A Party of Princesses

I heard from our neighbors how charmed they were by Marissa's birthday party Saturday morning.

Marissa had asked for a princess themed party, so the invitations went out with a request to have the guests arrive wearing a princess or fairy costume. One, then two, then suddenly 7 and then 8 little girls in pink and purple were flitting around our house, and flitting down the street. (Her friend Chitra came a bit later and wasn't in the picture above.)

I loved watching the girls play. They were so sweet together, pulling out toys and imagining worlds filled with princesses, horses and monsters needing to be conquered. My friends who have boys would be shocked at how quiet the party was at times.



They made tiaras from craft foam, stickers and glitter, then my friend Paula and I facepainted. Neither of us had done that before, and you could tell which kids had been painted first as we began to develop some skills as we went along. A lunch of pizza, and then some cake.

A perfect princess party.

Our New Neighbors

Our next door neighbors moved away while we were on vacation. It was strange to come back from vacation and see different people driving in to the driveway, driving cars we weren't familiar with.

If you ever lived in a metropolitan area you understand how close you are to your neighbors. Even if you aren't close as in "friends," you are physically close. Sometimes you need to pretend you don't see them coming and going from their house to give them the perception of privacy. Or you ignore the yells or laughs or whatever noises emerge from open windows. And that requires some courtesy and diplomacy.

Then there's me.

Here's the deal with me: what you see is what you get. And what you get is a messy, disorganized working mom, who sometimes yells at her kids to get them to do what she needs them to do, or lets them scream and cry and have their tantrum. Occasionally that tantrum is outside, because I do not allow screaming in the house.

I don't wear make up when I'm not out, I wear what's comfortable and don't care how it looks, as long as I'm not leaving the house. And that means that you, my neighbors, get to see that questionable taste in style. Don't turn me in to What Not to Wear: I didn't go out, I'm home.

My hair is messy and crazy, and I kind of like it that way. But let me know if I've got spinach between my teeth, thanks.

You don't have to like it, just deal with it.

I hope we get along with the new neighbors.

Happy birthday, Marissa!

Today was Marissa's 6th birthday.

She awoke to her mommy singing "happy birthday" in her ear.

Her day began by ripping into presents from her family.

She spent the day at camp, where her group sang happy birthday to her.

A bouquet of flowers and cards awaited her arrival at home.

We all went out to eat to celebrate, and a small dessert was brought to the table with a candle on it. We all sang happy birthday to her, softly, because she was "too shy."

While in her bed wearing her pajamas, she played with her new toys until she finally fell asleep.

Now THAT is what I call a special birthday.

It must be awesome to be six.

You Are So Beautiful

I've read a few posts and studies recently about the challenges girls face in our modern, "equal opportunity" nation. The latest debate has been sparked by a recent study by the University of Central Florida which shows that half of girls ages 3 to 6 think they are fat. This is chalked up to the collective impact of a multitude of images of women sizes 0 to 6 which proliferate the media: billboards, TV, internet, you name it, there they are, those skinny, photoshopped women whose beauty is not even possible in the real world.

One parent's response was to praise her child's intelligence and talents, and to not praise her for her looks. Her belief was that if girls, like boys, were praised for their skills then they would value those skills and wouldn't care if they were "pretty" or not.

And while I agree with one on one part, praising girls for their talents, I do not believe in the other, which is not praising them for their beauty.

Because until we can get the photoshopped models off the billboards, off TV and out of our girls' lives, it won't matter what we say to them, they will see what the world values in women. I believe the worst thing a mom can do is comment on the beauty of those images in a jealous or wishful way.

"Did you see the legs on that model? My legs could never be that thin."  "Look at how gorgeous her eyes are."

You may hear me say things like: "Honey, her skin isn't really that perfect, they used a computer to make it seem that way."

So yes, praise them for their intelligence. But also praise them for their beauty. Because it doesn't matter if they are beautiful; if they feel that they are it will give them a confidence they can draw from.

