The First Day of Kindergarten

Many a mommy blogger has written on the subject of sending the fruit of your loins off to Kindergarten.  There are a lot of tear-inducing posts out there.  Some really good ones.  Essays that meander from the first moment that wet, wriggling, little creature angrily arrived to the first teetering steps, from spaghetti-smeared faces and unsanctioned crayon murals to the first solo swim across the pool or unsteady ride on the bike.  Through the Years by Kenny Rogers plays in our heads as we name the memories, sweet and funny and terrible.  I get it.  And part of me wants to write that blog post.

But I'm not going to.

I'm going to be honest and tell you I'm excited.  Yes, of course I feel a tiny pang of something that feels like sad. But I choose to shift my emotions away from that.  See, I don't want her to stay little.  Is it crazy to say that??  I've loved every age for different reasons, and yes, they go fast.  And no, we can't go back.  There are things I loved about high school, college, dating my husband, kid-free marriage and her babyhood and toddler years.  But I don't long for those days.  We're here now.  Let's be in NOW, now.  

Five only happens once.  This is cool.  It's exciting!  New friends and skills and challenges.  New schedule and activities.  Things will go wrong and we'll figure them out.  All that we've poured into her - the love, the guidance, the limits, the mistakes, the love, the love, the love...it was for this.  Not just this.  But this, for sure.  Not so I could cling to her last whispers of littleness, longing for her to need me.  Not so I could cry over losing what once was.  Rather, so she could walk through the doors of that school knowing she can do it.  Here are my hopes and dreams for her for this year:

That she knows we believe in her.  That she'll experience success in little and big ways.  That she'll mess up, and survive.  That she'll fall down and get back up.  That she'll overcome something difficult through persistence.  That someone will steal her juice box and she'll take it right back.  That she'll sit next to the weird kid to be kind.  That she'll begin to discover her gifting and talents.  That she'll ask good questions and think of creative answers.  That she will enjoy most days.  That she'll make friends and receive the care and guidance of special adults we'll think of with appreciation years from now.  That she will win something.  That she will fail at something and be ok with it but try harder next time.  

I've thought about this transition many times.  And I've made many decisions with it in mind.  I know it won't all go smoothly.  But I think we're ready.  

Yes, I miss her baby smell and I tear up when I watch old videos and hear how high and tiny her voice was.  I'm not a robot, People.  But I choose to focus on how special and cool and exciting THIS time right now is.  We'll never have her first day of Kindergarten again.  We made it.  We did it.  We got this far together.  This kid has the potential, as they all do, to change life as we know it.  She might cure the cancer that made the last year of our lives really hard.  Or forge peace in Iraq.  Or lead the next revolution.  I want her to look over her shoulder the day after tomorrow for one last glance before she goes through those doors to take on the world.  And I want her to see me standing there not tearing up, worrying and fretting, but instead bursting with pride, cheering her on, full of confidence and the highest of hopes.  The man next to me, on the other hand, the one I'm married to, will require Kleenex, I'm sure.  

 

Delinquent Mommy Blogger

In my defense...I did have CANCER. But seriously, it's time to update this blog. Cass is going to be 5 tomorrow. FIVE. I remember when I was pregnant with her, one of the other moms I met online had a kid turning 5. I remember thinking this little bean inside me will never be 5. I could not think past labor and delivery at that point. Good thing. Had I known the sleepless nights I was in for, I would have, well, I don't know what I would have done, but I would have tried to figure out how to get out of it, that's for sure. The good news is, we've gotten through the sleepless nights. We've gotten through teething. Shitty diapers. Her first fall. Her first bout of the stomach flu. Her first time poking dad in the eye.  

We've gotten through a move to a new house!  Her thoughts on moving (as a 3 year old) were "but dis house IS big.  Look how high up it goes!" Her little hands reaching toward the ceiling.  I suppose it's all relative.  

