lessons

School's only been out for a little over a week, yet it feels like we plunged fully into summer, like being pushed into the deep end of the pool without a chance to take a breath and brace yourself. I love this time of year, when the girls are unrestricted by any schedule (except mine) and they get to stay up later and spend more leisure time with the family and friends they love. The summer also poses some challenges, as I still have to work and the lure of spending the carefree days with them is sometimes overwhelming. Still, they have a pretty diverse schedule, spending time with their cousins at my sister's house and with friends at some day camps here and there.

But before we are knee deep in summer pleasures I wanted to take a moment to record the lessons that this school year brought us. Not so much the academic lessons, but the life ones. Because this year we changed schools and then changed back mid-year. And at the time it was difficult to see the lesson in that, other than that parents sometimes make mistakes and we need to be big enough to admit them. But as the school year came to a close, Sydney shared with me that she feels she grew spiritually this year because of that experience. She says she learned that she doesn't need to fit in with a particular group of friends just because it seems "the thing to do" and that she is more confident in declining to go along with the group and branching out on her own than she was before. Seems like a pretty timely lesson, with middle school just around the corner.

And so we forge ahead into summer. I do have a few academic goals in mind, such as teaching Tess her multiplication tables, and our table is stacked with library books that we are reading like crazy. But mostly I just want to enjoy this time, mindful of the fact that in a few more years this kind of summer, where I can orchestrate their activities and they are happy enough just to spend a day at home with us, will only exist in my memory.

mother's day

It was a great Mother's Day weekend. It has occurred to me that the girls are at the perfect age to really make Mother's Day a lot of fun. They are old enough to understand the concept of honoring mom on her special day yet still young enough to wholeheartedly jump in and participate.

Sydney had spotted a gift she wanted to give me at a local store several weeks ago, and after several cryptic phone calls between our house and grandma's she managed to secure the desired item by sending her grandmother to purchase it for her. Tess was less sneaky but nevertheless arranged a shopping trip for herself with her grandma to select and purchase the perfect gift. Apparently when they got to the store my mom discovered Tess had $30 of her own money wadded up in her pocket. Imagine her delight when the lotion set she wanted to buy turned out to be on sale for only $8!

The three of them (my mom and my daughters) returned to my house and holed up in the girls' bedroom wrapping the treasures. I think the girls were more excited for me to open them than I was! And so I received a lovely coffee mug filled with chocolates and a body wash/lotion set in a beautiful tropical print cosmetic bag. And the absolute gift of seeing the girls' true delight at giving me things they picked out and paid for themselves.

The things I received are lovely, but the feeling of being so loved by my daughters is priceless.

another birthday

This time of year is birthday-crazy, with both girls celebrating the momentous occasion within a few short weeks of each other. Today is Sydney's birthday. She is 11. A classic stereotypical oldest child, she seems more young woman than little girl. She thinks and interacts easily on an adult level. The glimpses of the little girl are getting rarer and, sadly, they catch me more by surprise these days.

I love this girl madly. At times she is so much my mirror that it scares me -- her perfectionism, her stubbornness, her determination to excel. In other ways I wonder where she came from, this child who doesn't know a stranger and can easily engage anyone in conversation, who has no fear of performing, who is graceful and seems able to easily master all things artistic.

Happy Birthday, my sweet girl. It is my great gift to watch you grow up.

getting the pointe

My oldest has reached a monumental point in her ballet career. Last week she passed the test to get her pointe shoes. While I have some mixed feelings about the timing of all this (the teacher suggested that some parents whose daughters earn pointe shoes in the spring choose to make them wait until the fall to actually get the shoes), I am extremely proud. Not just because she passed the test, but because of the dedication she has shown over the last few months in working toward this goal.

Sydney has never been one to work too hard toward anything. She is one of those people who seems to have a natural affinity for most things she tries, thus negating the need to work too hard right away. Her track record up to this point has been that once she reaches the point where she might have to actually expend some effort to excel at a given skill, she loses interest and moves on to the next thing. It has long been my wish for her that she would love something enough to really work at it.

Ballet was never Sydney's dream. In fact, the day she started ballet class we were actually there for her sister. After watching the younger kids' class and learning there was a class for her age level starting next, Syd insisted on giving it a try. The teacher acquiesced to a trial lesson, even though we hadn't come prepared with tights, leotard, or the proper shoes. So Syd approached the barre in her school uniform and socks and I've been paying for 2 kids to attend ballet class ever since. A few years later, the teacher from that day told me that she will never forget Sydney's first ballet lesson.

So it's five years later and Syd attends 3 classes a week, even "helping" as a role model for the younger kids' class. The harder the techniques get, the more she seems determined to master them. She started taking the pointe test a couple of months ago, mainly as a means of having her teacher show her the techniques she needed to work on. I think she has taken the pointe test at every class for the past month. Last Wednesday night I went to pick her up and found her to be the last one in the studio, asking to take the pointe test yet again. The teacher agreed and, lo and behold, she passed! I've not seen my child so excited about something in a while. She came home and burned up the phone lines, calling everyone she could think of. I barely got her into bed.

