Back to Awesomeness

Operation: Awesome Summer is back in full swing. Yesterday, Ella B and I had a lovely day at Brooksvale Park in Cheshire where we saw goats, sheep, horses, bunnies, chickens, and even a peacock who proudly shook his spectacular feathers at us.

We played on the playground and then went to Wentworth's where I enjoyed an ice cream cone and Beezer had a strawberry banana smoothie. All around, it was a pretty great day (and free besides the ice cream).


















Today, we had to go to the doctor where we learned that Beezer herself is pretty awesome and doing all kinds of things that 15 month olds just don't do. She asked me if Ella was saying any words yet and couldn't believe it when I said she has about twenty words, can do a bunch of animal noises, and knows almost all of her body parts. So, yeah, she is pretty awesome.

We then met Amy and Bowie for a sandwich at Blue Check and then a nice walk on the Blue Trail using our toddler carrier. She loved keeping an eye on Bowie and drinking out of Amy's super cool water bottle with the built in straw.

As you can see, we've decided to take the awesome by the horns, and this time, we're not letting go.

This Bites

So, Operation: Awesome Summer has hit a roadblock. It's called MOLARS! I don't know if any of you remember pointy, white spawns of Satan ripping through your tender gums at an excruciating snail's pace, but Ella B will tell you, it sucks. Teething really is cruel and if it happened to adults, I'm sure that Pfizer would have already invented the anti-teething drug, or we would have genetically engineered people to be born with full sets of adult teeth. No such luck for Beezer, so she has become a drooling, grumpy, whiny mess of a girl who wakes up at 3 a.m. and cries the second I walk out of any room. It has also catapulted her into full toddler flop-on-the-floor tantrum mode.

Here are some of the things that have set her off lately:

Her hat fell off
There aren't enough bubbles in the tub
The big bubble wand doesn't fit in the small bubble container
The visible root systems of trees are not sticks she can pick up (really)

And here are some of the things I have done to ruin her life lately:

I won't let her pick green tomatoes
I cut her blueberries in half
I won't let her suck on a sponge
I try to stop her from pinching me (I know, I'm a jerk)

We know this will pass, but there is really no telling how long it will last, so we are still trying to make the most of our summer. We have already been to the library and the playground at BCS where Ella B climbed up to the big kid swirly slide and went down all by herself, like a million times, huge toothy grin, hair all statically and wild.

So, we've got those moments, too, and I know that in the long run, those moments count double.

15 Months

Dear Ella B,

On Thursday you turned 15 months. You went to daycare, but you had a temperature so I picked you up early. You didn't feel well and mostly just wanted to snuggle. We walked around the block in our new toddler carrier. I couldn't figure out how to do the whole backpack thing by myself, so I carried you in the front just like old times. I noticed how your strong legs bounced against my thighs instead of my stomach. I could feel the weight of a little girl, not a baby against me. You are getting to be more like a kid everyday, but you are still my little nugget, too.

Here's what you are up to at 15 months:

Weight: don’t know, maybe 23 lbs.

Height: I’m still guessing like 30 inches

New words: Wow Wow (meaning she wants to watch Wubbzy), Pat Pat (for Patrick at school), baby, hat, up (ub), cheese and sock (really just guttural sounds, but I know what she means).

New feats: knows pretty much all of her body parts (including the girly ones), always wants to wear her hat and gets upset if it falls off, wants to wear certain shoes, loves to clean everything with a paper towel and gets upset when her stuff is "dirty" (i.e. has a speck of dirt on it), can color, loves to "feed" her baby water or a pouch and makes slurping noises, loves to pretend to put lotion on

Firsts: molars, favorite T.V. show, favorite toy (her baby), high school graduation, McDonald's (first time dipping a chicken mcnugget in sauce), backpack carrier, went to hospital to visit Loreli

Operation: Awesome Summer

Summer has officially begun and Beezer and I are ready. Of course, she doesn’t actually know what summer is, but as long as we are doing fun stuff, she is excited. Now, as a teacher, I have been lucky enough to extend the idea of summer into adulthood. But, the truth is, summer as an adult is not quite the same as summer as a kid. Then, we would spend every day sleeping late, lounging poolside, planning outings to the mall or an upcoming carnival. As a grown-up, summer begins with the promise of completing all the tasks you didn’t have time to work on during the school year, and ends with an overwhelming self-loathing at not having completed said projects. Needless to say, I am prone to what some might refer to as the “summer blues.” This feeling stems from my assumption that every day of summer vacation should either be A) incredibly productive, or B) super fun. And yet despite my desire to make this happen, a heat-induced, alone-in-the-house-all-day kind of lethargy takes over and I inevitably slide into a summer slump.

Juxtapose all this with a little something I like to call “the beezer.” This is my second summer as a mom and in case you don’t remember, last summer was THE WORST SUMMER EVER! Yes, I said it. My first summer as a mom was awful. Go ahead and judge me, but it is the truth. Perhaps you have forgotten that as far as my research has shown, I had the most difficult baby on the planet. Our summer days consisted of crying, nursing, walking around the block, more nursing, not sleeping, pumping, and crying some more. Basically, last summer sucked.

So, you can imagine my silent trepidation as the school year came to an end and flashbacks to last summer whirled through my head. I kept trying to remind myself: she’s not a baby anymore, but it was still hard to imagine how the two of us were going to spend all day every day together and not go crazy. This girl is used to spending her days playing with her friends, making art projects, dancing and singing at circle time. I began wondering how I’d ever compete!