A big kid bed!  The railing has kept her in just fine although I do occasionally find her somehow draped over it in what appears to be the world's least comfy position, covers tossed aside, nightgown around armpit level.  Of course, I untangle her limbs and retuck her in.  Isn't that funny?  If she was uncomfortable or cold, I guess she'd wake up, but as a parent you just can't stand it that they somehow MIGHT be.  You just want them to be safe and warm and not wake up with a crick in their neck.

She learned to swim!  Like really swim, face in, forward progress, no fear.  I love it.  Teaching her to swim was a real thrill for me.  It was important to me that she learn for safety but also because it has been one of my greatest joys - water.  I mean...swimming, learning to do a backflip off a diving board, snorkeling, surfing, practicing underwater handstands and spending hours with friends attempting "the lift" from Dirty Dancing.  

So this almost 5 year old of ours.  She is funny.  And snugly.  And opinionated.  And astoundingly logical.  And persuasive.  And insistent.  And charming.  And full of mischief.  And creative.  And good company.

It's been a tough year, with the cancer and all.  But she's taken it in stride.  She prayed for me, cuddled with me, put my slippers on my feet, understood when I was too sick to play.  On one hand I'm pissed that my kid had to learn how to leave a chemo patient alone to recover.  But on the other hand, I'm grateful we experienced this.  When she prays, she thanks God for my health.  How awesome to have a child who isn't scared but knows that wellness can be fleeting and to give thanks for it?!  This little person will know when one of her friends says "cancer" how life disrupting it is.  To her, cancer is a tangible enemy you fight with doctors and drugs and friends and family and love and prayer and flowers and soup.  Not some vague bad thing you don't talk about.  That, my friends, is a blessing.  

This child is curious.  Oh, the questions!  The car rides have become periods of interrogation.  Why this, why that?  How?  WHEN?  How long?  How much longer?  She wants to know ALL of the things.  I try so hard to be understanding.  I want to foster her curiosity.  But for the love of all things decent and holy, I don't know!   And shhhh!  Quiet game starting now!

She likes the game "Would you rather?"  Traditionally it involves hard choices.  Eat a spoonful of dirt or drink a shot of mud.  Cassidy's version is often simple and tame.  Would you rather...go to Target or the grocery store?  Would you rather have corn or green beans?  This is somehow funnier to me.  I enjoy this game way more than I Spy.  Shudder.  That game is The Worst.

She makes friends easily but is loyal and attached to her special friends.  The kid knows a BFF when she sees one.  She loves being with kids but time with an older person who is totally focused on her is a favorite way to spend time.  

Cass likes vegetables.  Like, she eats that first on her plate.  She does not care for meat very much.  Big fan of fruit.  Also French fries, chicken fingers and grilled cheese sandwiches.  She loves Perogies and white pizza and macaroni and cheese.  She begs for sugary kids cereals and I say no.  She would eat candy all day long if she could.  She hates shrimp and soup.  She has never had a soda...wonder how long I can get away with that.  

Cass can read very well for her age.  She blew through the first set of Bob books and she is getting the second set for her birthday.  She can read and spell so well we can no longer spell secrets in front of her.  That is a sad day.  Now we have to make up reasons for her to leave the room if we want to say something we don't want her repeating.  Or, you know, swear.

Cass is girly in that she loves dresses and skirts and anything sparkly.  But she loves playing outside and running around and getting dirty.  I love that.   

She likes being as she puts it, "in charge."  You KNOW I love that.  Surely, it's my lot in life to raise a girl who wants to lead.  I love her no matter what she ends up doing, but I feel especially equipped to love her through the ups and downs of being "in charge." 

My little girl is turning 5.  I'm not sad.  It's good to grow up.  I've loved every stage of her childhood.  Sure, I miss scooping up a tiny bundle, but this stage is so fun, too!  This parenting thing is pretty great.  I'm lucky to be her mom.