I have always looked in the mirror and seen a pretty girl, because that's what my parents told me they saw. I know my nose is big. My eyes are small. And don't get me started on my complexion. But it doesn't matter. My belief in my beauty (mistaken or not) has helped me be confident in situations when I didn't have much reason to be, when I was trying new things I'd never done before, or in the company of people smarter and more experienced than me.

Here's the best thing moms can do for their daughters: love ourselves in the skin we are in. Our own self-confidence will translate to our daughters. They will do as we do and not as we say. If we spend our days "tsking" over our poochy tummies or sagging chins, our daughters will watch us. They will see the standards we hold ourselves up to and will hold themselves to the same.

Accept ourselves as we are: love the way we look, and our daughters will love themselves.

A Michigan Wedding

There are vacations we take for ourselves. And then there are vacations we take for our family.



There is the drive time.

Time for discovery.



And time for relaxing.



Time to visit with those who knew us before we knew ourselves.

 

And the reason for the trip.



And perhaps, if we're lucky, a little time for ourselves.

We are thankful for the laughter, for the time spent with loved ones we don't get to see often enough and for the happy reason that brought us all together. And after a long drive home, we are thankful for our own beds and for the photos to help us keep the memories.

The Long Road Ahead

This is a photo of my dear friend Anita, as taken by her eldest daughter. Anita was hit by a car while riding her bicycle on July 3rd. She sustained a severe brain injury and had to have emergency brain surgery to save her life. She then spent several days in a medically induced coma. She is still in the hospital today.

She is on my mind constantly. She is one of the first people I think of when I wake up in the morning and before I go to bed at night. If I'm enjoying a beautiful sunrise while skating in the morning, I think of her and know how much she would appreciate the view.

If you knew her, you would know what an amazing person she is. She has a powerful calm about her, if those two adjectives can go together. Her patience with her three young girls abounds; joy surrounds her. Her generosity is legendary and is coming back to her ten-fold during this time, with friends coming out of the woodwork to watch her kids, feed her family, relieve her husband of bedside duty or mow their lawn.

She is slowly, slowly recovering, but has a long road ahead. Her family was thrilled when she finally squeezed her sister's hand on command. She will have to re-learn how to speak. How to walk. And she may never recover some skills, though we are all hoping that she will regain her ability to do henna art, her passion in life.

One of the many bedside watchers wrote this update in her Caring Bridge site a few days ago:

Must share a quick update. At 6:00 this am, the neurosurgery team came bursting into the room and turned the lights on. One particular doctor was talking to Anita in a very VERY loud voice. He was trying to get her to follow commands. She doesn't make a whole lot of facial expression, but I think she might have been glaring. She pointed at the light and we turned it down a little and then she shushed the doctor with her finger. I quietly mentioned that her hearing was ok. He lowered his voice and she proceeded to follow all of his commands. It was pretty awesome.

Really, neurosurgeons should know better than to startle a person with a brain injury. They had given the family lots of instructions on keeping her calm, on not getting her excited. And then they rudely burst into the room, switch on the light and start barking commands. Leave it to Anita to set them straight.

What is obvious is that she has not lost her fighting spirit, and that is what is making her come back to her family, day by day.

Update: Anita is a founding member of a nonprofit group in Milwaukee called "Extreme Moms." From now until the foreseeable future, any donations made to Extreme Moms will go directly to Anita and her family to help her pay medical bills and other expenses. They really need your help. If you can, please donate to www.extrememoms.org. Thank you!

Our Littlest Neighbor

Someone left me some treats, I wonder which one I should try first?

This looks like a good one.

I've never encountered a nut like this!

Yummy!!

Two Points of View: 4th of July Parade

Monday morning the girls and I took in the Edina 4th of July parade while Wayne ran the Red White & Boom half-marathon. I spent half the parade watching my girls watch the parade, which was, of course, just about as entertaining. I thought I would try to re-enact here in an abbreviated way the points of the parade that we commented on, at least in our heads if not aloud.

Kids: Mom, is that an old-fashioned car? Did they have those around when you were a little girl? Did you have to out-run dinosaurs in it?

