A Piecing Experience

We were, of course, at The Walmarts, grocery shopping. The girls had some cash to spend because my parents, awesome grandparents that they are, had given them both money as a reward for awesome report cards (that’s another post.)

We were in the jewelry section of the store, browsing the necklaces and the bracelets. Alyssa was looking at the earrings because, as we all know, she has both ears pierced twice and so she can wear to pairs at all times.

Olivia looked at some of the pierced earrings. Alyssa caught O looking and said, “If you had your ears pierced, you could buy some of these.”

Olivia pondered that statement. She gazed longingly at the earrings and then asked me, “Does Walmart pierce ears?”

“They do, but we aren’t going to get your ears pierced here. If you want them pierced, we’ll go to Claire’s.”

She thought a little more and then declared, “I want them pierced.”

Hmmm…

This was the first time she’d ever actually said that. Over the years, we’ve asked her on several occasions if she wanted to get her ears pierced and each time she’d answer with an adamant, “No!” Then she’d look at us like we were crazy.

I suggested, “Okay, how about you give it a week and if you want your ears pierced, we’ll go to Claire’s next week and get it done?”

She didn’t really like that suggestion because, yeah, it involved waiting. She used logic to convince me that we should do it right then. “But next week is Lyssie’s birthday party and I’ll be a Gram’s. We should just do it today.”

And so that was that. We finished our grocery shopping, we got in the car and headed to the nearest Claire’s. The entire way, I asked her, “Are you sure about this? You know you can change your mind and I won’t be mad.”

“I’m sure,” she said gleefully, fully committed to this now that she’d decided it was time. “But you and Lyssie will hold my hands, right? The whole time they’re poking holes in my ears you guys will hold my hands?”

“Of course we will,” Lyss and I assured her.

She was almost vibrating with excitement. “I can’t believe I’m going to get my ears pierced,” she said over and over during the ten minute drive to Claire’s.

When we got there, we were lucky that there was no one else in the store so we got the lady who works there all to ourselves.

Olivia picked out her earrings. Can you guess which ones she picked? Go ahead, guess…

Yep, Elsa earrings. Of course Elsa earrings, right? I mean, not even pink sparkles can compete with Elsa.

She asked me and Alyssa several times if it was going to hurt. We both answered honestly, that yes, it stings a little and is a little sore after but that it really doesn’t hurt much.

She climbed into the chair and held out her hands for me and Alyssa to hold. I had to let go of her once so the lady doing the piercing could move from one side of O to the other but other than that, Olivia held tight to our hands.

And then she did it. She sat there and let that lady stab earrings through her lobes. And they’re adorable.



When we were done the first thing she wanted to do was go to her Gram’s house and show her. My mom has been trying to get Liv to get her ears pierced for years. This is only because Olivia so loves to be fancy and always wants earrings but do you know how hard it is to find clip-on earrings that don’t pinch?

Anyway, my mom was very proud of our girl for going through with it.

Tom’s response was, “Oh my gosh! You’re a woman now!”

Through the night, Liv gave that response a little thought and the next morning asked me, “Why did Dad say that? I’m already a young woman, even without pierced ears?”

All the next day she’d randomly announce, “All three of the girls in this house have holes in their ears. We all have our ears pierced.” And, “I can’t believe I have my ears pierced.”

She’s very proud of herself and loves the way her ears look with the earrings in them.

My girl is growing up.

Feels Like School Spirit

I overslept this morning by seven minutes.

I know, seven minutes shouldn’t seem like much but when you’ve got your morning routine honed to the very last minute, those seven minutes mean a lot.

So we were doing our things, all seven minutes later than usual and Olivia glanced at the clothes I’d brought to the bathroom for her to put on. She informed me, “I don’t want to wear those clothes.”

“Why not?” I asked pleasantly. “This shirt has a sideways smile and says ‘Hello’ on the back.”

“But it’s not blue,” she told me.

And I got it. Fridays are the days that teachers can wear jeans and blue school shirts. The girls’ school colors are blue and grey and so all the school shirts are either gray with blue writing or the opposite.

I happily went down the girls’ room and grabbed a pair of jeggings and a blue shirt with a silver star sequin star on the front. When I presented her with the new outfit, she smiled happily but then asked, “Do I have a blue shirt with a sequin heart on it?”

“No, just this one with the star,” I told her.

She gave it some thought and declared, “Well, since I wore the pink one yesterday with the sequin heart the star is good for today.”

I nodded at her thoughtful choice and reminded her, “And the silver is really just shiny gray so you’re totally wearing Bomber colors today.”

She dressed herself with glee, so happy with the fact that she was going to be wearing Bomber blue just like all her friends today.

