I've been neglectful of you, my faithful few, and my lonely little blog, and I admit it. Please forgive me, and try not to hold my gross avoidance of you against me. Life is just so full right now. And no, that's not an excuse, it's just a fact.
I'm in what I'll call, a "season of newness" right now. New things are happening all around me, and I'm hurtling toward them as if all the tomorrows have already happened and the next moment is going to push me into oblivion.
At least, that's how it feels sometimes.
KayKay had her first day of Second Grade yesterday. SECOND GRADE.
She turns seven in exactly two weeks. SEVEN.
And I can't figure out where, exactly, the last six-and-a-half of them went.
It's unbelievable to me.
And it's new. A new place for me to be in in my relationship with my daughter, a new place of learning how to deal with the challenges of what it means to be seven in this day and age, a new place of being a parent to a second-grader.
And then there's the fact that my just-turned-teen step-daughter, Kitty, recently came for her first extended visit EVER. Extended as in, more than a few hours. (Her mother is a bit of a control freak.) She was here for a week, and it was wonderful. And she's in that uncertain place fraught with the potential for disaster that all teenage girls must navigate. Which basically means that she desperately needs the Daddy right now, and wants to come live with us.
And that's fantastic and terrifying at the same time... To say the least. And totally and completely new. Talk about uncharted territory.
I'm still young enough to really empathize with a lot of the issues that she's dealing with right now. And I think that's a good thing.
I think.
But that also means a lot more newness. For starters, we'd have to find a new house. We live in a two-bedroom right now, that I love, but obviously we can't shove a teen, a seven-year-old, and a three-and-a-half-year-old in one room together.
So yeah. New house. Which involves moving. Yay.
I hate moving. Let me just say I have moved at least as many times as my years in age. Which is more than twenty-five and less than fourty.
I've moved a LOT.
But at the same time, I love change and have been feeling a bit restless where we are now. And we REALLY need a yard. And then Kitty could come be with us, and we could be a family of five. And every day I could see the Daddy's face shine with that special light of contentment that only shows when Kitty is with us. Because he doesn't say much, but he's not whole without her there.
But then there's the whole, "How prepared (or not) do I feel about being a mom to a teenager?" issue. Wow. Especially because I'm not REALLY "the mom," as much as I may want to be... And understand that I never will be "the mom" in this situation, and I'll never try to push myself into that place. I have step-parents, and I know what it can look like when it's unhappy. One thing I will do, so long as I am able, is not go to that place.
So I'm trying not to even think about all of that stuff yet. Breathe in. Breathe out. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. New, new, NEW.
I actually feel like a lot of my life is new or being renewed right now.
I even *almost* had a new job. That's a whole other story. So I was all into preparing for the insanity new-job-ness for over a week.
And I'm feeling this stir-crazy creativity just begging to be let free. Like my creative juices have been blended up in some sort of emotional-spiritual-life-filled smoothie to literally create something new inside of me that is needs an outlet. As if any of that makes any sense.
Fortunately, planning for birthday number seven has given my creatively stir-crazy hands something to do over the last days. This morning was spent painting and cutting and tracing and experimenting on some incredibly cute mermaid invitations for the mermaid party we're having at the end of the month. Pictures will follow, I promise.
But I have lots of other new butterfly things in my head that have nothing to do with mermaid parties, and I must let them fly free... And soon. Ideas and realities.
A new grade, a new year, another daughter, another house, so many, many things to be created. A season of newness. And I have no clue as to how it's all going to end up.
But that's all part of the adventure.
It's Not the QUIET of Home, It's the Comfort...
So I'm home.
Like really and truly. H*O*M*E. I can't believe it. I've actually been home for more than three days.
