First Steps, Part Deux

Sarah has been on the go almost since the day she was born.  She decided on Christmas Eve 2004 that she was ready to walk and no matter how much I tried to persuade her that at ten months and 12 days she was much much much too young to be a walker, she took off without me and never looked back. In the photo on the right she is moments away from taking her first steps.  She let go of the ottoman and took four steps toward the stairs which she then proceeded to climb.  The climbing - I'm pretty sure that's why I missed photographing her first steps. She was a fast and fearless climber long before she was an adventurous walker.  As a side note, we baby-proofed our house like crazy before Owen was born only to discover that we really didn't need to.  He was content playing with his toys or with us and never tried to do dangerous things like put his finger in a light socket or scale the cabinets to get into the prescription medications or open drawers and pull out sharp knives. By the time Sarah was born we had moved to a new house and after wasting all that time and money baby-proofing for our son, we assumed that we didn't need to baby proof the house for our daughter.  Oh sure, we put in the obligatory outlet covers, but baby gates and cabinet locks and bumpers? Not this time! We naively believed that those crazy safety precautions were for all those overprotective first time parents.  Yeah, we were wrong. See that photo below?  It was taken on Christmas morning.  Our sweet baby went from taking four steps on Christmas Eve to walking just about wherever she wanted to go on Christmas day.  It's not that she wasn't mobile before the walking - she was a crawling fiend - but the walking meant her hands were free to open cabinets and drawers more quickly and pull herself up on taller things and generally increase her range of mayhem. Mobility, thy name is Sarah.*

What's in here? 

Lucky for me I can 

walk over and find out for myself now.

Please don't offer to help me, 

it won't go well for you.

    Why am I waxing all nostalgic about Sarah's first steps this Christmas season? It's because at Sarah's orthopedic appointment on December 17th, the doctor told Sarah that with her new walking boot she could begin putting weight on her foot on December 24th - eight years to the day that she took her very first steps. It's made me more than a little bit sentimental.  And so it was on Christmas Eve, Sarah took her first crutch assisted steps on her left leg since "the incident" in late November.  She quickly went from slow tentative steps with her left leg to almost crutch running by Christmas Day.  She's now gotten so fast crutch walking that I have hustle to keep up with her when we're out and about.  A mobile Sarah is still a happy Sarah.

Christmas morning, climbing 

the steps with her 

American Girl Wheelchair

and broken legged McKenna doll in tow.

_________________________________________________________________________________
* I've been looking through my journals this holiday season and I came across the following entry from December 28, 2006: "We have decided to try to get her into a gymnastics class after the holidays.  She loves to do gymnastic-like things like flip upside down, hang from the kitchen table, walk on her toes, twirl around, launch herself off the furniture and climb up the outside of the stairs. She has no fear! And when she sits on the floor she always sits with her toes pointed - it's very cute.  She just seems like she would love it."

Elfed

It happened again this afternoon.  On our way home from school Sarah regaled me with amusing stories of her friends elves who have marsh mellow fights and grow candy canes and leave cute messages on kitchen countertops in powdered sugar. And then tonight she wrote this note card and left it laying where Santa would be sure to find it.  The photo quality isn't great, but I think you can make it out.  

She is killing me with lines like "If the elves g0t lost our address is . . . "!?!?!?  and "I think our Christmas letters are on the table near the couch without the lamp - dumbass!" I know, she didn't write "dumbass" but you can't read this note and not see that it's totally implied.  Seriously, we have the worst. elves. EVER!!  And I feel really bad about it.  The guilt is kinda giving me insomnia which is why I'm awake writing this after midnight. When she asked me again tonight when I thought the elves might get here, I casually mentioned that maybe they were waiting until after Thursday when she gets her new cast.  Any guess as to what she said? Well of course she said  "how fun will it be if they sign my new cast!"  So now the elves have to find their way here and then somehow figure out how to sign her cast without either waking her up or getting permanent marker on my new couch (because my sweet girl is sleeping on the couch because she can't walk upstairs to her bedroom because she has a GIANT cast on her leg. AAAHHH!!)!! I have totally elfed myself again this year.  I'm hoping the elves can manage to make an appearance tomorrow night. Or maybe Friday. Or sometime before Christmas.  It would be really helpful if Sarah could give me the elves address, you know - so I can find them.  Telling me that they are at the "North Pole" is about as helpful as saying they're "hidden somewhere in one of those Christmas boxes in the attic." Crossing my fingers that this story is going to have a happy ending. 