Me: Wow, class of 1951 is having their 60th reunion. That's amazing. I hope I make it to my 60th reunion.

Kids: Look at the horsies! They have gold glitter on their toenails. How do they put that on?

Me: Please don't poop in front of us, please don't poop in front of us...(more on this later)

Kids: That gun is scary! Are they going to shoot us?

Me: Look at that veteran in uniform waving at us. I am so thankful that men and women like him have served our country. [clap clap clap wave wave wave]

Kids: Look at the super heroes! Wow, are they going to use their super powers on us? What can they do? Maybe the girl in green can kick people with her boots.

Me: I'm glad that supergirl doesn't have a muffin top this year like the one did last year. That was awkward to explain.

Kids: Laura Ingalls Wilder! Laura Ingalls Wilder!

Me: Laura Ingalls Wilder! Laura Ingalls Wilder!

Back to the horse:

Near the end of the parade the mounted police went by and a few of the horses decided that the spot right in front of us was the place to poop. They went a few more feet and then one decided it had to piss like a racehorse. And now I know where that saying comes from: that's a lotta pee. So much so that it gained momentum and started heading toward the curb on the other side of the street. Spectators sitting on the curb with their feet in the street leaped up and had to find new places to sit.

One older gentleman was sitting in a wooden chair on the street and was looking the opposite direction as the ominous river made its way toward his feet. Finally a kid next to him warned him and he managed to get himself and his chair out of the way just before the river reached him.

The best part was the rider's reaction: As his horse was relieving himself he shook his head resignedly and appeared to take some good-natured ribbing from his cohorts.

I am 90% sure that that's the most memorable part of the parade for my kids.

Fitting It All In

Some of my family members who have come to visit us are amazed at how much our family does. To those who aren't accustomed to the pace, it is exhausting. But here's my deal:

My girls are only their current age for 365 days. I will be working for approximately 234 of those days, which leaves 131 days a year to spend time with them. During that 131 days I have to fit in chores, time with friends, with family, and sleep. Come summer time, when the days are long and the weather beautiful, I want to squeeze as much in as I can.

So yes, I am up early in the morning on days I could sleep in, getting in a few miles on inline skates, putting a load of laundry in or catching up on dishes. I'll spend my evenings doing something similar to what I'm doing now -- writing, uploading photos, reading or watching TV. And I'll spend my days squeezing every moment in that I can with my family.

I'll sleep come winter. Or our girls' high school years. But I am going to catch every smile, every hug, every joyous moment I can while they want to be with their mom. Because some day sooner than I would like, they will be calling their friends and making arrangements to go out Friday nights, catch a movie, go on a (gulp) double date, or other things. It won't be cool to be with mom and dad.

I got a small glimpse of this on Saturday as we planned to go on a biking outing to Hopkins, to eat lunch at Pizza Luce and bike back. We were getting the bikes out, pumping up tires and finding helmets that hadn't been used since the prior year. Lindsey pulled out her helmet and tried to put it on. She eventually got it on, but it clearly was a tight fit and she has pretty much outgrown it.

Her helmet was embarrassing, she said, since it had Disney princesses on it. I said, "What?! Aren't you my little princess? Don't tell me you've outgrown princesses already!" and I hugged her, thinking that we went to DisneyWorld not even 12 months ago.

She pushed me away and said, "Mommmm!" and looked around, in case one of her friends saw her. "I am too old for princesses." And then she adds, "I'm growing up, you know."

I know, honey, all too well.

Urban Lake Getaway

My girls and I were introduced to Bryant Lake Park in Eden Prairie. It's all of a 15-minute drive from our house. And like a lot of places around the Twin Cities that I've never heard of, it's a gem.

A beautiful beach with huge beach umbrellas ready for people to park themselves under, clear, sandy-bottomed water, great amenities and a playground nearby. What more could a family want?

Since it's run by the Three Rivers Park District it's not impacted by the Minnesota state shutdown, so the girls and I spent the morning there with friends.


They swam.



They built sand castles.



And moats.

 

They topped it off with an ice cream treat from the concession stand.

