes me. I love to see her do something she knows she does well. I love that she’s so willing to practice hard to learn the music and then wants to perform for others so they can enjoy the fruits of her labors.

As she cleaned her flute and put it away, so many extended family members came up to her to thank her for playing and to tell her how well she’d done.

My shy girl, the one about whom it was noted when she went to kindergarten testing, “Will not speak.”

That very girl smiled at people who may be related even if somewhat distantly but are mostly strangers for the most part, and thanked them…with words.

Even the twelve year old son of a cousin (which, yes, makes him Lyss’s first cousin once removed but whatever) came up to her and said, “Wow, you just played high school music. That was great.”

Then he mentioned that he plays the tenor sax. I suggested he bring his sax next year and he kind of shrugged. I guess we’ll see.

For now I’m going to bask in my girl’s success. She’s always been amazing. This weekend she got to be amazing in front of more people than just me, her dad and her sister. That’s pretty cool.