I kind of love this new development. Sure, it’s a little inconvenient to have to go get her an entirely new outfit but it only took a few seconds (out of an already seven minute late schedule, but what the heck) but she was so excited to fit in. And I want that for her. I want her to want friends, to make friends, to be one of the crowd even if she is so very genetically unique.

I want her to want to conform, even if just a little because it means she’s becoming aware of those around her and that’s been one of her biggest challenges to date.

So yay for school spirit; I think it might be just what Livie needs to find where she fits in at school.

Honor Roll Me

Last night was a loooong. From the time I got home at 5:15 until after 8:00 I was either cooking dinner, cleaning up from dinner or helping one or the other girl with homework.

Olivia’s homework, honestly, has gotten easier as this year has progressed. Maybe she’s matured but I don’t have to work quite so hard to keep her on task these days. It’s a relief.

Alyssa was doing math homework last night and it was tough. It was percentages and fractions and multiplying and dividing and equations and have I ever mentioned that I have a degree in English Literature and NOT in math?

Ugh! It was so hard not to just tell her the answers because she was so frustrated with the whole thing.

At one point as I was helping Tom told Lyss to make sure that my name goes up on the honor roll next to hers since I was helping her so much. She made a disgusted sound at him and I laughed.

Alyssa is a very hardworking student. She starts her homework right when she gets home from school and is usually done by the time I get home. So last night was an exception to the rule; thank goodness for me because that math was…well, not so much hard as it was distasteful. I’m not a fan of math if I haven’t mentioned.

So we finally settled down to read a Junie B. story and I felt like I’d just worked a 12 hour shift.

This hands-on, engaged parenting thing isn’t for the weak, is what I’m saying.

Overprotective Much?

So now that Alyssa is almost thirteen (she’s only a week from being an official teenager!) I guess I should loosen the reigns.

I think that’s what is expected of me.

And yet…I can’t. Not yet. I feel like she still needs me in so many little ways.

She was invited to a friend’s house on New Year’s Eve. The friend’s mom, Stacy, called me to let me know that she wasn’t going to be at home that evening. She knows I’m not likely to let Alyssa go to anyone’s house if a parent/adult isn’t going to be there.

Alyssa was invited to spend the night. The friend, Thea, and another friend, Sabrina, were going to be there along with Thea’s older sister, who is nineteen and the older sister’s boyfriend.

Ugh. I didn’t like that scenario at all.

But I relented. I told Lyss that she could go for the evening but I didn’t want her to spend the night. I planned to pick her up at 10pm. I told her that while I’m sure the nineteen year old and her boyfriend are very responsible, they’re still teenagers too and I really wasn’t comfortable with her spending the night in a house where there was no adult present for most of the night.

I think she was a little disappointed but I’m lucky that she’s a glass half full kind of kid and realized she was probably lucky I was letting her go at all.

When I got to the friend’s house to pick Lyss up that night, she informed me that the sister and boyfriend had actually left the house at least an hour before I got there. The three thirteen year olds were there alone.

Okay…breathe. I know that a lot of thirteen year olds are perfectly capable of being home alone. I really do know this. And actually, Alyssa is one of those kids who is very responsible. But she’s also never actually been left alone before and I think she as just a little freaked that they were there alone.

I’m all for letting kids spread their wings and become independent. But I would like this to happen in as controlled environment as possible. Is that even possible?

It’s so hard to know kids’ limits, even your own kids.

When I was thirteen I was home alone every single day babysitting an eight year old and a five month old. I wouldn’t expect that of Alyssa though. Not because she wouldn’t be capable, but well, because I don’t have to expect it of her. In our house, she gets to be young, a kid, a little longer.

And I’m okay with being the overprotective mom. Alyssa has mentioned a few times that there is only one other mom among her friends’ mom who is as protective as I am. And that mom is probably the one I feel the most connected to, the one I’d be most likely to be friends with even if we didn’t have kids who liked each other so much.

So I count that as a positive in my favor for how I’m parenting my daughters.

Let's Be Realistic Here

I could go on and on about how I want 2016 to be the year I get my weight under control, get my house organized, focus on my health, be more patient with the girls, etc.

But let’s be real, those things aren’t so much resolutions as they are wishes that exist all year long and don’t suddenly become more important when the ball drops and the old year becomes new.

No, I’m going to be more realistic this year. My goals for this year are, I hope, more attainable.

I want to sleep more. I love sleep and I never, EVER feel like I get enough. I’m sure my husband would disagree about whether or not the amount of sleep I get is enough but he’s not the one in my head, dealing with being tired all the time.