The year 2012

It absolutely drives Grammy crazy that there are not regular updates on this blog. Admittedly, I have a certain amount of guilt associated with the fact that I don't engage in any concerted effort to preserve the memories of our lives. Perhaps, I should have married a scrapbooker. Incidentally, instead, I married an IT guy, which I would argue is more frequently useful. It's a trade-off, though. We will always get through technical difficulties and back to our regularly scheduled programming in short order, but two generations from now, it will be as though we never existed. In any case, the only shreds of evidence will be my Facebook posts and this thing. So, given that, I'll try to do better. (End obligatory apology for not updating more often.)

So, Cass is 3. Mostly 3 is pretty fun. This child has diction and a vocabulary that outshines many adults I've met. She is full of questions, observations and ideas. She likes to know what's going to happen next, as in, what the schedule for the day is. I love that, because I am exactly the same. I feel more at peace when things are planned and have a reasonable chance of working out as such. I'm not good with "whatever happens" or "we'll see how it goes." In fact, I have a physical reaction to that kind of sentiment. She also prefers going out to being at home, and doing stuff with people as opposed to alone. These clues into her personality type are so fun to discover. There is a certain satisfaction in noticing that your offspring bear your traits. Even if they are some of the more annoying ones like being controlling. I see her attempting to manage a situation and I smile and think "Awww, you'll be working on figuring out how to stop doing that for your entire life."

Terrible two is made up. Someone invented that to lull us all into a sense of false security so they could watch from behind the bushes when year 3 comes flying in and hits the proverbial fan. Thoroughly Challenging Three is where it's at. My sweet, snuggly, happy-to-be-here toddler has morphed into a big kid who knows exactly what she wants, when she wants it (and don't even think about asking her to "wait just one second.") Impatient! Easily angered! Mean at times! I am beginning to see why people let their kids rule the roost. It really IS easier to let them have their way. Honestly, if you keep this child happy, she is sweet as a peach. But cross her...better gird your loins, or, if you're not up for that level of conflict, run for cover.

The great thing about a two-parent family is that you can work together as a team to employ the formal discipline method of "paper-rock-scissors" or "not it" or "but I did it last time! You suck."

This child, can go from adorable, grateful and joyful to a full fledged physical and emotional rage in about .25 seconds. Sometimes this is hilarious (at home on a Saturday morning.) And sometimes it is quite embarrassing (at 6:30pm in a nice restaurant.)

I would say that this unpleasantry takes up about 1% of our lives. So I won't say anymore about that side of our little pumpkin. But it's worth mentioning. And I must immortalize it somewhere so I can remind her of it when she's 17 and she wants something or when I've retired to some Jimmy Buffet themed community in Florida and she has her own 3-year old.

Another thing about Cassidy worth mentioning is that she is really pretty. I find this to be more amusing than anything else. There are people who secretly hope and pray for a particularly beautiful child. These kinds of people are those who have spent most of their life getting by on their looks, and I guess they figure if their kiddo isn't blessed with beauty, they won't make it. See, Kevin and I are just normal looking people who value personality, sense of humor, talent, concern for the common good and whether you make a worthy Trivial Pursuit opponent, when we choose the people we want to spend time with. So the whole notion of having a pretty little girl was never really on my list of hopes and dreams. I hoped she'd be well out of "Sloth from Goonies" range, but beyond that, meh.

So I've got this little cutie on my hands. I wonder if it will last as she gets older. Because I always figured my kids would either be athletic, nerdy or artsy, I have no idea what I would do with a kid who has what it takes to model or a real shot at being the prom queen. I'm secretly hoping for an especially bad and long awkward stage. I don't know how to teach you to gracefully and humbly be the most beautiful girl in the room! But I can definitely get you through pimples, boys who don't like you back and having a clothing size that is roughly twice the number of your friends'. The stuff character is built on!

Cass says a lot of very funny things. I am seriously toying with the idea of a short-chapter book focused around her questions, comments and misunderstood words. An example:

CONVERSATIONS WITH CASS (the topic of bikinis is being discussed at length with Cass quietly listening.) CASS: My mommy and daddy and I have bikinis in our garden. (a lull of confusion, someone says "your DAD has a bikini??" Then...) GREGG: "oh, I think you mean zucchini."

