I'd better go finish packing

Today I saw the following license plate:

2ISGOOD

The license plate frame said, "One is not enough; Three is too many."

Is it just me, or is that really strange? How strongly do you have to feel about this to put it on your license frame AND pay for a personalized plate? And WHY would anyone feel that strongly about it? I'm baffled.

And, while I'm at it, is there some other context for these statements besides family size?


___________________


Tomorrow morning, we leave for Portland. I always take the kids there for at least a month in the summer. This year, summer seems shorter than normal, but we're still doing 30 Days At Grandma's House! I can't wait to spend lots of time with my three nephews and two nieces, not to mention my wonderful brothers- and sisters-in-law!

Summer's start

Our first week of summer has come to a close!

Middle Girl did a little half-day-camp this week with the first grade teacher (the kids truly believe that she is magic).

Big Girl wrote all of her thank-you notes for her birthday yesterday, and today sorted through the huge piles of 3rd-grade work that she brought home. (The end of the school year is rough in this way - the mountains of stuff that comes home!) It took her two hours, but she did it! Now that she has ticked these two tasks off of the To-Do List, she can really relax into summer. She needs to work on her math skills regularly, and keep up the violin practice (recital coming up!), but in general she's in summer mode and I am so glad for that.

As for The Boy, I can't believe his first year of preschool is over! It's been a great year for him. His teachers were fantastic, and he had a lot of fun with his friends. He got over his shyness pretty quickly and really enjoyed himself. Now that everyone is home all day, I have stopped making him lie down for "rest time." That's the big news for him right now! Quietly, and without fanfare, Mommy has phased out nap. (He hadn't been sleeping during nap for several months. Believe me, I would still be giving him nap if he were.)

We had a nice weekend getaway to kick off our summer, traveling to my MIL's house and taking Big Girl to see "Wicked" as her big birthday event. She had a great time in the big, fancy theater, and she LOVED the show!

Looking ahead, I plan to spend the summer trying to say "yes." Once, during a Parent Ed discussion, the teacher pointed out the seemingly simple concept that parents don't always have to say "no" to their kids' questions. She challenged us to see if we can say "yes." Every time I try to think this way, it seems to turn out well.

"Mommy, can we go swimming?"

"Mommy, can we make a snow globe?"

"Mommy, can we play Go Fish?"

I'm going to try my best to alter my plans if necessary, and spend the summer saying "yes!"

A full day ... full of awesome!

On Saturday I was on the road at about 8:40 am, headed north on my little solo adventure! I was going to enjoy some scenery, meet a blogger, and earn a little money! A diverse plan!

An hour or so into my drive, I saw this:


Cinderella's carriage, including the white horse! Right there on the freeway! Click on it to get a better look at it - really quite something.
No doubt it was headed to someone's wedding. Not the same wedding I would be working at, though!

I had some companionship in the car with me.

Meet my little friend, Mr. Garmin. (The Hubby's newest gadget.) He talked to me during the drive, telling me where to turn, which freeways to take, where to get gas... we didn't always agree, but that makes for more interesting conversation, right?

Here, Mr. Garmin is showing me that I should take Highway 101 to Highway 101. Very helpful, thank you, Mr. Garmin.


Now looky here! Mr. Garmin and I are in the middle of nowhere!
(I apologize for the blurriness. I was driving, yo. On the open road.)

Mr. Garmin tells me that we are right next to the ocean.

Look! He's right!

Thank goodness for Mr. Garmin; how else would I know to look out the window and find a headland so I can snap a pretty photo? :-D
(yes, while driving. The Hubby was not so happy about that...)

Also out the window of my moving vehicle...
I saw a lot of charred hillsides, after the recent fires in this area:


Then I saw the hillsides adjacent to the burn areas: this is how everything looked before:



PRETTY LAKE! PRETTY LAKE!

(I actually pulled off the road for that one.)

