This is a note that Ella made to catalog the "things that are gone" for Ella and Maya. After a particularly cranky period following TV watching (after they had been warned about being cranky post TV) I told them no more TV for a while. This came on the heels of telling Ella that we needed to back off the show Jessie for a while because she was being so mouthy. As you can see they lost the TV and their two favorite shows: Jessie and Good Luck Charlie. Ella taped this note to the kitchen wall so that all who came in could see the injustice occuring in our house.
Thursdays are my generally my busiest day of the week. Maya and I are together all day which I love but we have a lot of here and there. I drop Ella at school, run errands for an hour (usually Target), take Maya to gymnastics, go to Ella's school to volunteer in the classroom and then at lunch. If the weather is nice we stay for recess, get home at 1:15, eat lunch, unpack from the first part of the day and get ready for the second part, pick up Ella from school, then I leave the kids with a sitter and go to work.
Last Thursday I had had a particularly condensed morning and had made a point to stop and get a coffee to take to Maya's gymnastics even though it meant we might not be right on time. I also hadn't eaten a true breakfast so I had packed a Chobani to eat while I peacefully sipped my coffee and gabbed with my friend Megan about all matters of the world.
I came in to find all the gymnastics moms in workout clothes. I immediately remembered that it was parent participation week. I set down my coffee and my Chobani and tried to forget about the fact that I was wearing jeans (the still kind of tight ones that I've been trying to ignore). I smiled at Maya, changed her into her leotard and got ready for some stretching.
It is really awesome that they do this. Maya and her other friends were literally beaming to have their moms in their with them. When it was our turn on the trampoline, Maya showed off her stuff by jumping, landing on her bum and then bouncing up to standing about 25 times in a row. All the while she was working her strong little body so hard, she had her tongue hung out of her mouth in concentration. I am so worried she will bite it off, but it has been passed down along the genetic line and I don't imagine there is much to do but apply chapstick to her lips and face every hour.
When it was my turn to get on the trampoline, she sat on the padded step alongside, face in her hands, expectant. I jumped a few times, cautious of my post-childbirth bladder. She told me to do a straddle so I did. She almost came unglued that I could do it. She asked me to do it again and again, causing her teacher to comment that I probably wouldn't be able to walk the next day. I took a little offense that her teacher thought me so unfit (in my too tight inappropriate for gymnastics jeans) that excercise would render me non-ambulatory. I did a few more straddles and a pike jump for good measure.
In an unrelated note, Ella's second grade class has a special privilege that each child gets once during the year called "Stellar Star." It lasts for a week and includes all sorts of perks. You get to make a poster of yourself to share with the class, bring in an item for show and tell, be line leader each day, choose a friend to have lunch with the teacher one day, etc. We knew this would be coming at some point for Ella and, in an act of great preparedness (we had learned our lesson from Emilie when she didn't realize Skyler was the "Shining Star" of her class until Sunday night before school ), we had selected a bunch of photos of her over the years and had them printed and at the ready when we got the notice that the next week would be her week. (You only have a weekend to prepare the poster.)
Saturday morning we had a plan to head to A.C. Moore for supplies and take our time working. On Friday morning my belly was very uneasy, causing me to go back to bed and fear the stomach flu had set in. Saturday I was still iffy but better, but Maya was complaining about her stomach bothering her. Sandi had to study all day for a test and I knew if I didn't get the girls to the store, my window of opportunity would close. We had to start the creative and arduous task of Valentine making plus poster making over the weekend. Maya had just zipped up her coat when she said, "I feel a little like I might throw up."
Please don't think less of me when I tell you that I quickly buckled them into the car and headed for the store before such an event occured. Ella was freaking out when she saw that I had packed a bowl and roll of paper towels just in case. Allow me to say that the only reason I took such a gamble was because I had had the same thing and never actually got sick. But poor Ella was in the backseat, smooshed up against the window and as far from Maya as possible, saying, "If she throws up I am getting OUT of this car! I will stand outside! Oh Momma, I can't believe we are doing this!"
We got in and out of A.C. Moore with no issue and Maya was fine for the rest of the day. We came home to start Valentine's and I posted this note for the girls (it has been a big post-it note week for us).
They loved it. When they began to tire we stopped and moved on to something else. But wow they put some heart into those Valentine's. They made about 8 each (Maya has to make 17 and Ella 25 just for their classmates which is why I started early) and they had paint, glitter glue, multi-layered paper hearts and the like going on. It was super fun honestly, and if the people that give out gold stars to parents had been making the rounds just then, I would have surely gotten one.
Sunday morning was all about poster making.
And the mystery of the genetic link of the tongue out during periods of concentration has been solved. Check out Sandi's tongue.
And Maya's...
Ella (and Sandi and I) put so much work into Ella's poster. She got to pick out the colors, the paper, the stickers and the pictures from the big stack we printed. It was so cool to see her put her creative mark on something with us only helping in the mechanics.
Sandi, picking up a piece of plain spaghetti: "I could totally thread this through your nose and out your mouth."
Me: "You could? With butter or without?"
Sandi: "With. Otherwise it might get stuck."
Ella: "Ewww. That is gross."
Me: "I would let you do that to me to practice."
Sandi: "You would?"
Me: "Sure. After 2 glasses of wine."
Maya: "Pasta?! Up your nose?!"
Ella: "Ewwww."
Sandi: "Well it would burn just so you know. People don't like the feeling."
Me: "Oh, is it like getting water up your nose? I don't like that feeling at all."
Sandi: "Yup."
Maya: "PASTA?! UP YOUR NOSE?!"
Ella: "If you do this I'm leaving the table. Please stop talking about it."
1 comment:
Tell me you did it! Tell me you did!!! :D
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