It's Fourth of July weekend, amazing weather and it wasn't incredibly packed. What a find.

Thanks to my friend, Jennifer, for showing us this great place. Want to know anything about the Twin Cities, historical factoids, hidden surprises, or the I-would've-never-thought-of-that outing that your kids will find entertaining, just talk to Jennifer, she knows it all.

Date Night Without the Kids, Please (Yours or Mine)

Last Saturday was date night for my husband and I, compliments of our neighbors who offered to babysit for us. (Thanks, you guys!) We decided to go out to eat at Chino Latino, a place I've heard tons about and have only ever had appetizers at, and my husband has never dined there.
 
Some of the reviews of Chino Latino on Yelp, OpenTable and other sites have these things to say about it:

Great late night hot spot
Excellent wine list
Vibrant bar scene
Fantastic happy hour

My husband was impressed from the moment we walked in -- the ambience is vibrant, energetic. It was contagious. We got a table along the windows so we could look out at Hennepin Avenue with all its hustle and bustle and talk about how much we love living in the city.

Over the din of the crowd I heard a familiar noise, one I didn't expect to hear; the sound of a toddler whining.

Sure enough, two tables over I see three couples out to eat, along with a baby in a baby carrier and a toddler. It is 8:30 at night in downtown Minneapolis.

Now, I know my kids have been in restaurants rather late, especially while vacationing. But they have never been in a restaurant at that hour that looked like this:

Or this:

Or had people sitting at the next table banging their fists on the table and doing shots (yes, it's one of the signature drinks Chino Latino serves to the very bravest of drinkers.)

All we could do was mutter, "Get a babysitter."

I don't know what the back story is, and I'm sorry that I'm being judgmental. Maybe their babysitter fell through and they didn't have the heart to cancel their dinner out with good friends that they've already had to re-schedule three times. Truly, for the most part their kids were well behaved outside of the toddler whining (which is like nails on a chalkboard to me).

And yes, I've been the mom with the kid who has the temper tantrum in the middle of the store. My children have left more food on restaurant floors than they've ingested. I've apologized to tables next to me for the behavior of my kids while dining out. But these happened at places like Perkins or Applebee's and usually well before 7 pm. If these parents absolutely had to take the kids out to dine at that hour, I would've made a last minute change to something a little more kid-friendly.

I was going to let this go but then I hopped over to Colleen's blog "Keeping Her Cool" today only to see a post on the same topic, only she was less judgmental than I was. And nicer. I'm not in a nice mood today, apparently.

We parents need our kid-free time, and we go to nice restaurants later at night with the expectation of getting that kid-free time. Please help make that happen. Thank you.

Summer Of Fridays, 1st Installment

I have managed my time off at work in such a way that I have most every Friday off this summer. Last summer was laden with guilt at cajoling our children out of bed early in the morning, making them go to bed in broad daylight, and dropping them off at a program they didn't want to go to. I was committed to having a better summer this year, starting with only four days of a structured program. So this is the first in many installments documenting our summer of Fridays.

While I had last Friday off, it didn't feel much like it, since we spent the day doing laundry and packing to head to Tracy for the weekend. So yesterday definitely felt like the first Friday off of the summer. 



Lindsey's ready to empty her container and keep picking.

I planned a strawberry picking outing and we headed out with Lindsey's friend Emma and her mom, Cassie. We couldn't have chosen a better day. It was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, with temps in the mid-70s.

Marissa's little container probably never had more than 3 berries in it; she would collect a few, show me how pretty they were and then eat them one by one.

Marissa shows one of her picks.





Lindsey and Emma get down to business.

Lindsey and Emma appeared to be in a berry picking race, going up and down the rows and picking the easiest berries, filling their containers and running them back to Cassie and I to dump into our larger trays. We gathered enough we pronounced the group done, and headed a mile down the road to the St. Croix Bluffs Park to enjoy our picnic lunch that we had packed. This was a beautiful park with a great picnic area, lots of trails, a playground and -- best of all -- nice facilities.