So it seems she's found something she loves enough to work at. She often complains of sore legs and feet after class, but she never talks about quitting. I know the pointe shoes will present a new level of difficulty, and I think they may be more frustrating to learn to use properly than she realizes. But I am happy to see her finally buy-in to the process of becoming better through determination and effort. It's a lesson she's needed to learn for a long time, and one that will serve her well in the future.

Happy Birthday

8 years ago tonight our family was completed. Tess entered the world and took her rightful place as "the baby." Over the last 8 years, she has been the one to challenge us with her quirky requirements (like her quest for the perfect sock placement, her need for "soft" clothing and wide shoes so her toes can move, and her aversion to hairbrushing - just to name a few), antagonize and yet idolize her sister, and melt our hearts with her sweet, loving spirit. She is a homebody, a reader and thinker, and a tenderhearted, sensitive girl.

It is hard to believe that 8 years can pass so quickly. Happy Birthday, my sweet baby.

a look back

I have to admit the holiday season got away from me. It was fun and remains my very favorite time of the year but I constantly felt like I was behind, and I think I had a grand total of one day during the month of December when I felt like everything was under control, my house was clean, and I could relax. So here we are at January 7th and I realize I have not blogged at all in a very long time. Before the new year gets underway in full-swing, I want to take a moment to record some of my favorite moments of Christmas 2008 and also to make a short list of things I want to do differently next year.

My favorite moments of the holidays this year:

- Receiving an unexpected birthday gift in early December from my friend Barbi -- a Christmas cd that I instantly loved and played all through the season.

- A weekend trip with my sister and her family so the kids could attend a holiday lights event at an amusement park together.

- The Nutcracker, which has become a holiday tradition in this house. I first took my oldest when she was 3. She is now 10 and both she and her sister perform in our local ballet troupe's performance. This year we took the girls to watch a professional performance of The Nutcracker in a nearby city, and they loved it. Even my husband commented that it doesn't seem like Christmas until we see The Nutcracker.

-My cookie party. This year I tried something new and hosted a cookie exchange. Even though it was one more thing jammed into an already overcrowded month, the party turned out great and everybody seemed to have a nice, relaxing time.

- Christmas Eve. I love Christmas Eve. This year's best memory is that of my youngest daughter's sweet face illuminated by candlelight as she wholeheartedly sang Christmas carols at our church's candlelight service.

-The letter I got from Santa this year. On Christmas morning there were two letters left next to the plate of cookie crumbs on the hearth. They were neatly typed and decorated with stickers, addressed to me and to my husband, commending each of us for the great parents we are because we always spend time with our kids and teach them about God. Apparently my oldest had been working on this project for weeks without me knowing.

- My dad's reaction to a book my girls wrote and illustrated for him for Christmas. "Do you like it?" I called to him over the chaos of excited kids and flying wrapping paper on Christmas Day. He nodded and choked out a "yes," and I realized that he was trying to not to cry.

- That my girls got to bring a friend to our family New Year's Eve bowling, pizza, and game night. They had a great time and didn't even complain (that much) when we headed for home before midnight.

Things I want to try/try to do differently next year:

- Christmas cards. I need to revamp my card situation. I have fallen into the habit of making my cards, which I love to do and most people love to receive, but this year I started the process way too late and it became the single most stressful thing about the season. So for next year I am resolved to either start making the cards early or not at all.

-Gingerbread ornaments. I came across a recipe for gingerbread cookie cutouts that I would dearly love to make and hang on the kids' tree in my family room. I got the idea way too late this year, but my sister and I are resolved to make this our Thanksgiving Day craft in 2009 so that they'll be ready for use during this Christmas season.

-Less gifts. Every year I resolve to buy less for my kids and every year I end up with more stuff than before. This year I want to propose an idea that we take on a family project of consciously planning to receive less and giving more to some type of Christian charity effort. I have not approached the girls with this idea but am hoping that it will be well-received. For now I'm trying to figure out the logistics of how it would actually work.

So goodbye 2008. Hello 2009.

gratitude challenge wrap-up - day 30

Today I am thankful for the season of Thanksgiving and the fact that this gratitude challenge has truly shown me how much I have to be thankful for each day -- even on the really bad days. In the beginning it was sometimes challenging to find something to focus my gratitude on each day, but in the last week or so my problem has been more of deciding which thing to single out each day. So I guess the challenge worked, in the sense that it conditioned me to recognize the blessings in my life more readily than I was doing before. I think, however, that it also showed me that while I have much to be thankful for, I do not always live as if that were the case. Merely recognizing my blessings does not always translate into living out my gratitude, especially as that concerns those closest to me. And for that I am sorry. So as I enter the Christmas season, which in and of itself highlights the greatest Gift given to man, my prayer is that I would acknowledge my many blessings not only in words but in attitude and actions as well.