Cookies for Breakfast

   

  This is Sarah's first year participating on a competitive gymnastics team which means this is my first year watching my daughter compete on a competitive gymnastics team.  It's been a learning experience to say the least.  I spent the first few meets pacing and fretting, worrying over every unpointed toe and railing at the judges who clearly didn't see what I was seeing when I watched her routines (because seriously - 10.0 every time!).  Before SG's meet began yesterday I told Joel that I was going to do my absolute best to remain calm and collected throughout the whole entire meet.  It took a lot of effort, but if you asked Joel how it went yesterday, I think he would tell you that I was much less "ahhhhhh!!!!" and much more "well, let's see how this goes."  Sarah's first event was floor, followed by vault, then bars, then beam.  She was having a good meet and after three events she was on track to meet the goals she had set for herself before the meet began. Just one more event and we could call it a morning . . . 

Warning: Video has sound

If you watched the video you may have noticed that at the 1:08 mark the image gets jumpy - that's because my hands were shaking uncontrollably by that point.  Turns out I can only hold the angst at bay for so long then it just overwhelms me. All in all it was a pretty good meet. Sarah exceeded the goals she set for herself (one of which was to have a top three finish), I managed to remain mostly calm (at least on the outside), Owen supported his sister when it was appropriate to do so (and then returned to playing Star Wars Angry Birds), and Joel enjoyed the meet because his wife was a little less crazy than usual.

Back Seat Politician

     I was in the school lobby this afternoon when the results of the mock election were announced.  I posted the results on Facebook because I thought it might be interesting to see how predictive our school's election results might be.  According to the student body at our small (and apparently progressive) Catholic school, Obama received 51% of the votes, Romney received 43% percent, and Other received 6%.  On the way home Sarah told me that she voted for Mr. Obama, but after hearing the results of the election she wished that she had voted for Mr. Romney. Naturally, I asked her why.  "Well," she said, "you can be elected as president twice so if President Obama loses this election then he could run again in 2016 and Mr. Romney could run against him because he would already be president and then everybody could use the same campaign signs."  Apparently she's concerned about what's going to happen to all those Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan yard signs when the election's over - because it's just wasteful to throw them all away. And just when I thought this election couldn't get any longer, my daughter has figured out a way to make the whole thing drag on for four more years.

School House Rocks

I'm Just A Bill

Green Lantern

Fan Page!

So, you know how at the end of a comic book there's always a page where they publish a few drawings that have been submitted by kids and right next to it there's an entry form that encourages you to submit your drawing for publication in a future edition?  And you know how you think to yourself that even if you took the time to draw a really good picture and you asked your parents for a stamp and an envelope and then you mailed it off to the comic book people there are probably so many other kids mailing in their very own best drawings that there's no way yours will ever get published?  So why bother?  Yeah, my eleven year old doesn't think this way.  He drew a picture.  He asked for a stamp and an envelope.  He mailed it to the folks at Green Lantern.  They published his drawing.  I can state with absolute certainty that if he'd told me what he was doing I would have discouraged his efforts - or at the very least told him not to get his hopes up because the odds of his picture being chosen were pretty small.  I guess it's a good thing he didn't ask me - look what he would have missed out on if he had.



The Green Lantern
by Owen



First Days

First Day of Kindergarten - 2006

He wasn't really all that thrilled to be there

and wanted more than anything to go back

to his preschool classroom at McKendree.

His sister, who was three long years away from Kindergarten,

wanted nothing more than to stay at SBA.

It was a tough morning all the way around.

 First Day of First Grade - 2007

Another first day that he wasn't thrilled about.

This was also his sweet teacher's very first day of teaching.

Miss Trappey turned out to be the right teacher 

at the right time for my then overly cautious little boy.

She helped him have an amazing year and set him

up to believe that new challenges might be scary

but could be worth the risk. She's the kind of teacher

you hope your child encounters somewhere along the way.

First Day of Preschool and 2nd Grade - 2008

This is the first "First Day of School" that

Owen was excited about.  He was ready to be a 2nd grader.

