Associations

When you think of your grandparents what are the associations you make with them? I only knew one of my grandparents growing up, my father's mother. She lived in Daytona Beach, and we only saw her for a limited time during the summer. I have associations I make with her like tennis. I don't particularly care for tennis, but every summer when the U.S. Open was in NY that was always the time my grandmother was staying with us and she would watch religiously. I always think of her when I see or hear about tennis.

Another association I make with my grandmother is eyeglasses. The wasn't a day that she stayed with us that my grandmother didn't set her glasses down somewhere and forget where that spot was. Since I was the resident finder of all things she would instantly ask me to help her find them.

Solitaire...those lazy hot days of summer would leave me and my grandmother to entertain ourselves inside. I would ask her to play double solitaire every day. I think she got tired of it after a while.

I see associations building between my 4YO and her 3 grandparents, my mom and my husband's mom and dad. It's fun to watch them develop. My daughter has a special bond with all three of her grandparents and it warms my heart. I wish I had known more than just one of my grandparents. I wish I had at least the opportunity to know one of my mom's parents.

Grandpa - my husband's dad...

When there is any kind of special occasion or reason to have people over or go to someone's house, it is my girl's expectation that if grandpa is there, he will have been to the bakery that morning and bought a fresh batch of black & white cookies with him to the gathering. He also buys Lindzer Tarts as well, but my girl isn't interested in those just yet. If her grandpa shows up to a family function without black & white cookies, she gives him hell for it.

Grandma - my husband's mom...

In maybe the last couple months my girl has noticed her grandma take candy out of her pocket before she leaves our house. One day my girl became curious enough about them to ask grandma what the little candies were. They happened to be Mentos. Grandma gave my girl one of the Mentos and she was instantly hooked. Now every time she sees grandma, the first thing she asks her is "grandma can I have one of those circle things in your pocket?" She also has daddy wrapped around her finger apparently because he has surprised her and bought her a pack of Mentos as a special treat.

Grandma - my mom...

My mom only lives 20 minutes away so we see her more frequently. My mom has watched my girl from time to time. They have their own rituals while they are together. My girl loves dressing and redressing my mom's Build-a-Bear and for occasions my girl's gift to grandma is a new outfit for her bear that sits outside her front door. My mom also has a side table with about 18 little drawers in it. My girl is accustomed to going to grandma's and hitting up those drawers for little trinkets and treasures and maybe a little snack. They bake cookies together, they paint their nails with nail polish, they make my mom's cuckoo clock go "cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo" even if it's not time for the little birdie to come out yet.

I wish my dad was around to meet my girl. He would find such joy in her, I just know it. I can't imagine what the associations would be if they were to meet, but I think it's my job to make sure she knows about who he was and what little things remind me of him, like seeing a sailboat out on the Sound. Or seeing an old man who looks like the Gorton's fisherman with an old sailor cap and a white beard. And how it didn't matter if someone poured me the best glass of water, my dad's water always tasted better.

These are all just small things, things that may not mean anything to anyone else but my girl and her grandparents. But they are pieces of my little girl's life that will shape who she is. Little memories, snippets of her grandparents that will mean so much to her when she's old enough to appreciate them. I will just have to make sure she finds some connection, some association she can make sigh her grandpa, my dad.

Oops! Attack of mommy brain again!

My morning routine is a sh*t show. I have to get me, the 4 YO, the baby and now also for these few weeks my 13 YO niece out the door and get them all to their places on time so I can get to work on time. There are a lot of things I have to remember in the morning. I look like a bag lady running out the door in the morning between my purse, my cooler of bottles to pump, the baby's bag, the 4 YO's bag and if it's an extra special day, my laptop bag and my pump too. There's just no easy way to manage it all. Aside from getting us out the door I have to feed "Fish", pet the cat, let the dog out, etc.