Now that I'm home, I'll give you the rundown of what my summer has looked like thus far:
May 21st: KayKay's last day of school. Party day, and at least twelve school-related events leading up to it. Sixteen days and counting until I leave for Mom's. Have to buy farm clothes (thank you, Goodwill!!) find enough suitcases, decide on kiddy entertainment and begin rounding up ALL the bits and pieces that need to be packed. I have to pack for every eventuality, and for me, that is extra complicated (just take my word for it, it's EXTRA complicated. I'm sure I'll explain at some point). And I actually DID pack for every eventuality, except for two things - I forgot to bring enough of one of my meds (which, thank goodness, was no big deal), and I DEVELOPED sudden, very evil, allergies. Yay. There'll be another post on that.
June 6th: Get up at an hour that no sane person should be awake at, bundle and pack the girls and three hundred various bags into the car. Get onto plane number one an hour-and-a-half later and begin cross-country travel with two miserably over-tired daughters in tow. However they did have on matching outfits with matching suitcases and it was VERY cute.
Boarded not two planes but THREE in an effort to actually get where I was going. Actually got applauded after managing to board one plane without drawing blood, causing tears, or death (although I may have actually spent a half a second contemplating suicide when they told us the plane we'd JUST boarded was unfit to be flown and we needed to get on another one... I'm joking. Mostly.).
But I'm serious. They *applauded* me.
Twenty hours of being awake and travel later, and we managed to get to our final destination, the glorious mountains of Nowheresville, Oregon. Had many fun adventures, more posts on that to come.
July 2nd: Get myself, kids, Mom, Grandmother and Aunt sardined into my Mom's Caddilac and head off for the almost three-hour drive to the airport. Yay. Manage to be LATE to the airport, but fortunately, not late enough that they wouldn't let us on. *Whew*
Get on the plane, and hustle two cracked-out-on-something-and-I-don't-know-what-my-family-slipped-them kiddos onto various planes and through various airports. See a number of men in BDU's and feel a little nostalgic for the days when my life was Army green. Emphasis on little.
Get back to Nashvegas at some late hour and don't climb into bed until after midnight.
July 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th: Spend a whirlwind weekend running around and doing God-only-knows what, because I can't remember much of any of it. Apparently I won some sort of raffle thing, too, but there's no sign of my prize! Do remember spending most of the 6th repacking our three hundred backs down to a manageable four.
July 7th: Get up AGAIN at an unholy hour, pack children and bags into the car and head for the airport. This leg of the summer-'round-the-world was rather hastily put-together, so there are no real plans for AFTER the flight. Get on ANOTHER plane and somewhat enjoy the two-and-a-half hour flight to Ft. Lauderdale, where my Dad and step-Mom picked us up. Watched in some shock as the Ladybug gave her Dado a HUGE hug. (She wouldn't have anything to do with the Doog when she first arrived in Oregon, or even with the Daddy when we got back to Nashvegas. Weird.)
Drove straight to one of my favorite places, the Pizza Loft, for lunch. Mmmmmmm, I love Italian! Spent the next few days in a whirlwind of running and going and visiting and enjoying family. More on that later (ask me about why KayKay stopped eating fast-food burgers... Now THAT'S a story).
July 16th: Get everyone and everything packed into my Dad's truck (not including a sewing cabinet and huge box of odds and ends that I couldn't fit into the truck), and hit the road.
In West Palm Beach, link up with my lovely blonde Aunt A and not-quite-18 cousin, Aly, and dog, Sophie, where we transfer everything out of my Dad's truck and into her car. Spend almost an hour on the road with them up to Port St. Lucie, where she lives, and hang out for a couple of hours with my skater-dude cousin M, whom I shall call Dood from here on out. Just because.
Auntie A and Aly had to go do some urgent medical business, so we just hung around. Kids watched a movie, KayKay worshiped cousin Dood, I got to nap. On. The. MOST. Fabulous. Bed. EVER. Auntie A, I don't know where you got that bed, but I WANT IT. Badly.
Anyway... All was well in the world. Then around six, the DOOG (not to be confused with cousin Dood) showed up to take my children and I up to Vero Beach, which was our final destination of the day. *Whew*
I'm tired just thinking about all this. Funny thing is, the Doog and Mom actually had to fly down to Florida for three days at the same time we were there. So we got to see them again. Yay. And when getting to Vero from Miami became an issue, Doog came and got us. Sweet Doog!