In terms of milestones, she is now in a big girl bed, has been potty trained for about a year and uses the actual toilet. She started preschool a few months ago and has a good friend she plays with each day named Vivian. Cass had a Hello Kitty themed birthday party at our house when she turned 3. She is getting great at swimming which makes me so proud. She isn't scared at all, goes under water of her own volition and prefers to not wear swimmies, though she cannot yet actually swim well enough to stay above water. Some of her favorite things are to dance, draw, watch Yo Gabba Gabba, help me in the garden, go to the playground, play Legos with her daddy, go to Grammy and Pappy's or Babcia's, play games on Grammy's iPad, go to swim classes and gymnastics and spend time with her cousin, Morgan.

It's been a pretty fun summer. We had a great beach vacation with the family and spent a lot of time outside. We are ready for the fall weather and fall clothes - I find it funny when she pulls out some sweater or jacket that she wants to wear and I have to tell her they aren't summer clothes. I also look longingly at long sleeves, scarves and knee high boots once August rolls around.

Our house is on the market but hasn't gotten much activity. Trying to explain over a 6 month period to a 3 year old that we are selling our house and moving, but we have no idea when, is tedious. So, we're pretty much in a holding pattern until someone wants to buy this place. But then, it's go time!

Mostly, though, we are incredible grateful that we have a place to live, jobs we like and a healthy, happy kid who makes us laugh every day.

The Holidays 2011-12

Well, Christmas, New Years and Valentines Day have all come and gone. Easter has arrived. And one thing I have learned about my child over these special days of the year is that she is obsessed with one thing:

CANDY.

We've tried to strike a decent balance with her - not leaning to the one extreme of forbidding any and all sugar in any form at all times...or the other extreme of just filling the kidddo up with corn syrup based crap all year long. We allow her to have treats - candy, cookies, cake occasionally. As in...she gets to enjoy the free bakery cupcake they give you at the grocery store once a week. She gets a lollipop after a doctor's check up. Girl Scout cookies inevitably make their way into the house in late winter. But we don't keep the place stocked with cupboards full of empty, processed carbs.

On holidays, though...all bets are off. I would probably approach this whole thing a bit more conservatively because, honestly, I have come to see sugar and ingredients that are 17 letters long and end in "ose" and "ite" and "ated" as bordering on poisonous. However, my husband seems to have some deep issues centering around "treat deprivation." I don't know if his brother stole his gummie bears when he was a child or if he was once at a birthday party where they actually ran out of cake and he was last in line. But whatever the case, fighting the battle of "can we please limit the number of Peeps that we stuff into that Easter basket?" just isn't worth it when I could choose "oooh, it's 5am - could you get up with her this time?"

So, it's Easter Morning 2012. My two year old has eaten: a Peep, 2 mini chocolate bunnies, a chocolate carrot, 3 large gummie bears and 10 M & Ms. It is 10AM. Her little sugar-fueled body is raging with a dark energy that makes me fear for us, the cats and anything that can be knocked over and broken or spilled. She is obsessed with blowing bubbles at the moment - thankfully with a battery operated bubble blower - otherwise she absolutely would have passed out due to hyperventilation. Although...her passing out right about now sounds pretty fantastic. I informed her a moment ago that there would be no more candy until after lunch (this is a generous offer since my preference would be: no more candy until 2013.) She broke down into a puddle of tears and then shifted to demonic screeching. After a time out she settled down but there is still a hint of crazy in her eye.

In other news, she continues to grow and thrive. Healthy as a horse, curious as a cat, sly as a fox and crazy as a monkey. Her vocabulary is amazing - she talks in "adult-length" sentences and uses words like "actually" and "seriously." She completely makes things up that never happened - which can be quite confusing, but also funny, as long as she isn't saying things like "Daddy pushed me." (Not amusing, at all.)

.

I love you in...Pittsburgh!