When I got to the town where the wedding would be held, a friend was there to meet me! I got to spend a couple of hours with Heidi from smalltown mom, and we had a lovely time! She showed me around, while we talked and talked. We peeked in shops, and found some fun socks (my recent interest in novelty socks is a sure sign that I am turning into my mother). Heidi even treated me to a delicious lunch!


We had to have a bloggers' meet-up shoe photo! (I forgot about the shoe photo! I chose my shoes that day based on comfort, not cuteness... but check out Heidi's sassy leopards!)

It was so wonderful meeting Heidi... I feel so fortunate to have gotten to know her better! (Heidi, we should have taken a picture of our sock purchases! Well, I'll put pictures of mine here; you can put a picture of yours on your blog, too!)

Hopefully Heidi and I will get together again sometime!

Well, I had to get to work. It was the reason for this trip, after all...

Wedding time!


The wedding was in one of the historic California Missions.


They were having a Catholic Mass for their wedding, and I was cantoring. This means I was singing LOTS of music. I was very happy with how I sounded, and believe me, this is rare. I am so picky and hard on myself, but I was feeling good about this one! I got really nice responses, too, and the Father of the Bride even tipped me an extra fifty bucks! (Note to self: bumping into the Father of the Bride after the wedding can be a good idea!) Clearly, this was one of those days: an absolute *GEM* of a day!

When I got home, the kids were SO EXCITED about their new socks! (I had no doubt they would be.)

I got two for myself, and two for The Boy, since his socks seem to be disappearing.

Everyone HAD to put them on IMMEDIATELY!

Penguins for Big Girl, horses for Middle Girl, trains and clownfish for The Boy, and Chuck Taylors and sushi (!!) for me!

I just love these kitschy-cute sushi socks!

I'll write more about the Chuck Taylor socks later ... I've got an idea for a future post!


Here are a bunch more photos from the day, for your viewing pleasure!

a wee road trip

I'm excited about tomorrow! That fact that I'm excited about something is news in itself.

I've had plenty of things to get excited about in the last six weeks, it's not that... it's that I haven't been excited about anything. I've been feeling rather hollow.

Yes, I know what this sounds like. This is stuff I should be writing about, it would probably do me good to acknowledge it, talk about it...

But I'm not going to.

So, what have you been up to? Actually, I know what you've been up to - I've been reading your blog. Just haven't been able to muster up the energy to type out a comment. I'd like to tell you that your blog has made me smile on more than one occasion and thank you very much for that!

Me? Well...

Big Girl turned 9 years old on Monday! She had a couple of special playdates last weekend to mark the occasion, but no "party" per se. Instead, she asked to go see "Wicked." It's not playing here anymore, so we'll be making a "Wicked" pilgrimage next weekend!

Middle Girl graduated from Kindergarten on Wednesday! She's wistful about it.

The Boy is cute as ever, but getting more and more argumentative these days. Ah, well...

The girls performed in the school talent show. We made up a tap dance, and I made them some colorful, sparkly costumes. They were adorable!

My band usually performs at our town's 4th of July Picnic/Fireworks event, but they have cancelled the gig. Budget, it appears. We are pretty bummed about it. Trying to make the best of it, The Hubby and I have decided to have a party at our house, since the fireworks go off right overhead! I'm thinking pool party / barbeque / potluck / lots of socializing / fireworks show! I am looking forward to it.

AND I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW!

I have been hired to sing at a wedding a few hours away, so I'll be getting up bright and early and driving up to ... to ... the small town! Wahoooooo I get to meet small town mom tomorrow!

Yippee!!!!

Spring Break

Last week my girls were on Spring Break. The main item on the agenda was "open-ended hanging-out time," which is SOOOO good for my kids. They do really well when we don't have to be anywhere!

I did take them to the zoo one day, and the oldest went to a birthday sleepover. My father-in-law came to visit late afternoon Friday - noon Saturday.

Thursday was the one "big" thing we did for Spring Break - The Hubby took the day off and we drove down to Legoland!