Anyway, get to Vero, and FINALLY get to meet my cousin Jess's (whose birthday is the day before mine) darling baby boy, Aydie for the first time. The kid is eighteen months old! And Jess and I are pretty close, despite the constant torture I inflicted on her during our childhood. She's the closest cousin I have in age to me (nine years younger), and the closest to a sister that I had growing up.
So she's got this gorgeous baby boy, and I haven't seen him. Until now. Oh, is he sweet. Despite the fact that he kept us up all night that night... Oh, is he sweet.
Awesome thing was, I basically got to see ALL of my extended family while in both Miami and Vero, and it was nice. I'll tell the story about my high-flyin' Uncle M and trying to get his e-mail working in Miami another time. Remind me, though, I might forget.
July 18th, mid-day: The Daddy rolls up in our car, ready to haul us and all our stuff to Dead City where my in-laws live, and the Daddy spent most of his formative years. Poor Daddy. Dead City is its nickname for a reason. We make the three-hour drive to Dead City, and get there just in time to hop in the pool.
Whoooooooooooo!! A week in the pool! Yeah! I've not been so water-logged in years. Years, I tell you. Got to see my step-daughter, Kitty, for the first time in three years, and it was great. So glad to see her. She's SO big. It's amazing. She just barely five when the Daddy and I got married. She's THIRTEEN now. Thirteen. Wow. Where do the years go?
Got to spend some really amazing time with my in-laws, particularly with my Mother-in-law. Learned how to make killer potato pancakes. Will post the recipe on here sometime. Heard a lot of fun stories from when the Daddy was a kid growing up in Germany, San Francisco and Dead City. Learned a lot about my hubby and where he comes from, and maybe gained some insight into what makes him tick. We shall see.
Wonderful week in Dead City. Can't wait to go back. But glad to be home, nonetheless.
July 26th, not early enough: Pack up the kids, the bags, the books, the luggage, the sea shells and the one poor unwilling hermit crab who came on the trip with us and didn't quite make it. But managed to stink up the car. Pile into our car, which the Daddy had driven down, and head out. Fifty-seven stops and thirteen hours later, we pulled into our little parking spot and clambered into the house. We actually made great time considering how many pee breaks we took. Laid my head down to rest on my own bed for the first time in ages just after midnight. Ahhhhhh. So happy.
July 27th: It's great to be home!! Then the insanity that is being home hit, and life has rolled onward in fast forward. I can't believe it's nearly Friday already! Yipe. I have had, however, an unusually busy and productive week thus far. And there comes what my Mom said to me this morning, "It's not the quiet of home you miss, it's the comforts." Right on, Momma. I'll take the kids screaming in my home any day over them screaming in my family's... Even in my parents, as close as we are. Because the beatings just aren't the same elsewhere. (KIDDING.)
Like really and truly. H*O*M*E. I can't believe it. I've actually been home for more than three days.
Now that I'm home, I'll give you the rundown of what my summer has looked like thus far:
May 21st: KayKay's last day of school. Party day, and at least twelve school-related events leading up to it. Sixteen days and counting until I leave for Mom's. Have to buy farm clothes (thank you, Goodwill!!) find enough suitcases, decide on kiddy entertainment and begin rounding up ALL the bits and pieces that need to be packed. I have to pack for every eventuality, and for me, that is extra complicated (just take my word for it, it's EXTRA complicated. I'm sure I'll explain at some point). And I actually DID pack for every eventuality, except for two things - I forgot to bring enough of one of my meds (which, thank goodness, was no big deal), and I DEVELOPED sudden, very evil, allergies. Yay. There'll be another post on that.
June 6th: Get up at an hour that no sane person should be awake at, bundle and pack the girls and three hundred various bags into the car. Get onto plane number one an hour-and-a-half later and begin cross-country travel with two miserably over-tired daughters in tow. However they did have on matching outfits with matching suitcases and it was VERY cute.