We ate, the girls played on the playground, and we headed back in the afternoon. I processed most of the berries for freezing, gave some to our neighbors and made homemade strawberry shortcake for dessert.

And it's only Saturday. I'm so thrilled.

Pick one, eat one, pick one, eat one...

Little House in the Big Woods

This past weekend we actually took the girls sight-seeing while visiting the in-laws in southwestern Minnesota. I say "actually" because it seems that no matter whose parents we're visiting, his or mine, we sit at their house on our butts, visiting away, and never visit the area where they live.

We went to the Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, MN, the neighboring town where my mother-in-law was raised. And someone else lived there for a few years, too, you may have heard of her: Laura Ingalls Wilder.

As a little girl I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder. Adored. I have a little bonnet someone made for me that I used to play pioneer girl in; it has now been passed on to my kids. My sister and I used to walk around the house with a blindfold on so we could experience what it may have felt like to be Laura's sister, Mary, who was blinded by an illness in childhood. (We also played piano with said blindfold on -- it takes practice but we got pretty good.)  I read the entire Little House series something like 5 or 6 times between the ages of 8 and 18. I still have the entire set, ready and waiting to pass on to one of my kids once they show an interest.

We now have an interest.

Covered wagon, actual size. Pioneer wagons were 4'x10' and had to carry everything a family needed.

The museum is set up with miniature building built like the various places featured throughout the books: the church, school house, sod house, and other such places. Throughout the displays we learned about how they made butter and cheese, cleaned clothes, cooked with a woodburning stove, and other strange things. The girls didn't pay much attention to those, they were too busy running from building to building, pretending to be the schoolteacher, the preacher, the mom.



Giddy-up, horsie!

While some items are behind ropes or under glass, others are ready for a hands-on experience. After a fun time running from building to building, we headed back to the gift shop where Lindsey picked out her own bonnet.

And a book.

She was a quarter of the way through by the time we made it back to Wayne's parents house 20 minutes away. She would've been further along but she had to share the stories with us along the way. I remembered lots of them as she recounted them: Pa mistakenly had a stand-off with a tree stump that he thought was a bear, Laura's corn cob doll, waking up with snow on the tops of her bed covers.

I now have an assignment this weekend: dig through the books I've saved in the basement and find my entire collection so she can begin book two.

I can't wait to share Laura's adventures with my girls.

Can you Fake a Blog?

Is it considered cheating if my last two blog posts were Wordless Wednesdays? Things that I've thought about writing about lately but haven't:

• Father's Day in Tracy, Minnesota
• Visiting the Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove with the girls
• Lindsey discovering the Little House Series (see previous idea on Wilder Museum)
• Sending my children to a 4-day Spanish immersion camp when they've never taken Spanish before (I imagine they spend the whole day looking quizzically at the teachers who are rattling off the day in Spanish thinking "WTF" only they don't know to think "WTF" yet)
• The continual battle against lice which we are #WINNING
• My dad's current health challenges (which is hogging my worry time, let me tell you)

But instead, I will leave you with a link to someone else who clearly has more time and energy to write real blog posts instead of a listing of ideas for blog posts which may or may not get written.

Get the tissues, you are going to laugh so hard you will cry. And that's what everybody needs, a good freaking LAUGH.

http://thebloggess.com/2011/06/and-thats-why-you-should-learn-to-pick-your-battles/

This writer has gotten over 800 comments on this blog post since posting it yesterday. It is spreading via Facebook like wildfire. Expect demand for 5-foot metal chickens to go up. Way up.

Wordless Wednesday: Carefree

I Finished the Book (In Case You Were Wondering)

That book that's been on my sidebar for months? You know, the one I got for Christmas?

I finished it.

I finished it some time ago, actually, I just have been too lazy to go out and change the picture to what I'm reading now.

After having read Volume I of Mark Twain's autobiography, I have to say that I am not sure I will buy Volume II when it is published. I will have to re-read Volume I, because it probably took me about half the book to figure out how to read the book.