They have various American "cities" built out of Legos: New Orleans, Las Vegas, Manhattan, Southern California, etc. In Washington, D.C., they have replicated President Obama's* Inauguration! It's fantastic. I took pictures:




Look at Aretha!

When we got home, I did some googling and found out that they actually built it shortly before the Inauguration. I found a picture of what it first looked like:



It's very interesting to me that they went back and redid it to reflect what everyone actually wore! Here's the updated version, also from google:



*I just love saying "President Obama!"

Things that are making me feel good about myself

1. My birthday.
My birthday was on March 22, and my family really did a great job. There was champagne and chocolates the night before, and then presents and dinner with The Hubby at the fondue place on the 22nd. The presents showed me they really know me: all things I love! New pajamas, cozy socks, Cadbury creme eggs, the DVD of Chuck Season 1, tickets to a concert at the Hollywood Bowl, climbing roses from my Mom, a $50 gift card to Nordstrom from my mother-in-law (do I even remember how to shop?). I'm feeling the love.

2. My haircut.
I finally got my hair cut about a month ago. It was in a horrible state: bangs so long I just brushed them to the side and didn't have bangs; ends so fried it didn't even look like hair any more. It was shapeless and long, and I HATED it!
When I first got it cut, the bangs were a little too short. But now that a month has gone by, the bangs are the right length and I have figured out how to style it correctly. I am so happy with it! I feel a million times better when I see myself in the mirror. I am walking taller.
I was trying to go without a haircut for as long as possible to save funds, but I should have just spent the money sooner! The improvement in my outlook was well worth it!



3. Daffodils.
They are in Trader Joe's and the grocery store. Little bunches of daffodil buds. About $2.00 for 10 stems. They just look like green blobs.
Then, you get them home and put them in a vase, and later that night, they have started to open.
The next morning, they are BIG, beautiful, bright yellow daffodil blossoms.
Their season is short. I am savoring it while it lasts!

4. New pajamas.
As mentioned above, my family bought me a new pair of pajamas for my birthday. They are just a simple cotton t-shirt and drawstring pants from Target, but ahhhhhhhh. Who knew that such a simple thing could feel so good? Such soft cotton... not threadbare, pilling, and falling apart, like the pajamas I was wearing. I put them on, and I feel like a million bucks!

5. My band.
Last Saturday, we had a gig (this precluded me from going to the bloggers' picnic). It was a small gig for us: playing at The Boy's preschool carnival. The preschool director had asked me for a favor - they needed live entertainment - and my guys delivered. Big or small event, they are terrific.
I sang lots of my favorite songs, in front of a crowd who knew only the "mom" side of me. It was fun hearing their surprised reactions: "WOW, you're so good!" "How long have you been singing?" All my life, and thanks!
My mom was here visiting, and she hasn't had a chance to hear my band before, so this was extra-, extra-special! (Most of my singing has been in the theatre, and she saw that a lot when I was growing up! But she hasn't had a chance since I started singing in bands three years ago.)
Singing with the band does make me feel good about myself, since it allows me to have an identity outside of "Mom," and gives me a chance to perform (I miss the theatre terribly). However, it can also give me opportunities to feel bad about myself, since I am really hard on myself and beat myself up over mistakes.

But this is a positive post. Being positive is another thing that is making me feel good (and just like going to the gym, it sometimes takes willpower), so I am not going to start down the road of things that are making me feel bad about myself. Unfortunately I can't stop my brain from going there, but I'm having my fingers focus on the positive!

Siblings and The Truth

Last night was my Moms' Group. We meet once a month with an MFT to discuss - well, anything and everything!

Last night one of the moms brought up an interesting issue. Her sons are 6 and 3.5. Her 6-year-old has always been a kid who tells it like it is. You can ask him, "who spilled that milk?" and he will answer truthfully. He's not sneaky; he's an open book.

Her 3.5-year-old has started scheming a bit. It's very normal behavior at this age. He'll come in from the back yard and say "Mom, he took my basketball!" She'll then ask the older one what happened, and he was nowhere near his brother. The little one was trying to get the big one in trouble.