In light of all of this, I decided that this summer needs to start off with a new plan. A “Super Summer Fun” plan if you will. I want to make a promise to myself to not give in to the slump. I don’t have it all worked out yet, but here are some of the features of the plan so far:

1. Exercise at least five days a week (which always makes me feel unslumpish)

2. On Thursdays and Fridays when Ella goes to daycare (go ahead- keep judging me, I don’t care), I will do something just for me like go to the gym, have lunch with a friend, go for a hike, watch an episode of True Blood, whatever.

3. Do fun stuff with Beezer every day.

I think the third task is the most important, but I’m not exactly sure what that “fun stuff” is going to be. Michael suggested the Beardsley Zoo and the Maritime museum. I’m also thinking about hiking up to the castle at Sleeping Giant, walking around downtown, hitting up some library circle times, and maybe even the Children’s Museum in Bristol. I think the most important thing will be to get out of the house, which isn’t always easy, but definitely makes both of us much happier, even if we just go swimming at Wendy’s or Kristy’s, or go for a little hike on the Blue Trail using my new toddler backpack (more on that in a later post).

I’d love to hear some more suggestions for little kid fun in Southern Connecticut if you’ve got em as well as some companions if you’re around. I’m on a mission this year, and I’ll take all the help I can get.

Operation Awesome Summer is underway!

Growing Up

On Wednesday, my kids graduated. No, not my Ella B. My other kids. The ones I am not biologically related to, but the ones I spent 50 minutes with, 5 days a week, for the past 5 months. It may not seem like enough time to get so attached to a group, but somehow this year I did. This happens sometimes, where you end up with this magical little group that just seems to click, where everyone supports and befriends everyone else despite their different social groups outside the classroom. On any given day, they might not have looked like the "it" group that every teacher desires. They were generally unmotivated, hated to write, and often didn't hand in their work. They tried their best to get me off topic everyday, and relished the moments when they succeeded. Some barely squeaked by and I cheered extra hard for them on graduation day, knowing how lucky we were to have made it there.

Yet, despite all of this, something flourished in that little room. An energy, a vibe, something cheesy like that which made us all look forward to period 6. When they talked they were honest, invested, jovial, and sometimes even serious. They supported each other and teased each other and called each other out on everything. They laughed, a lot, and they made me laugh, too, and we became a tiny family, if only for a few months.

It's raining now as I write this and they have graduated, moved on, and I'm feeling sad in a way I never have before in the seven years that I have said goodbye to my seniors, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think that part of it is that these are a special group of kids, but I think another part of it has to do with Beezer.

This is my first year of teaching as a mother and I thought it was going to be the most miserable year of my life. How would I ever juggle working and being a mom? When would I sleep? When would I grade those stacks of paper? And now it is suddenly the end of June and I realize that it wasn't so bad. I got used to not sleeping, I became a more efficient grader, and I stopped sweating all the small stuff. I realize now that these kids give me a lot of the same things Beezer does: frustration, laughter, pride, whimsy. They helped me to make it through this year more than they could possibly imagine. And so, perhaps as I watched them receive their diplomas, I felt a twinge of what's to come, of all the moments when Beezer will be a little more independent, will move a little further away from me, and a little closer to herself, and it is beautiful and exhilarating, and also, really, really hard.

I know that we have many years with Beezer before we have to think about high school graduation, but these kids reminded me that she will be grown one day and I will have to let her go. At least I get to practice it for a few more years with someone else's children before it is my little girl standing up on that platform, flying off to do bigger and better things.

To everyone who has already had to watch their babies go, give me the strength to do it gracefully.

From Ella with love

Dear Dad,

Hi. It's me, Ella. I know I should be in bed, but I didn't want to go to sleep without telling you a few things on this very important day. First of all, I love you. You rock. I love when you wrestle with me and tickle me and chase me around. You can make me giggle more than anyone else. You are very silly and know how to have a good time and I appreciate that. Thank you for bringing me to school in the morning and for making me a waffle even though I hardly ever eat it. Thank you for putting me to bed at night. Sometimes I cry when you put me in my crib, but it's only because I love spending time with you, and I like that we get to have that special father/daughter time together at the end of the day. Thank you for always reading me the story "Marley and the New Kittens" even though you don't like it, and thank you for letting me watch "Wow Wow Wubbzy" over and over again, even though you are pretty sick of it.

But most of all, thank you for doing your part to keep mommy happy. She can get a little overwhelmed and frustrated sometimes (whatever those words mean) and you are always the calming force that keeps her grounded. I know that she'd like to think that she could do this without you, but you and I both know she's wrong sometimes. And don't tell her I said this, but she told me that she loves you to the sky and back. And guess what? So do I.

Thanks for being you, Dad. No one else could ever fill your shoes.

I love you. Happy Father's Day.

Love,

Ella

Bubbles and Rain

There are many challenges that come with having a child, especially a "spirited one" like mine, but also many gifts. One gift is that you get to enjoy the whimsy and pleasure of childhood all over again.

This morning, as I made my way towards the kitchen for a much needed cup of coffee, Ella B banged against the kitchen door, begging me to take her outside. "But it's raining," I thought, "and it's 5:30" and, "I'm wearing a nightgown." But Beezer didn't care about any of that. She only knew that she needed to go outside and pleaded with me like a puppy dog with a leash in its mouth.

So, Beezer and I sat on the porch and watched the rain, and I blew bubbles while she chased them. She squealed with delight as she popped each one with her tiny fingers or chased an errant bubble until it disappeared into the sky. And she was so happy, and I was happy because she was happy.

People who don't spend time with kids don't get to experience moments like this. We are all genuinely far too busy with life to waste time blowing bubbles and watching the rain. But part of my life, the best part, is out there on that porch, and if it weren't for Beezer, I'd be missing it.

Ella reminds me of how wide and wonderful this world is, and without even knowing it, she gives me that gift everyday.

Thanks Beeze. I love you.