One day this past week we were running a tad late. It was all I could do to get everyone out. We ran out the door. Everyone got buckled up in the car, I dropped my niece off at camp and proceeded to the kid's daycare. I got them all settled and left daycare. I was late but only a few minutes. Oh well.

I continued my trek to work. I was about a block away from my office having traveled just under an hour since dropping the kids off. My phone rang. I picked it up from the console and saw it was my next door neighbor. My first thought was, crap is the house on fire? They never call us unless it's an emergency. I answered hesitantly.

Me: hello?!?!
Neighbor: hi Midge it's Ellen
Me: hey, what's up?
Neighbor: ummm...did you know that Guinness (our dog) is still outside on his lead?
Me: CRAP! Oh Nooooo!!!

It is here I would like to make it a point to mention the mommy brain is a very real thing! These kids shoot out from our bodies and drag out our brains right behind them!

So yes, the weather this week has been horrendous and I completely forgot to bring our dog inside the house after his morning tinkle session. Good news is he was only out for about an hour and a half in the morning before it got beastly disgustingly hot. Our neighbor was going to bring him inside and give him some water.

Ok, yes I suck. I left him out, consider it small payback for middle of the night puke feats that I have to clean up after him.

Sigh...when do I get my brain back?

Letting go

I have been struggling with blog topics for quite a while. I really need to bite the bullet and blog my birth story of the baby but I haven't found my oomph to do it yet. I need inspiration. After long days I just can't think of new material to write about. Give me a topic to write about and I might have a better chance to take it somewhere. I thought hey, maybe someone has thought of an app for that, sure enough I did a search and found one called "365 Topics Calendar". $1.99? Perfect...exactly what I need to get motivated. Download! When I opened the app the screen came up to choose a month. I figured, well...I'll pick today. I tapped on July, then on the 14th. The topic for today is:

"How do you let go of the things you cannot control?"

I'm thinking about it.

And thinking.

What DO I do when I need to let go? I do know it isn't easy for me to let go. I am an analyzer, I might even be an over-analyzer. If a situation comes up, I think about that one thing long and hard. I approach it from every conceivable angle to try and gain a strong hold on it. Usually renders a useless effort. Sometimes though I catch myself obsessing over that one thing. If I'm lucky enough to get to that point, I can usually stop myself, step back and redirect. But, then what?

Well the few times I have been completely out of control that I can think of are very personal times in my life. First ones that come to mind are when we were trying to get pregnant. It just wasn't working for us. After months and even years of trying I threw up my hands, it was out of my control. I FINALLY admitted it. I finally stopped stressing about it. I just stopped, dropped and prayed. Literally.

I will never forget the moment I let it go when I decided to stop trying to get pregnant the first time around. We were in church the day of my husband's birthday. I went up for Communion and when I got back to our pew, I dropped to my knees and prayed...and cried. I, in my own way, let it all go. There comes a time when I try so desperately to remain in control that I become anything BUT in control. I can no longer think clearly. I let it all go that day in church. I didn't want the burden, the pressure anymore of trying to get pregnant. It would happen if and when it was supposed to happen. I kid you not, I was pregnant the next day!

You would think I would learn to just let. go. sooner. Learn that if I resign myself to the fact that I am not the one in control and it is not at all about MY plans and just stop torturing myself sooner, life would be much easier. Learn that if I can just throw my hands up sooner and just say a little prayer, maybe I could start feeling a little more at peace. It really is an amazing feeling to let things go, I just have a hard time remembering that in the heat of battle for control.

Is it the crying...that is my tangible sign of letting something go? My way of getting it out? My way of relinquishing control? Maybe. Or is it the praying? I am a spiritual person, I'm sure it has something to do with it. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Whatever it is, the relief is often not too far behind.

What do you think? How do YOU let go of things you cannot control?

