Eve has somehow managed to lose her jacket, snowpants, and winter boots! Probably hat and gloves as well. She had them in school Tuesday, was home sick on Wednesday, and couldn’t find them this morning. How to do kids lose stuff so easily?! Sheesh! I posted on FB about it and a generous friend offered me her daughter’s hand-me-downs, which is awesome! I told her she is my Santa!
With everything going on this morning I forgot to mention my sore throat and partially numb tongue. Haha. I’m falling apart!
Eve stayed home today with Alan and ended up throwing up 12 times! She is in bed now, complaining that her stomach hurts, so I suspect we are not done. She is VERY sad that she has to miss her class holiday party tomorrow. Poor girl.
Lex, on the other hand, surprised the heck out of me this morning with his bravery! He did not want to go to the dentist, but he went on his own accord, every step of the way, with no tears and no arguing or fussing. He made it all the way there and into the chair with a positive attitude and sense of humor. The dentist decided to try just using nitrous oxide and novocain, not the sedation we had planned. I agreed, with the sedation as a backup plan. I LOVE our new dentist! He bought the practice we’ve been going to all along and he is making great changes. I love how he handles Lex in such a calm, patient, understanding way. After the meds took affect he started, smartly!, with a sealant instead of going right for the pulling. Lex needed four sealants, three teeth pulled, and one preventative filling. The dentist started with the sealant, which is the least painful, but immediately ran into Lex’s gag reflex and strong sense of taste. Lex could not handle it. The dentist stopped quickly, yay!, and we decided to go with the sedation. It was excellent! :) He started with the lowest dose possible, which was perfect. Lex was calm, but could still communicate. The dentist talked to him the whole way through, checked for pain at each step, and managed to do two sealants, three extractions, and the filling. Definitely more than we were expecting to get done!! Afterwards the sedation wore off quickly, Lex was feeling good, and we headed home.
I dropped Lex off with Alan, gave him the speediest possible “after care” update, and headed off to school. I only had one class and recess duty today, so when I was done I checked in with Alan, checked in with my boss, then headed home again where I snuggled up with Miss Eve and we both took a nap.
Oh, I forgot the best part of the dentist visit. He has a new therapy dog!! It is the sweetest, softest dog ever!! He is a seven month old Goldendoodle and he feels and looks like a teddy bear. Lex spent some time with him in the waiting room, then the dentist brought him back to visit while the sedation medicine was taking effect. Lex LOVED it!
Tomorrow is our last day before Christmas vacation, or, as Lex puts it, the last day we have to go to school in 2016! Lex has a party at the ice skating rink with treats and a Yankee Swap. I have a “Ugly Sweater” day with treats and a Secret Elf thing. Eve has to be home in bed, hopefully not vomiting. Alan has to be home with her, but Alan gets to go to work on Friday. :)
We had Eve’s holiday concert last night. Alan was sick and didn’t attend. 😢 The kids and I showed up early to help sell raffle tickets. The kids had a great time walking through the crowds, hawking tickets. Then Eve took her place and the show began.
Select Chorus singing “Mele Kalikimaka,” a Hawaiian Christmas tune.
Eve had a speaking part this year. Her and a classmate introduced the best song of the night, “Candle light”
Eve told me a sad story tonight. It started with, “When will I get to be in a wedding?” To which, of course, I had to say, “I don’t know.” She told me that last year in school they had to write what they know about weddings and she didn’t know anything! She said, “I’ve never seen a wedding. I’ve never been to a wedding. I’ve never seen a movie of a wedding. I’ve never seen pictures of a wedding. I don’t know anything about weddings!” How’s that for a random bedtime conversation?! And yes, she has seen pictures of weddings! You may be wondering, as I was, why a 3rd grader needed to write about weddings, but apparently they were learning about China and they talked about Chinese weddings compared to weddings here in the U.S. You may also be wondering, as I was, why this thought came to her mind a year later, as I was, but then I remembered that her best friend’s dad just got married and her friend was the flower girl, so I’m guessing that was on Eve’s mind. We had a nice chat about weddings and all two of the weddings I’ve been to since she’s been alive, and the two I regretfully missed! She asked again when she could be in a wedding. I told her to start talking to the aunts and uncles!! (sorry sibs!)
King Arthur Flour came to school this week and did a bread baking demonstration for the 4th and 5th graders. The presenter was outstanding and had their attention the entire time. She had two student helpers and a camera pointing at her table so everyone in the audience had a good view of the action! She showed them how to make bread, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, pretzels, and pizza crust – all using the same dough!
The bleacher, not in the picture, are full of eager to learn 4th and 5th graders! I had no class at the time so I came to the demo too. :)
After the demonstration, King Arthur Flour sent every kid (and I think the 4/5 teachers) home with a bag of supplies to bake their own bread! The canvas bag had two types of flour, yeast, a dough scraper, a great recipe booklet, and a plastic bag to bring back one loaf of bread. Kids were instructed to bake two loaves this weekend and bring one in on Monday to donate. All of loaves brought in will be donated to a local food pantry.
Eve has made bread with me plenty of times, but this is the first time we did it all by hand! No bread machines involved.
The recipe said to kneed the bread for five minutes and she made it the entire time! Chatting all the while. :)
This braid took a few tries, but turned out pretty great in the end.
I hope some lucky family enjoys this beautiful loaf of bread! We had fun making it.
She wasn’t thrilled with the way the other loaf turned out, so she didn’t let me take a picture of it. We had some for dinner though and it is delicious!
It was fun to see so many of her friends and teachers posting pictures of their baking and beautiful bread on Facebook this weekend. I feel so truly lucky to be part of such a wonderful school community!