The mom's concern is that she might be setting up roles as "The one who tells the truth" and "the one who I can't trust" by asking them to each say what happened and then always believing the older one. It's hard for her, because she can, in fact, believe the older one; she is aware, however, that this could be problematic.

We discussed just talking to the younger one about the situation as if it were true, without bringing the older one in. "If he took your basketball, what would be a good thing to say in that situation?" Perhaps it's not important to find out The Truth and What Really Happened. Perhaps it's just important to talk to the kids in a positive, constructive way and leave it at that.

It's an interesting idea to contemplate and try to keep in mind as we navigate this tough, exhausting job of mothering. Sibling dynamics are a minefield. I recommend the book "Siblings Without Rivalry" by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

(Update:
Previous chat: Saturday night, 3/14
Latest chat: Today, Tuesday, 3/17, innocuous banter, duration 10 min
Prognosis: positive)

And a Happy Saint Patrick's Day to everyone!

I had to spend the morning in a boring meeting for one of my volunteer duties, which was made even more difficult because I had two better offers!

One, the Kindergarten was having their big celebration in the park, in which they hunt for pots 'o' gold and leprechauns (and a school staff member dresses up as a leprechaun and prances around the far end of the park, then runs away and disappears before the kids can catch him/her), do rainbow-y and shamrock-y craft projects, have snack and green cupcakes, and play!

Two, my Irish citizen friend invited a few women over to her place for a morning tea. I would have enjoyed a cuppa, some soda bread, and great conversation!

But no, I was stuck for two hours discussing "systems and strategies for compliance" and other such yadda yadda, with The Boy in the chair behind me playing the DS.

When we were set free, we went to the park to catch the last part of the Kindergarten fun. We missed the leprechaun, though. :-(

Oh well, my perfect St. Patrick's Day it's not. Since The Hubby is away on a business trip and I'm parenting solo this week, there aren't any St. Patrick's festivities for me this evening, either.

But that's okay! I just really like this holiday and a few missed opportunities aren't going to get me down! It's St. Paddy's Day and I'm feelin' fine!

I've been lost in a time warp

I am dying to tell you all ... those of you who still read my blog ... and one of you is Margaret, who I ran into in the grocery store yesterday so already knows about this ...

I've been lost in a time warp.

My particular time warp is 1991. I've been sucked up by 1991 and wonder when I'll make it out of this vortex.

Can you guess what has caused this time warp vortex?

I bet you can!


FACEBOOK.

Yes, I know, I was very anti-Facebook. No, I'm not sure how I feel about it now that I have signed up, but I was talked into signing up by one of my oldest friends last weekend.

AND THEN MY WHOLE WORLD EXPLODED.

Monday, I set up my Facebook page, not sure how many friends I wanted to have and trying to figure out what the Wall is, and what the News Feed is, and where I should be looking, and why isn't there an "About Facebook" button with some sort of tutorial? So I spent Monday clicking around and wondering about groups and fan pages and looking at the profiles and walls of the few people I had added to start me off. And snooping around the profiles of some other people from my past, not sure if I was ready to reach out to them.

Tuesday morning, just 24 hours after joining, I got a friend request that knocked me out of my chair. THAT GUY. The one who I met doing a show when I was 17 and he was 20 (we were near our 18th and 21st birthdays, though ... I was a senior in high school and he was a college dropout from Kansas who had come to California to crash with his dad). The one who, even though I had a long-time boyfriend who was away at college, I could not stop thinking about. The one who felt that he was too confused about his life and that I was heading off for bigger and better things (college at Stanford; and my parents were moving to Oregon to make it more complicated), so decided that we shouldn't have a relationship. The one who took me out on dates even though we weren't dating (the passionate talk and the making out sure made them feel like dates). The one who was a mother's nightmare (sorry, mom!).