A few months have passed, so there is much to add abotu Cassidy as she grows and changes. She can do more things like put on her own socks, get in and out of the bath tub, have a full fledged telephone conversation with someone and then hang up on them, walk down stairs confidently on her own and do a somersault. She is taking gymnastics classes and classes at the zoo about animals. She has many friends and loves to sing and dance. By far the most interesting thing about her is the funny stuff she says. I bring to you...conversations with Cass.

Conversations with Cass:

I Love You in Pittsburgh
CASS: "Mommy I love you very much."
ME: "I love you more."
CASS: "I love you the most!"
ME: "I love you infinity!"
CASS: "I love you in....in....Pittsburgh!"

(I laughed so hard I cried.)

Whose Wife is it?
CASS: " where do you work?"
ME: "I work at a place called Light of Life."
CASS(who pronounces Ls like Ws): "My wife or your wife?"


Cookie Monster
CASS: "I don't feel good."
ME: "You don't? What doesn't feel good?"
CASS: "My tummy."
ME: "Awww, is there anything I can do for you?"
CASS: "Yes. Make me feel better."
ME: "Ok, well, do you want something to eat?"
CASS: "Yes. I need a cookie. A cookie will make me feel better."


Tiny Dancer
CASS: "Mommy, sing with me."
ME: "I don't really feel like it right now. You sing."
CASS: "No. I'm not a very good singer....but I AM a very good dancer!"

Two already??

How is this possible? Little Miss the Lemonette is two already?!

Somehow she morphed from a wiggly baby into an independent being. She hardly needs us at all, it seems! (Unless she needs help opening the lid of a Play-Doh container.) She speaks in full, varied sentences saying charming things like "No, Mommy. Don't talk to me like that. Be nice. Pweese."

She also sings constantly, often making up songs from whatever is going on around her. She recently entertained us while we were eating dinner with a slightly wonky version of "BaBa Black Sheep" at full lung capacity. She ended it with an accidental slip and unintentional but festive split at the end.

We spent her birthday at home with her 30 closest friends and a lot of Monkey Luau themed decorations. We also went to the beach where she became incredibly brave in regard to playing in the surf. But she got knocked down enough times that she began to demonstrate a useful understanding of the power of the ocean.

Cassidy is full of life, opinions, ideas, imagination and is in possession of an iron-strong will. While I can see she is not and will not be the easiest child to parent, she is an incredible source of laughter and joy. Her smile lights up entire zip codes and her magical way of being has chased away many a rain cloud. It's an honor to be a temporary steward of this precious life that absolutely going somewhere very, very interesting.

Cass in 2011

Well, it's hard to keep up with Cassidy's words. She basically can say any word now and she is stringing together simple sentences with 2-3 words. The other day i heard the daycare teacher say to another teacher that she talks more than any of the kids in the 2 year old group - she's still got a few months to go before she turns 2. Smartypants.

She continues to love being read to. She would sit on a lap and have 10 books read to her in a row any day. After about 7 or 8 I usually quit, despite her loud protests.

She loves to take stuffed animals and human people and put them to bed. She will make us lay down and she gets a blanket and puts it over us and pat us firmly saying "Night-night." I love her capacity to pretend, which she has had for some time now.

She eats very well with a spoon and likes to have a bib on to eat. She will firmly say "bib" until she gets one. Her eating habits vary. She will never turn down shredded cheddar cheese, sliced grapes or cookies. She regularly asks for mango. She will usually eat green peas, black beans and tofu with a little soy sauce. She likes chicken soup, too.

We have mostly kept her away from tv, but we allow her to watch Steelers games if we are home for one and we let her watch while we exercise with the Wii fitness programs. She often says "Watch...watch" and points to the tv, meaning "I want to watch the tv while you exercise." I guess it's better than Barney.

She does well at daycare and rarely cries when we leave her. But she is always eager to go home when we pick her up. She gives hugs and kisses and says "lub you" for "I love you." It is basically the sweetest thing ever.