The dog's claws/talons

Am I the only one who thinks $20 to trim a dog's claws is outrageous? That is what our vet charges us to clip our dog's talons. Let's just think (read: over-analyze) that for just a second. For $20, they have my dog in the back room with me helping them for all of 2 minutes. That's a charge of $10 p/minute. If that's a real cost of dealing with an animals claws? I went into the wrong profession for certain! I had my hopes set on becoming a massage therapist, figure a 60 minute massage costs $60-$70, that's a dollar p/minute. But hell, I don't even need a veterinarian license to clip animal claws, and I could get paid $10 p/minute AND have the owner help me contain the animal while I clipped the nails? Sign me right the hell up!

I just think $20 is a bit excessive to charge for a nail trimming. Unfortunately I do not have a good animal nail clipper or I would totally do it myself. My dog's nails are thick and it can be done, but I need the right nail clippers to do it myself. And when I do find the right nail clippers. my dog is going to pay me $20 each time.

Also? Did I really just blog about the cost of clipping a dog's nails?

Summer's here

Thus summer is chock full of things to do. Already we've done so much. What's on tap for us for the remainder of the summer?

Pool...any pool we can find our way into. My moms is the usual hang out, but we're not picky! We'll take what we can get. I love the pool, always have. My mom needed a crow bar to get me out when I was a kid. I'm finding out how my mom felt while I'm now in the same predicament. My daughter wants no part of getting out of the pool. And the baby...well he's a HUGE fan of water and if he had a voice he'd express his dismay at getting out of the pool too.

Tonight is the Firemen's parade and kick off to the carnival in the town I grew up in. We'll be there! My daughter is beyond excited. I'm guessing she's going to make me go on rides with her to make up for not being able to go on them last year because I was pregnant.

70th surprise birthday party this weekend for my aunt (my dad's sister) And...oh...there's a pool at the house where the party is being held...BONUS!

Birthday party for my best friend's dad next weekend which is an annual event at their house.

Camping at Jellystone park because if we don't my daughter will have a conniption! She is all excited to go camping. In fact when school ended and her daycare turned into camp last week she said "mommy I don't want to go to school". I replied with "well that's good because you're going to camp!" she misunderstood and said "but we need daddy and a tent...we can't go without them!!!" so needless to say she's counting the days to our camping trip.

August feels wide open though I know it will fill up fast. There are things I want to do with the kids before the end of summer like go to Splash Down. My daughter has been talking about going to a water park since we went to one last summer when we were on vacation in Delaware. I also want to hit up the Central Park Zoo and the NY Aquarium. If time and funds permit I'd also really like to make it to Mystic Aquarium and the Liberty Science Center.

August we also have my goddaughter's birthday and my friend's son's birthday party all in one weekend.

September seems far away but I know it will be here in a flash. And with the arrival of September brings our annual trip to Peaks Island, ME and I am super excited for that trip. I will probably see my best friend from college if only for a quick visit and this year our friends and their family I know from online are coming to Peaks. We met them after our trip last year and they will be staying with us on Peaks. I am so excited to share the Peaks experience with them. Once Peaks has come and gone autumn will be upon us, the leaves will begin to change, pumpkins and apples will need to be picked and I will welcome the cooler weather. Until then I'll soak up the warmth of the sun and every chance I can to hang out in a pool. Except maybe not the pool I was invited to tomorrow as we are having an offsite at our CMO's house. Getting in a bathing suit in front of coworkers? Not really on my list of things I will EVER CONSIDER doing...EVER!!!!

What's on your summer itinerary?

So proud of my 4YO girl

Every night when I arrive home, right after I hug and kiss my family my next task is to read the kid's grams from their "teacher" so I know what kind of day they had. Usually I read the baby's first because I am really curious about how his eating went. Yes, he's doing better with bottles at school, that's a post for another time though. This post is about my girl. As I started to read the baby's gram, my husband said, "you'll want to read this, front and back". He proceeded to shove my girl's gram in my face covering the baby's gram. My heart and soul sank. I immediately thought the worst. Oh God oh God oh God...she totally did something really bad. She must've been caught doing something really terrible. She has a new teacher and her teacher likes to write a novel at the bottom of each child's gram so the parent knows what the highlights of their own child's day were (I LOVE this feature, I LOVE this new teacher...if I were a teacher, I would do the same thing for the parents).