Good old Mark told me, he told me how to read it in the 70-page introduction of which I read the first 5 pages. I read in the introduction and in several reviews that Mark didn't like the standard format of autobiographies, how they "begin in the cradle and drive you straight into the grave." No sir, he wanted to write exactly what was on his mind at that moment, regardless of relevance or timeliness.

And that's exactly what he did.

It was about halfway through the book that I realized what I was reading was a series of prose, of short stories about random things. And once I began letting go of the fact that he would reference events that hadn't yet been described to the reader, and trust that I would learn about it later on, or that I was supposed to just enjoy each little story for what it was, I began to like the book.

His writing reminds me so much of my dad's -- it is ALL about the tale you tell, not the facts. He also grasps the most unusual things to wonder upon, like his daughter's love of theatre. His description of an evening of entertainment that his daughter provided to a dinner party he and his wife hosted was both touching and sentimental, like my dad's writing.

He wrote brutally about the ignorance or untrustworthiness of certain business associates of his -- no wonder he wanted his book to be published 100 years after his death. He also wrote with fascination about General and President Ulysses S. Grant, a dear friend of his.

But the best story of all had to be the one he told of being a 12-year-old boy, working the printing press of the local newspaper.

He and the other press boys had just set all the type for a booklet that a minister in town wanted published on the newspaper's press. They called the minister down to proof the book, and the minister realized he had left out the words "Jesus Christ" in one critical reference to the Savior. In order to fit those two words in, young Samuel Clemens and friends would have to re-set the last four pages of the book, because all of the words slid onto the next pages all the way to the end of the booklet.

Instead of taking on that painstaking work, Sam's friend decided to shorten it to "J.C." to try to save their afternoon so they could go swimming instead of re-setting type. But alas, when the minister came back to proof it he found the abbreviation of the Lord's name, chastised the boys for taking the name in vain and admonished them to set in Jesus' FULL name when he came back to proof it once again. And so they took on the task of setting in the full name of the Lord and re-setting the remaining pages as well.

When the minister came back a third time to proof the book, there, just as he insisted, was the Lord's full name:

Jesus H. Christ

Sam and friends ended up working the entire afternoon again anyways, but as Sam says in his autobiography, "That was the best reason of all to miss an afternoon of swimming."

Why There Are No Photos of My Parents' Visit

Because my mom and stepdad are angels sent from heaven. As such, they cannot be photographed -- mere humans would never see them.

My parents were scheduled to arrive on my children's last day of school, to watch our girls on Thursday and Friday when we didn't have daycare but both of us wanted to save our vacation days. Two days before their scheduled arrival, Marissa was sent home with lice.

On Tuesday, she was sent home with lice...again.

On Tuesday night, my previous post on my imaginary itching was proven untrue -- I did indeed have the little buggers in my hair. At 3:30 am I found myself de-lousing myself in the bathroom, liceMD kit in one hand and comb in the other.

And to top things off, after checking her for two days and declaring her lice free, on Wednesday Lindsey's hair finally began moving of its own accord as well.

My laundry room was knee deep in laundry both clean and dirty. All our pillows and stuffies were in garbage bags tied up tight in the porch, and both girls were one pair away from being completely out of underwear.

And then my mom and stepdad arrived, despite my having called them ahead of time to warn them that we had lice in the house. They didn't cancel, they didn't say "let us know when it's all gone." They showed up, did loads and loads of our laundry, combed and picked all three of our heads, and didn't shudder at the thought of these nasty little bugs (even though I am still).

In between domestic chores inside the house, they managed to sweep out our garage, organize the kitchen pantry and plant 92 marigolds along our walkway.

And then, before leaving on Saturday morning, they threw one more load of laundry in the wash.

Angels, I tell you.

There are no pictures because, really, who wants to see pictures of children getting their heads picked, or of all the laundry, or of the nit combs all lined up like soldiers after being sanitized.

But most of all, I didn't want to singe my parents' angel wings from the photo flash.

Wordless Wednesday: Last Day of School!



Lindsey getting high-fives from her fellow 2nd graders, soon to be 3rd graders.

At Lindsey's 2nd grade celebration.

How did my baby girl get to be so big?