I want to read more. I love to read and I never really just sit down and read. I make time here and there but I want to make it a priority. PS, reading to my children doesn’t count in this category. Junie B. Jones books are not my go-to books when I want to sit and read for pleasure. Yes, they can make me laugh until I pee my pants but they’re still not quite what I’m talking about when I say I want to read more.

I love movies and so I want to see more movies. Again, I’m sure my husband would say that I already see as many movies as possible, but he is so very wrong.

We all need to laugh more so that’s on my list too. Laughter is vitally important to quality of life.

I need to experience a massage given by someone who doesn’t ask after two minutes, “Can I be done?” Yes, I want to receive a massage by a trained masseuse.

I’d like to fight more. Fight? Yes, fight. I want to figure out what’s important to me and fight for it. See, I’m usually a go-with-the-flow kind of gal because most things just don’t matter enough for me to fight over them. Those closest to me have very strong opinions about just about everything and so I usually just go with what they want because it’s easier and I just don’t care as much as they do. But there ARE things that are important to me and I want to find my voice and learn to stand up for what is important to me.

Yep, that’s what I want for 2016. Sleep, read, watch movies, laugh, get a massage, fight. Sounds like realistic goals to me.

2015 Wrap Up

Okay, so I guess this is a thing. Wrapping up 2015 so we can move onward into 2016. Not that time will suddenly stand still if I choose not to do a wrap-up post but, what the heck…

Early 2015 brought lots and lots of snow. Ick. But on the bright side, the girls had a lot of snow days. Yay for them.

We went to our first 5p- Society Conference. It was…well, let’s just say I had mixed feelings about it. I didn’t feel like we fit in at all and yet the girls, my mom and I had a lot of fun swimming in the pool and hanging out in our hotel room.

We went to Cedar Point again this year. That’s always a fun time. But it was SO cold our first day there. Brrrrr.

Alyssa got braces. Her teeth are so much better already and they weren’t even that bad (that we could tell, the orthodontist saw something different) to begin with.

We lost sweet Orville.

We gained sweet Harvey.

Olivia went to school this fall and settled into the mainstream classroom. She rarely gets pulled out of class for therapies or special services. She’s had a few bumps but we’re getting there. Her teachers are amazing.

The heating element went out in our oven on Christmas Eve. The basement flooded in the days following Christmas when we had torrential rain. Tom’s building shelves for the basement on this very day to avoid the cleanup he faced in the days after the water in the basement.

Olivia slept through the night most nights in her own bed. Can I get a whoo-freaking-hooo? I mean, seriously. Girlfriend was eight years and one month old when she started doing this. I wasn’t sure what to think about this development, except to not even mention it because it might jinx the whole thing and we’d be back to square one.

It was a good year. We had our ups and our downs but the days were mostly up. I’m calling it a good year. Let’s see what 2016 brings.

The Top of the Table

Tom announced a week or so ago that he’d like 2016 to be the year of organization in our household.

I agreed that it was a lovely goal. Then we celebrated Christmas by bringing MORE things into our house. Sigh.

So we decided to start small. We wanted to clean off the dining table, stop it from being a catch-all for mail, school papers, random dental files, you name it, it was probably on our table.

We actually eat at that table and so it’s a pain the butt to have to move crap each time we sit down to eat.

So yesterday, I cleaned the table. And it stayed clean all day long. I know!! I can’t even imagine it either and yet there it was, clutter-free.

We’ll see how it goes this evening when I get home and clean out Olivia’s school folder, which always has stuff in the “Stays home” side. The “Back to School” side is rarely as full as that other side.

But the table was the only thing I managed to declutter yesterday. And today brings work and school and regularly scheduled programming. Alas, I will still need to find a way to fit a bit of decluttering into all that.

Because the area by the garage door needs attention. The corner in the living room is desperate for someone to go through and purge that crap.

There are so many other areas of the house that need to be cleaned/decluttered/burned down and rebuilt.

Don’t even get me started on the master bedroom. Yikes!

But instead of doing all that yesterday, I snuggled under three blankets on the couch and dozed while the girls sat with me and played either together or separately on their various electronics. Yep, mom fail and house-keeping fail all in one swoop.

But it was only one day. The date on the calendar doesn’t dictate to us when we can make changes. So there’s always tomorrow for cleaning and decluttering. There’s tomorrow to start that new diet and try to exercise a little more than not at all.

We’ll get there or we won’t but we won’t let decluttering get in the way of actually living. There are still Junie B. Jones books to be read, dinner to be cooked and eaten, baths to be taken and laughed to be shared. Those things are more important that putting away the seventy thousand pairs of shoes piled by the back door (of which two pairs are Olivia’s, two pairs are Tom’s and the rest belong to someone who will not be names but her name is not Mom…)

For now, I'm going to enjoy being able to see the top of my kitchen table.