I began reading...

"The 4YO & "A" played very well together at the kitchen center this morning. The 4YO, "O" & "A" liked looking at pictures thru our view masters. The 4YO loved going under the hose instead of the sprinkler today."

Ok...all standard stuff. She's all about her time with her friends. Remind me to tell you about "E" some day and how he's her "boyfriend" and she's "going to marry him"! It was this next little part that made me a bit weepy and excited all at the same time.

The teacher continued, clearly already out of space in the "Special Notes" box on the gram, but made it a point to mention:

"While I was on my lunch break several of the children were very rude & disrespectful to Ms. K. I'm happy to say that 4YO was NOT one of those friends. Ms. K said 4YO was polite and helpful. I'm proud of the great choice she made." (Underneath her writing which had to be continued on the back of the paper she drew a really big smiley face.)

ME TOO Ms. L., ME TOO!!! After reading it and feeling the dread I felt before reading it, I felt guilty for thinking the worst. I put the papers down and wrapped my girl in the biggest hug and laid a giant kiss on her cheek and told her how very proud I was of her. I told her she was so good to be so nice to Ms. K. Admittedly, I tried to get her to tell me what the other kids were doing (just to get a perspective on the situation), but it didn't really come out very clear.

4YO is a good kid. She had a rough go for a while, but to the core she really is a good kid. I am not taking credit for what she did or how she acted, but I can't stop thinking, hmmmm....maybe I'm not doing too bad with this parenting thing after all. That she conducted herself nicely sends me over the moon, I'm so proud of her.

My husband said that when he got the to pick the kids up, 4YO was with the director at the front of the center. She was making a special point to have 4YO there when the owner got back so she could tell her what had happened and how good she was. Tonight I took every opportunity to reinforce how proud I was of her. I am all about positive reinforcement. If she knows she did something awesome and magnificent, she will choose to do more awesome and magnificent things. I'm ok with that. :) I know I'm her mother and I'm biased and all that but I really believe my little girl is one of the most caring little souls. She does things with her whole heart and being (when she wants to that is). I believe she is destined to do great things in her life. Such a special little girl.

To my 4YO,

Mommy loves you so so very much and I am so proud of you for taking the high road today. You are an amazing little girl and I am so happy to be your mommy.

Love you to the moon and back doodles!
Mommy

Freaking out

My husband has it easy. He gets up, gets dressed, "drops the "kids" off at the pool" before leaving the house and is ready to go by 3:30 in the morning.

I? Have a bigger task. Get me and 2 kids out of the house, walk the dog, feed the fish, and then get out.

This morning I let the dog out back on his lead. 20 minutes later I was doing something so I asked my 4YO to let him back in. She has done it before and likes helping. I know she let him in because 1. I heard his monster claws traipse thru the house. and 2. He stared at me as I turned and looked back at him before shutting the door behind me.

What I don't know is if she shut the sliding glass door behind her when she and the dog came back in the house. I'm 99% sure I didn't go back and shut and lock it. I know she doesn't know how to lock it.

My worry isn't that the door is unlocked, it's that it's open and the cat or the dog could get out and get lost. The cat is the first to get out that door when opportunity arises. She is strictly indoor and is always curious about what's beyond the boundaries of her confines. (And also that the A/C is on today for the animals since it's a gajillion degrees out today and that's just a waste if energy if the door is open.)

So my husband called a neighbor, it went straight to voicemail. I called another neighbor and she just checked for me. That was the longest 5 minutes of my life. The door was closed (mostly...the recycle bag hanging ear the door was in between the door and the door jam so it was open a sliver, but not enough for fat cat to get thru) when she went to check, and as I suspected, not locked, but now it is.

Phew! Talk about a freaking panic attack! I think I might still be a little on edge the rest of the day though.