The one who spent the last few months before I moved, while we did another show together, pretty much ignoring me and dating other people, but then spent the NIGHT before I moved telling me how much he loved me. The one who didn't call me for months after that, but finally did and we spent that night on the phone falling in love with each other. The one who promised this time would be different and he would be better about calling, but then broke that promise.

THAT GUY. We had such chemistry. We never did anything more than a little making out, but it was the talking and just the hanging out that we did SO WELL. We were so different, yet we seemed to fit. We were never given a chance, though.

I couldn't count on him. He had said all the right things but then not called for months too many times. I had given him enough chances.

I fell in love with someone a few months after that late-night phone call my freshman year in college. I would forget about everyone else I had ever known; I would forget my name; I knew that I would marry this man. And one year after graduation, he proposed. Yes, The Hubby!

Eventually, I would think about THAT GUY. I had written about him in my diary, after all, and I like to reminisce. When I got internet access and learned of yellowpages dot com, I looked him up. Other search engines came out, and I looked him up. I went to the memorial service of a mutual friend, and not finding him there, asked another mutual friend to see if she could find him and give him my phone number. I Googled him. Thinking he might have gone into the industry, I imdb'd him. I always found many listings for his name, but no way to tell if any of them were the right THAT GUY.

Eventually, I decided that it would be best not to know what happened to him, and certainly best not to find him. Despite the way things went between us, I have treasured memories of the time we spent together and the things that were said. I decided it was best to preserve it as it was.

THEN I JOINED FACEBOOK.
And the next day, THAT GUY. After all those times years ago that I tried to find him, it took less than 24 hours on facebook for him to find me! After SEVENTEEN YEARS. I stared at the Friend Request, trying to decide what to do. I went out for the day and thought about it. I went back and forth, feeling my heart beating in my throat.

I came back to the computer late in the afternoon. I didn't know what I was going to do. Staring at the screen, I took a deep breath and clicked "Confirm." I would just let whatever was going to happen, happen. I figured it would just be "hi, what are you up to? I have three kids. oh" and not much more, like what happens at high school reunions, and frankly, I worried that that would be a blow to my self-esteem yet again. But I had no idea what usually happened on facebook, so no idea what to expect.

Almost the very second my finger came back up from clicking "Confirm," a chat window popped up. I didn't even know there was chat in facebook! THAT GUY. Talking to me, live in a chat window. I almost threw up. I couldn't hear my kids playing right behind me, what with the beating of my heart. My fingers shook. I got all sweaty. And I remembered that it was his birthday!

We had a short chat. My exploded brain remembers it went something like:
me: "I can't believe I'm talking to you right now. Isn't it your birthday?" him: "Yep." me: "How old are you?" him: "39." him: "Your kids are cute." me: "Thanks, yours too!" him: "You look happy. Is it true?" me: "Yes, very." him: "I'm so glad to hear that." me: "This is weird." him: "Should I not have found you?" me: "I don't know yet." him: "I understand if you don't want to acknowledge me, but I have thought about you a lot." me: "I don't believe you." him: "well, it's true. I was a total mess then and I missed out on you. I'm so sorry." me: "I cannot believe this is happening right now."
And some pleasantries, and then I had to go make dinner.

And then I told The Hubby about it. He did not think it was a big deal. Why was I making a big deal about it? he wanted to know.

Because my not-a-relationship with him never had an ending! And I was not sure that I wanted it to have a postscript. Some things are better left alone, to reminisce about in our private thoughts.

The Hubby thought I was being silly. "Why don't you suggest that you two get together? Your kids can play."

"That would be WEIRD!"

"No, it's no big deal."

Well, he doesn't get it (I thought to myself).

The next day, a chat window popped up again. This time, our chat was longer, and it briefly touched upon the past.

Another day, another chat. Again and again. More delving into the past.

Then when he asked again if we should talk about exchanging phone numbers, I took a deep breath and punched my cell number into the chat window. Then I received a text message. Then I received a picture on my phone of his Wii avatar. Um, ooookay?

