Sorry to have been away for so long guys, I have had a killer cold for almost a week now and am just now getting to the point where I *almost* feel human again.
Tuesday was kind of a big day around here. It was my 40th birthday and I have to say it was far less painful than I thought it would be. The kids woke up super early that morning so they could give me my birthday presents. They were so excited I thought they were going to explode. They gave me a Schwinn which I am super excited about. If you remember just last week I was contemplating getting a bike for Christmas so this was a really big surprise. They also gave me a webkinz which totally cracked me up. My kids probably have about 60-70 webkinz already and I'm constantly playing games on their webkinz page so I guess they figured it was time for me to leave theirs alone, lol! I got a few other things as well which were awesome and surprising, but I won't bore you with all the details. Oh, and I also got not one, but two birthday cakes!
No, we did not use forty candles so keep your fire extinguisher jokes to yourself!
Tuesday was also Kylie and Audrey's last day of school. I have to say that I was probably more ready for it than they were. I suppose you could say I've become disenchanted with the way certain things were being handled at the school and me being me I wrote a couple of letters to complain. Which of course meant that things got a little awkward right at the end, but it's all over and done with now. Anyway, I've always given the girls a gift on the first and last day of school and this year I bought Audrey and Kylie a webkinz (duh!) because you know I just didn't think they had quite enough already.
Now Sophie is chomping at the bit to start school so that she can get a new webkinz herself.
As any mom can tell you when it comes to your children you just never know what is going to pop out of their mouths at any given time. I've never really had to worry about filtering Kylie and Audrey because they were always kind of shy when they were younger and now that they are a little older they are pretty good at filtering themselves. Sophie? Not so much.
Yesterday when we were outside playing she was attempting to do headstands in the backyard. I was sitting on the swing (pretty much my standard outside spot) reading a book when she stopped and asked me if I wanted to try to do one. I told her no thank you and naturally she asked me why not. I told her that I was to old and fat to which she immediately replied, "You're not too old" she then gave me the old side eye, grinned and finished her sentence with, "but you are fat." Umm, thanks honey. I kind of laughed it off because a) it's true and b) I knew that she would never, ever say anything like that to someone else.
Once again she proved me wrong. We were coming home from the supermarket today and right as we turned on our street I noticed an older man, probably in his seventies out for a walk. Without his shirt on. Now, those of you that have boys probably think nothing of seeing someone without a shirt on, but in a household where estrogen rules like mine it's kind of a big deal. My daughters always freak out when they see a guy without a shirt on so I was kind of, sort of hoping that Sophie wouldn't notice the poor old guy. The second we got out of the car she said, "Mom, that man's naked! Look you can even see his boobies, that's just discusting!" By the way she still hasn't quite got the pronunciation for disgusting down. Needless to say the old man got a bit of a cardio workout trying to rush past our house. I guess I'm going to have to really work with her before she starts kindergarten in the fall otherwise I have a feeling I may have several parent/teacher conferences in my future.
When I was a kid a zillion years ago the coolest thing in the world to do was ride a bike. My brothers and I would ride our bikes up and down the street, have bike races, and bike over to our friends homes all the time. One of my most vivid memories of Christmas was the year I turned seven and Santa bought new bikes for my brothers and me. Mine was a yellow and white huffy bike with the big banana seat and I thought I was hot stuff. I loved that bike and it was my most prized possession until I finally outgrew it.
I suppose I just always assumed that my kids would feel the same way about riding a bike that I did. I was wrong. A couple years ago my mom asked me if it was okay if she and my dad bought the girls their first bike for Christmas. Umm, heck yeah you can! Riding over to their house on Christmas day I was so excited because I couldn't wait to see the excitement on the kids faces. Well they were excited all right, but not quite as much as I thought they would be. When we finally got the bikes home (all of which had stabilizers because my kids had no clue how to ride) they just kind of sat around in the back yard. Occasionally the girls would get on them and ride, but to them it just wasn't that big a deal. To say I was disappointed in their lack of enthusiasm would be putting it lightly. I kept trying to get them to learn how to ride without the stabilizers, but they would blow me off everytime I brought it up so eventually I stopped trying.
To me it just seemed odd a 5, 7, and 9 year old not knowing how to ride a bike, but I kept telling myself that times have changed, just get over it. Well a few weeks ago something weird happened. We were in the backyard and Audrey asked us to remove her stabilizers. My husband took them off and for about two and a half weeks she would practice riding her bike on the back porch. I have absolutely no patience when it comes to teaching my children how to do things so umm, I was really no help. I would sit on the glider and look up occasionally and offer encouragement. Then last week when I glanced up to say something to her I realized "holy crap she's riding!" and for Audrey that was that. She started riding up and down the street and has been having the time of her life.
