Tuesday, October 29, 2013

see you soon. maybe.


3 days until November and NaBloPoMo, which after 7 years, has started to become the month I make up for being a cruddy blogger.  In my defense, I haven't just dropped the ball on blogging, but just about everything else too.  My house is in complete ruins all the time, my meals have actually gotten worse and I look like a crazy cat lady.  But dagnablt, the kids are on time to school every day, read far above their age level and both play violin and piano - and the baby is a giggling, vomit-covered mess.  In one piece, even!  It should feel really good that I'm taking care of the important things but the constant chaos is makes me a bipolar mess.  YAY I'M A GOOD MOM!  ugh everything is a mess I'm the worst human being ever. YAY THE DUDE CAN DRAW A QUARTER NOTE!  I want to burn this house down because I can't figure out where to put this sack of wires and electrical switches.  It's a little exhausting.

Anywho, so WonderGirl is now a 2nd grader.  Her previous 1st grade spelling words came home and the 4 year old Dude was able to do her homework.  The words included AT, WHAT, HERE.  Yeah.  So she came home with her 2nd grade list this week and the words included INTERESTED, EXERCISE, PROLONG and COMPREHEND.  You'd better believe I was panicking.  I know she's up to it, but I didn't realize there would be such a steep upgrade and I can't spell exercise.  I had to have spell check fix that BOTH times I typed it.  

Her teacher calmed me down and informed me this was not average 2nd grader words, but words that are just right for WG. PHEW.  I genuinely hope she's as smart as the test scores say because there is no way I'll be able to help her with her homework by next month.  Maybe week.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

some more stuffs

So. Dang. Tired. It's a decent tired. It's the tired of having so much fun your brain wants to explode and then grappling with a 4 year old whose least offensive behavior lately has been eating toothpaste. 

I'm just gonna bullet point this because I'm typing this in my phone. The computer is all the way on the other side of the couch and I'm tired, so brevity is key. 

WonderGirl turned this many:
Those are chocolate chips, bytheby, not bugs. The massive party of 20 screaming kids was a raging success. I mean seriously, check out this cake:
Heck yes, cake!  At some point I will make my way to the other side of the couch where the pics are stored and show you pics of the mad scientist shindig, but that day is not today. 

Then a few days later, I turned more of the 30. My mom was here (first time together on my bday since 1996!) and fulfilled my birthday wish, which was cleaning out the kid's closets. BEST MOM EVAR. 

Also, that was the day WG moved from 1st grade to 2nd grade. I wish I had a crystal ball to let me know how happy we'll be with our decision years from now, but after meeting with all the teachers and coaches and all around awesome humans who are willing to teach other people's children all day, it felt right. If you have any specific questions, ask away, because I don't really have any idea what else to say on the topic. Except that I'm SO crazy thankful my mom was here for all of that - besides just watching my other humans so we could go undisturbed to meetings and also to hug me and tell me I was not a loon. Also, prayer rocks. 




THEN I headed to God's Country (aka Georgia) because my band got booked to play the Stone Mountain Highland Games!!  Usually I just get my one magnificent weekend in June when we play the Blairsville games, but this was a bonus weekend, and an extra treat because my rockstar in-laws came to cheer me on.  Mom2 is trooping through another round of chemo and is doing it in style :)

I'll just spam you with a few of the gazillion shots and selfies stuffed into my phone over the weekend:



HEAVEN. I am so blessed to know musicians this awesome who let me play with them AND are such fabulous humans that I fawn all over them like a crazy person. 

Now, back to reality. It's a pretty great reality, but it's definitely reality. Take this afternoon, when I picked up the kids from school and they charged me, declaring their love and how I am the best mom ever and then spent a good portion of the evening angrily screaming at all the things. 

At least they practiced violin and piano. That makes me far less homicidal. Still, I have to go hide the toothpaste. Gah. 

Friday, October 11, 2013

we need an adult in charge over here

It's 4am and I can't sleep.  Too much is going on for my brain to shut down.  Let's make a list, shall we?

WonderGirl is turning SEVEN today.

My parents are in town.

We are having a party today and I wanted to keep it simple this year.  So just 20 kids this year.  Maybe more, maybe less.  In my defense I really tried to stick with 10, but I didn't want anyone to feel left out.

So I'm throwing a massive party again.  I'm a complete masochist.

Tomorrow WG is having a wee violin recital to graduate from Suzuki book 1. 

Besides inviting a few friends and having her practice, my brain has not started to process putting the recital together.  Refreshments?  Programs?  Some kind of funny ceremony?  Eh, that's a whole day away.  I'm good.

Have I mentioned Thing 3 is crawling?  Actually scooting around like a baby seal - it's hysterical and stressful at the same time.

My sunshine is SEVEN.

I'm not going to say the time has just flown by and I can't believe she's so big, because it has definitely felt like 7 years.  That's not a bad thing - it has been 7 of the most challenging and wonderful years a human ever lived.  It's just... whoa.  Yesterday were her parent teacher conferences and I'd been concerned because the Dude (who is 4) did her reading homework a few weeks ago.  I was all prepared to get all up in that because even though my 4 year old can read, that's still pretty sad, right?  But the school's gifted and talent coach and psychologist met us there and.. well, you guessed it.

Everyone (aside from those guys) says skipping a grade is too traumatic for a kid and I'm not in the habit of traumatizing her (well, maybe a little). The transition wouldn't actually be too tough since she already goes to 2nd grade for math and already has a desk in there. Aside from all the test scores, she's just my little girl.  She's not a statistic. Is it the right thing to do?  Do I tell her to spin her wheels for a few years and at some point she'll start learning something she doesn't already know?  We actually met about this last year but everyone was too worried about her social/emotional development if she skipped and now that they've met her they're concerned about it if she doesn't.  I've only been a mother for 7 years, how on earth am I qualified to make decisions that make any kind of lasting impact on another human??

And you can guess how I'm doing.  It's 5am now and I'm trying not to panic.  Maybe this is all my fault and if I'd just put her ahead at the beginning of the year everything would be smooth sailing right now.  I've ruined her.  I'VE RUINED A HUMAN.
 
WHAT IF WHEN SHE IS A CRACK-ADDICT-BANK-ROBBING 18 YEAR OLD SHE BLAMES THIS DEFINING MOMENT AS THE ONE THAT RUINED HER LIFE?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a raging party to throw.

HEAR YE. I need to document the fact that I ran 3 miles and didn't feel like death.  So just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I did...