Boarded not two planes but THREE in an effort to actually get where I was going. Actually got applauded after managing to board one plane without drawing blood, causing tears, or death (although I may have actually spent a half a second contemplating suicide when they told us the plane we'd JUST boarded was unfit to be flown and we needed to get on another one... I'm joking. Mostly.).
But I'm serious. They *applauded* me.
Twenty hours of being awake and travel later, and we managed to get to our final destination, the glorious mountains of Nowheresville, Oregon. Had many fun adventures, more posts on that to come.
July 2nd: Get myself, kids, Mom, Grandmother and Aunt sardined into my Mom's Caddilac and head off for the almost three-hour drive to the airport. Yay. Manage to be LATE to the airport, but fortunately, not late enough that they wouldn't let us on. *Whew*
Get on the plane, and hustle two cracked-out-on-something-and-I-don't-know-what-my-family-slipped-them kiddos onto various planes and through various airports. See a number of men in BDU's and feel a little nostalgic for the days when my life was Army green. Emphasis on little.
Get back to Nashvegas at some late hour and don't climb into bed until after midnight.
July 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th: Spend a whirlwind weekend running around and doing God-only-knows what, because I can't remember much of any of it. Apparently I won some sort of raffle thing, too, but there's no sign of my prize! Do remember spending most of the 6th repacking our three hundred backs down to a manageable four.
July 7th: Get up AGAIN at an unholy hour, pack children and bags into the car and head for the airport. This leg of the summer-'round-the-world was rather hastily put-together, so there are no real plans for AFTER the flight. Get on ANOTHER plane and somewhat enjoy the two-and-a-half hour flight to Ft. Lauderdale, where my Dad and step-Mom picked us up. Watched in some shock as the Ladybug gave her Dado a HUGE hug. (She wouldn't have anything to do with the Doog when she first arrived in Oregon, or even with the Daddy when we got back to Nashvegas. Weird.)
Drove straight to one of my favorite places, the Pizza Loft, for lunch. Mmmmmmm, I love Italian! Spent the next few days in a whirlwind of running and going and visiting and enjoying family. More on that later (ask me about why KayKay stopped eating fast-food burgers... Now THAT'S a story).
July 16th: Get everyone and everything packed into my Dad's truck (not including a sewing cabinet and huge box of odds and ends that I couldn't fit into the truck), and hit the road.
In West Palm Beach, link up with my lovely blonde Aunt A and not-quite-18 cousin, Aly, and dog, Sophie, where we transfer everything out of my Dad's truck and into her car. Spend almost an hour on the road with them up to Port St. Lucie, where she lives, and hang out for a couple of hours with my skater-dude cousin M, whom I shall call Dood from here on out. Just because.
Auntie A and Aly had to go do some urgent medical business, so we just hung around. Kids watched a movie, KayKay worshiped cousin Dood, I got to nap. On. The. MOST. Fabulous. Bed. EVER. Auntie A, I don't know where you got that bed, but I WANT IT. Badly.
Anyway... All was well in the world. Then around six, the DOOG (not to be confused with cousin Dood) showed up to take my children and I up to Vero Beach, which was our final destination of the day. *Whew*
I'm tired just thinking about all this. Funny thing is, the Doog and Mom actually had to fly down to Florida for three days at the same time we were there. So we got to see them again. Yay. And when getting to Vero from Miami became an issue, Doog came and got us. Sweet Doog!
Anyway, get to Vero, and FINALLY get to meet my cousin Jess's (whose birthday is the day before mine) darling baby boy, Aydie for the first time. The kid is eighteen months old! And Jess and I are pretty close, despite the constant torture I inflicted on her during our childhood. She's the closest cousin I have in age to me (nine years younger), and the closest to a sister that I had growing up.
So she's got this gorgeous baby boy, and I haven't seen him. Until now. Oh, is he sweet. Despite the fact that he kept us up all night that night... Oh, is he sweet.
Awesome thing was, I basically got to see ALL of my extended family while in both Miami and Vero, and it was nice. I'll tell the story about my high-flyin' Uncle M and trying to get his e-mail working in Miami another time. Remind me, though, I might forget.