I told The Hubby about it. "Maybe it's weird," he said, thinking. "No, I'm sure he's just being friendly," he finished.

Saturday night I was up late after everyone went to bed, and another chat window popped up. This time, we really got into the past.

At some point, my fingers typed out the gist of my worries. "What if we see each other and find that we still have that chemistry?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said.

"I do know that the phrase "unfinished business" has never been more apt," he said.

"Yes! You get it!" I cried. Knowing that he totally understood what was weird about this was, for me, a huge relief.

Just knowing that I wasn't the only crazy one here has really calmed me down about the whole thing. It seems counterintuitive, but that's the effect it has had on me. My heart rate slowed back down; my fingers stopped shaking.

I was never sure if, back then, he had strong feelings about me or if it was all my overactive imagination. All these years, I have thought I might have been a silly 18-year-old girl about this. Finding out through these chats that it wasn't a figment of my fluttering heart actually is helping me exhale and move on to whatever this is going to be NOW.

This story is not over. We'll have to wait and see how it all unfurls.

Where did February go?

Hmmm. It's March now.

I'm not sure how that happened.

I feel like I've been buried under a huge pile of volunteer duties. I can think of three big things right off the top of my head that I've been working on during the last two weeks.

I've also been going to the gym a bit more. I've been pretty good about going to a class twice a week since early October, and during the last couple of weeks I have been extra focused on making sure I get there. I am seeing NO RESULTS. Wheee!

The kids and I went to the zoo the other day. We enjoy reading maps! (We also enjoy watching industrious little orangutans!)





This month we started letting Turbo go outside in the back yard! He is very happy with the arrangement!



I think the tooth fairy is moving in! Since January 22nd, my two girls have lost seven teeth! Seven!

In fact, they lost four during the last week of February alone, including one each last Saturday! That's right, a double-tooth-fairy-visit!

And it's not over: Middle Girl has one more loose one, and Big Girl has three loose teeth!

They are falling out left and right around here!

My poor Boy keeps pulling on his teeth and despairing "when will I lose a tooth?" I can't blame him feeling left out right now!

Good genes

Today, The Boy was running along ahead of me and his calves reminded me of my husband's.

And this, my friends? This is a very nice discovery.

what a weekend.

What do you do with a rainy three-day weekend when you're pinching pennies?

One day, we went to our local independent bookstore (I cannot tell you how much I LOVE that place) because Middle Girl got a gift card for her birthday. Is your family like mine? Do you all just love to spend time in a bookstore, looking at book after book after book? (Thinking about the people who come to this blog... yep, you are all like that!)

Books seem even more comforting when it's raining outside, don't they?

A few of us saw books we wanted to read, but since we were only there for Middle to use her gift card, we decided to head over to the library.

Some time later, we left the library, with books and a DVD off the "New Releases" shelf.

We all came in the door and fell upon the couches to spend the rest of the afternoon with the books!

Later that evening, we slipped in the DVD. It was the final live Broadway performance of "Rent." (Parents of the Year, that's us!)

When you're a theater geek, and you are my age (23 when "Rent" came out - just starting out on your own after college), "Rent" is not just another musical! Heck, even The Hubby loves it, and he's not a theater geek!

After 12 years on Broadway, "Rent" closed last fall. They assembled an amazing cast for the final few months, including two original cast members, and filmed it for posterity. Many, many actors who had been in it through the years were in the audience. They dedicated the performance to Jonathan Larsen, who wrote this musical about "liv[ing] each moment as [your] last," "no day but today," "measure your life in love," and who died of heart failure the night before its first performance.

Man, I cried watching this. I cried and cried. I cried for the triumph of the show itself and how seeing the show and falling in love with an HIV-positive drag queen (you can't help but) has changed people. I cried for all the Closing Nights I've been in. I cried for how much I miss the camaraderie of cast members. I miss it so much, and I don't have anything in my life right now that feels like that.

A day full of books followed by a good, long cry. What a weekend!