I was laying in bed with Eve tonight and I started writing letters on her belly. She is good at guessing the upper and lowercase letters, so I moved on to words like “HI” and “LOVE”. She loves the game and asks if she can draw on my back. I give her “HI” and “LOVE” and she gives me “laff” and “nostruls” and “ostrigges.” That girls really needs to learn to spell! Needless to say we ended up in a pile of giggles and not at all relaxed! Happiness is.
This post is a few days delayed, but better late than never. Thursday was open house at school. Each grade does a 10-15 minute presentation of their curriculum, but I wasn’t sure if I could get out of the library that long, so Eve and I went for a sneak peek at her classroom. She showed me around, we did the scavenger hunt, and got full access to the teachers (ha!) until 6pm when Open House officially started and I scooted back to the library. I wasn’t sure what to expect for library attendance, but I was pleased that it was packed for the entire time! Kids stopped by to introduce me to their parents (while I desperately tried to recall the kid’s name in my head!) and parents that I’m friends with stopped by and it was very nice all around. The hour flew by!
I love seeing Eve’s work. Her poetry is amazing to me, and not just because it’s often about how much she loves me. :) Lately she has been sitting in her bed at night writing poetry. She has a great one about the holidays, and the “mom” poem she wrote me a few weeks ago. At Open House she showed me her, “I am from” poem that they did in class. I love it!
Eve is an excellent writer… you just have to decode her spelling! :)
A few months ago Eve decided she wanted to get her ears pierced. She started saving her money, earned the final amount at our yard sale last weekend, and immediately wanted to get it done! We drove around all afternoon, but could not find a place that was open, did ear piercing, and had someone available to do it. Seemed like the magic trifecta did not exist on a Saturday afternoon! Eve was disappointed, but she rallied and we made an appointment for Tuesday morning instead. The big day FINALLY came and she was thrilled! She asked, a lot, about how it would go, how much it would hurt, what the earrings would look like, and would they get infected. I told her Rosy’s story and she said, “Yeah, I know. Rosy told me.” :)
When we got there for her appointment she was excited to learn that they have tons of starter earrings to chose from. She found her birthstones and decided they were the ones.
They did both ears at the same time. I held her hand and took pictures at the same time. She just sat there with her big eyes. <3
I posted a bunch of pictures on Snapchat, but forgot to save them before they expired. Too much technology in my life! These are the only two pictures I took not through Snapchat.
The whole process takes about three minutes from start to finish. Lex was with us but couldn’t look. Eve had those big old eyes and hyperactive (nervous) energy. I just laughed and enjoyed the whole process. She was so excited! She even was happy to pay for them herself, including the cleaning solution that they “strongly recommend.” She has done a great job, so far, of cleaning them twice a day and turning them with clean fingers. We agreed they would stay in until the end of September and then she could change them. She loves them so much she says she is in no hurry to change them.
One of the ladies at the salon showed Eve that she had several piercings in each ear, including birthstone earrings just like Eve. While paying, Eve whispered to me, “This is good, but I think I am just going to get one piercing in each ear. There is no reason to get more done.” :)
I have been thinking a lot about being a woman in our culture. So much in the news about rape mentality and “leaning in” and how women dress and now that Eve is growing up I have it all swirling in my head. She has very long legs and a slender body so things that fit around her waist are often too short, in my opinion. However, trying to explain “too short” is tricky. In school I just tell her there is a “finger-tip” policy, which she promptly, and rightly, argues that others are doing it so why can’t she? Outside of school the discussion is trickier.
Let’s all go to the movies…
She wore this outfit the other day. That used to be a suitable dress, a few inches ago. I told her she needs to put something under it. She pulled up the skirt and showed me the short shorts that were already under it. She’s a smart girl and knows that she always needs something under a skirt. However, the shorts and the dress are both too small! I tell her that and she says, but why, they fit fine. I tell her they are too short and she says, “too short for what?” Therein lies the question. Too short for what?
Hmmm… too short for her prudish mother? Too short for those long legs? Too short for today’s culture? I have no real answer. She isn’t wearing them to be sexy, obviously, and not even really for “comfort” like some women argue about scant clothing. Mostly she wears them because she likes them and they fit last year and they still feel comfortable so why not. I know I need to go through her drawers, again, and take out everything I think is too small, however, I can’t do that forever. She is going to have those long legs for the rest of her life and she needs to be confident in her body and her attire, but still not make herself an easy target. I am grateful that she is a strong, capable girl with great social skills and I know that will take her far in life, I just hope I can teach her to take care of herself and someday come up with a good reason to explain “too short.”
I saw this on the wall in the bathroom at the vet’s office. Random place, but I love the quote and it somehow seems relevant to this post.
Big kids, big problems.
Our neighbors got a new camper and invited Eve to sleep over the first night. She was pretty excited.
All ready for a sleepover.
We had a nice chat on the walk over too. She told me that she often feels jealous of Lex because he is older and gets to do a lot of stuff (in her mind) that she doesn’t, but she tries to reminder herself that there are things she does that he doesn’t, like sleepovers. She said she feels a little sad for Lex that he doesn’t get to have fun sleepovers and sleepaway camps. It was a nice conversation, and when I told Alan about it later he said that they had a similar conversation a few days ago at breakfast, only it was him pointing those things out to her! It’s always nice to hear evidence that your kid is listening! :)
My neighbor said she bought the camper because she has fond memories of camping as a child and playing in their camper. Reminded me of the old tow-behind we used to have parked in the side lawn and all the fun times we had playing in it. It was like our own little play house.
Big smiles!
I woke up in the middle of the night to a big thunder storm and immediately thought of Miss Eve in a camper! She told me later that she woke from the first drop of rain that fell and stayed awake through the whole storm. She said she wasn’t scared, just couldn’t sleep. I bet there were a few emotions going on that she wasn’t telling me about. :)