July 18th, mid-day: The Daddy rolls up in our car, ready to haul us and all our stuff to Dead City where my in-laws live, and the Daddy spent most of his formative years. Poor Daddy. Dead City is its nickname for a reason. We make the three-hour drive to Dead City, and get there just in time to hop in the pool.
Whoooooooooooo!! A week in the pool! Yeah! I've not been so water-logged in years. Years, I tell you. Got to see my step-daughter, Kitty, for the first time in three years, and it was great. So glad to see her. She's SO big. It's amazing. She just barely five when the Daddy and I got married. She's THIRTEEN now. Thirteen. Wow. Where do the years go?
Got to spend some really amazing time with my in-laws, particularly with my Mother-in-law. Learned how to make killer potato pancakes. Will post the recipe on here sometime. Heard a lot of fun stories from when the Daddy was a kid growing up in Germany, San Francisco and Dead City. Learned a lot about my hubby and where he comes from, and maybe gained some insight into what makes him tick. We shall see.
Wonderful week in Dead City. Can't wait to go back. But glad to be home, nonetheless.
July 26th, not early enough: Pack up the kids, the bags, the books, the luggage, the sea shells and the one poor unwilling hermit crab who came on the trip with us and didn't quite make it. But managed to stink up the car. Pile into our car, which the Daddy had driven down, and head out. Fifty-seven stops and thirteen hours later, we pulled into our little parking spot and clambered into the house. We actually made great time considering how many pee breaks we took. Laid my head down to rest on my own bed for the first time in ages just after midnight. Ahhhhhh. So happy.
July 27th: It's great to be home!! Then the insanity that is being home hit, and life has rolled onward in fast forward. I can't believe it's nearly Friday already! Yipe. I have had, however, an unusually busy and productive week thus far. And there comes what my Mom said to me this morning, "It's not the quiet of home you miss, it's the comforts." Right on, Momma. I'll take the kids screaming in my home any day over them screaming in my family's... Even in my parents, as close as we are. Because the beatings just aren't the same elsewhere. (KIDDING.)
Ladybug Logic
The Ladybug has recently begun entering into the world of logic. However, her logic doesn't yet actually fit into either the world of reality or of logic at all. I call it Ladybug Logic, and basically, she tries to explain things out the way the Daddy and I do, but makes up her own stuff to put into the explanations. It's pretty funny. And confusing. And sometimes frustrating. Especially when she's determined that something has to be a certain way just because she said that it was that way (sounds like... *Ahem* I hate to admit it... But it's true... Me.)
On to less condemning things... Like an example of Ladybug Logic at its finest.
Let me preface with this - we're at my parents-in-laws lovely home in not-quite-so-lovely Dead City, Florida (it's close to Armpit, I think), and they have a POOL. I haven't been this waterlogged in years. It's amazing. I throw the kids in there and I don't hear anything but happy squealing for hours. And then they pass out. I want a pool. Badly.
Anyway.
Yesterday KayKay grabbed the Ladybug's swimsuit and tossed it to her because I'd asked her (Ladybug) to bring me the suit so I could help her into it and then we would get her water wings on her. As she was walking out onto the pool deck, KayKay told the Ladybug to get hurry and get her suit on at the same time that I was telling her that we were going to get her water wings on in a minute. Ladybug missed the "in a minute" part, though, and she thought the fact that we said two different things to her at the same time was hilariously funny... And then (because, of course, I couldn't possibly have heard it all with my big Mommy ears) began explaining the whole thing to me using Ladybug Logic:
"KayKay said to put my fwim suit on, but you said water wings, Mommy, because the fwim suit and the water wings are not the same, but the water wings and the fwim suit are the same. They are the same because, because... Because KayKay said the fwim suit and Mommy said the water wings, because they are the same, and so they are not the same. Because the KayKay told me to put on the fwim suit and because you told me the water wings and the water wings and the fwim suit are not different. Mommy, are the fwim suit and the water wings the same?"