A few days ago Sophie got on Audrey's bike (hers still had stabilizers on it) and decided that she was going to learn too. Would you believe that little monkey messed around until she got it? All on her own in about an hour.
Meanwhile Kylie would kind of glance over at her sisters and not say anything. Everytime I would ask her if she wanted to try she would tell me that no, she had better things to do so I didn't push it. Then yesterday while the girls were at school my husband decided that he would take the stabilizers off Kylie's bike.
I just knew that she was going to have a fit when she discovered what he did. So yesterday when the girls came home from school and asked to go outside I told them to have at it. A few minutes later I hear "Hey, what happened to my bike?!" Then Audrey and Sophie offer to teach their big sister how to ride. Naturally this was too much for my girl. She snapped at them "NO!!" and started to practice on the driveway. And apparently that's all it took because within twenty minutes I had three little girls riding their bikes all over the place. I think this year I'm going to ask Santa to bring me a bike so I can join them.
Okay so maybe I'm being a bit of a drama queen today. It's not really the end of the world, but for me it kind of, sort of feels like it is. In exactly eight days something is going to happen that I thought would never happen and I'm a little freaked out by it. Make that a LOT freaked out by it. On Tuesday I will turn...oh crap I can't even type it out... Argh....Forty.
There I did it. Go ahead and roll your eyes and shake your head. Really, it's okay I'm sure I would be doing the same thing if someone I knew were being such a big baby about a little ol birthday. As you can see I'm not exactly doing the whole "aging gracefully" thing. No, I tend to fall into the "kicking and screaming" category. As happy as I am to have been given another year of life I really, really don't like that number. 40. Ugh. I'm going to have to go into another category when filling out forms. I'll have to read the last section of those articles in magazines about beauty in your 20's/30's/40's. And God help me when I take my baby to kindergarten in the fall and I'm the oldest mom there. You know the one. The one that all the 20 something moms are glancing at wondering if that's really the kids mom or grandma. Yeah, that's going to be me. So if you should happen to hear loud wailing come from the south this time next week don't worry it's just me mourning the end of my youth. I promise I'll try to keep it down as much as possible.
Today I had two packages arrive in the mail. One was a set from American girl for bitty babies. The other was a pirate costume a friend sent Sophie. Guess which package she was more excited to get?
Yep, you guessed it! And yes, I realize that's a canary on her shoulder and not a parrot, but sometimes a girls got to improvise.
A few days ago I did something that I had been dreading for quite some time. I preregistered Sophie for kindergarten. Don't get me wrong I'm very excited for her to start school and she is too, but I'm just having a hard time dealing with it. She's really looking forward to all the fun arts and crafts projects, learning to read and most importantly making some friends. I'm looking forward to all those things as well, but well she's my baby. This wasn't supposed to happen for a really, really long time.
When I registered Kylie for kindergarten I was super excited. Sure, I knew I was going to miss having her at home, but I knew that I had Audrey and Sophie at home. I remember being so shocked at how much she changed during that first year. Some changes were wonderful, but some not so great. I remember being absolutely shocked when my sweet little girl decided that she hated all things character like her once beloved Disney princesses. And the eye rolls. I thought I was going to die the first time I saw her do that. Sadly, I see it more and more the older she gets.
When I registered Audrey I was excited but seeing how much Kylie changed once she started school I was a little nervous. I dreaded seeing her do the same thing and of course I kept reminding myself that I still had Sophie at home. I ended up being pleasantly surprised. School actually seemed to help her with her shyness a lot. She's come out of her shell a lot and even calls her classmates on the phone from time to time. She does have a little bit of the attitude, but not too bad. She doesn't do the eyes rolls (yet), but she is really good at the long drawn out mooooommmm thing.
Sophie of course already knows all the little attitude things since she has big sisters. I think for me it's extra hard this time around because I know that this is it. There are no more babies at home to take care of. There is no one to keep me company during the day. I won't have a little shopping buddy or someone to play dolls with or do puzzles with. And as much as I complain about all the dumb shows that come on television during the day (Calliou, Dirt Girl anyone?) I'm going to miss hearing all the themes songs and seeing the smile on her face whenever Curious George comes on. So if you guys notice I'm posting a little less these days you'll know why. I'm trying to soak up each and every last minute with my preschooler.