 And I know she's my baby girl, but ohmygoodness 

the cuteness of this picture!  The saddle shoes

and the headband and the teeny tiny jumper that we had

to have altered because even the smallest uniform

jumper was way too big on her.  She quickly realized

that she was the smallest kid in the whole of SBA that year 

and she loved every minute of it. Also, (and I'm probably

 alone in this opinion), I wish that SBA would require all the 

Pre-K and Kindergarten girls to wear these sweet jumpers 

every day just for the adorableness factor alone.  

Also in 2008 - Sarah had a half day of school,

 so I picked her up at dismissal and took her to City Limits 

where she got herself a BIG chocolate chip cookie 

to celebrate finally being an SBA Bear.

Then the two of us went next door to the

Monkey's Treehouse (an indoor play place) before we

returned to SBA to pick up her brother. The three of us stopped

at the Marble Slab Creamery for some ice cream on our way home.

It was a fun first day.

 First Day of Kindergarten and 3rd Grade - 2009

Owen wanted to walk his sister into his

Kindergarten classroom that day. He seemed to be feeling 

nostalgic about his bygone days as a Kindergartner. He tried to help 

Sarah find her cubby and get settled in.  

Of course, Sarah was less than thrilled with his offer of help. 

She wanted to do everything on her own that day

(just like every other day of her life).

I'd like to believe that she was secretly happy 

that he was such an enthusiastic big brother

that morning . . . I'd really like to believe that.

First Day of First and Fourth Grades - 2010

Sarah was excited to be upstairs in the

big school and Owen was thrilled that he and one of his

best buddies were finally in the same homeroom that year.

What I remember most about this first day is Owen giving Sarah

explicit instructions not to bug him ever when she saw him in the hall

or on the playground or in the lunchroom. 

The phrase that comes to mind is, "Yeah, right."

First Day of 2nd and 5th Grades - 2011

As a 5th grader, this was Owen's first year

in the Upper School and he was more than ready to be there.

Being upstairs meant more responsibility and more freedom,

two things his ten year old self was more than ready to take on.

This was also the first year that I wasn't allowed to walk him

to his classroom (at his request). I was both happy and

sad that he wanted to go it alone. Seeing that her brother was successful in 

ditching me, Little Miss tried to do the same thing.  I told her,

"No ma'am, you're stuck with me  until the fourth grade - just like your brother."

Before and after locker pics.  

By the third day of school, he let me come 

upstairs to help.  He successfully 

managed it on his own the rest of the year though.

First Day of 3rd and 6th Grades - 2012

Our easiest "First Day" to date.

Everyone knows the lay of the land they're

both ready to go back to school.

I continued my tradition and walked

Sarah to her classroom so that I could take my traditional

"hey, we found your locker" picture followed by the

"and now we've found your desk" photo opp.

My hope is that someday I'll get to hear my grown-up

kids talk about how embarrassing their mother was

because I insisted (INSISTED!) on making a spectacle

of myself on all those "First Days" when they were little.

I take my job as the "mommarazzi" seriously.

"You have your photos.  You can go now."

   

Forced Relaxation

Our view from the balcony this morning.

Batman

It's our first morning at the beach and I'm trying very very hard to relax.  It's harder than it looks. I feel like I should be doing something - making breakfast, putting on sunscreen, packing beach snacks, blowing up pool floats, organizing the kitchen - something.  My big kids are on the balcony hanging out and chatting with their aunt and their tiniest cousin, who all seem pretty relaxed.  Going to try that "in the moment" thing this week and not worry about what we're doing next. Who cares if we aren't on the beach by 9am? Or if all the good pool chairs get taken?  Or if it rains later today which means that by staying in this morning we've missed all the best sun for the day?  Well,  I do at the moment but I'm going to try to just let it go. We're currently speculating on what the giant bat we can see down on the beach is made out of.  Black sand? Rocks? Seaweed? The shadow of an actual bat hovering somewhere up there?  And given the events of the weekend, is this a scary or a comforting sign?  I don't know.  Even Joel is pondering the deeper meaning of the Batman symbol as he tries to explain the unexplainable to our own eleven year old Batman fan who's dealing with a difficult dose of reality, wondering why anyone would shoot people in a movie theater. Sigh. I'm going to go back to hanging out with the girls, who at the moment are completely enthralled with the doorstop and how it bounces back and forth and back and forth when you flip it.  Seems like a good thing to focus on this morning.

The girls and the door stopper.