Yipe. Try following that one. And she's started doing this ALL the time. With everything.
She asks about everything imaginable if they are "the same," usually with a bunch of because's and a number of ummmmm's and some other stuff thrown in there for confusion's sake. She also explains everything using Ladybug Logic, usually with its opposite as "the same".
And she gets terribly frustrated if her meaning isn't immediately clear.
"I'm a cat, because... Because... Sister's a dog." ... While they're both playing puppy.
"Yes and no are the same... Because... Because... Because they are not the same!" ... Said triumphantly with emphasis on not the same.
An excerpt from a recent conversation:
"Mommy, are red and blue the same?"
"No, sweetie. Look at them. This is red, and this is blue (showing her something of each color). Do they look the same to you?"
"No. But they are the same because... Because they are not EXACTLY the same."
-OR-
Same conversation with a slightly different ending (we've had a number of conversations about yes and no and red and blue):
"This is red, and this is blue (showing her something of each color). Do they look the same to you?"
"Yes!" ... Said just to be ornery. Because we've just talked about it for ten minutes in the car and she can tell I'm getting irritated.
It's so funny and cute and chaotic and frustrating at the same time. Poor KayKay. She's very analytical and logical and her sister's random version of logic drives her batty. I try to curb it, but they've had a fair number of arguments already. But all I can do is sit back and listen and laugh.
On to less condemning things... Like an example of Ladybug Logic at its finest.
Let me preface with this - we're at my parents-in-laws lovely home in not-quite-so-lovely Dead City, Florida (it's close to Armpit, I think), and they have a POOL. I haven't been this waterlogged in years. It's amazing. I throw the kids in there and I don't hear anything but happy squealing for hours. And then they pass out. I want a pool. Badly.
Anyway.
Yesterday KayKay grabbed the Ladybug's swimsuit and tossed it to her because I'd asked her (Ladybug) to bring me the suit so I could help her into it and then we would get her water wings on her. As she was walking out onto the pool deck, KayKay told the Ladybug to get hurry and get her suit on at the same time that I was telling her that we were going to get her water wings on in a minute. Ladybug missed the "in a minute" part, though, and she thought the fact that we said two different things to her at the same time was hilariously funny... And then (because, of course, I couldn't possibly have heard it all with my big Mommy ears) began explaining the whole thing to me using Ladybug Logic:
"KayKay said to put my fwim suit on, but you said water wings, Mommy, because the fwim suit and the water wings are not the same, but the water wings and the fwim suit are the same. They are the same because, because... Because KayKay said the fwim suit and Mommy said the water wings, because they are the same, and so they are not the same. Because the KayKay told me to put on the fwim suit and because you told me the water wings and the water wings and the fwim suit are not different. Mommy, are the fwim suit and the water wings the same?"
Yipe. Try following that one. And she's started doing this ALL the time. With everything.
She asks about everything imaginable if they are "the same," usually with a bunch of because's and a number of ummmmm's and some other stuff thrown in there for confusion's sake. She also explains everything using Ladybug Logic, usually with its opposite as "the same".
And she gets terribly frustrated if her meaning isn't immediately clear.
"I'm a cat, because... Because... Sister's a dog." ... While they're both playing puppy.
"Yes and no are the same... Because... Because... Because they are not the same!" ... Said triumphantly with emphasis on not the same.
An excerpt from a recent conversation:
"Mommy, are red and blue the same?"
"No, sweetie. Look at them. This is red, and this is blue (showing her something of each color). Do they look the same to you?"
"No. But they are the same because... Because they are not EXACTLY the same."
-OR-
Same conversation with a slightly different ending (we've had a number of conversations about yes and no and red and blue):
"This is red, and this is blue (showing her something of each color). Do they look the same to you?"
"Yes!" ... Said just to be ornery. Because we've just talked about it for ten minutes in the car and she can tell I'm getting irritated.
It's so funny and cute and chaotic and frustrating at the same time. Poor KayKay. She's very analytical and logical and her sister's random version of logic drives her batty. I try to curb it, but they've had a fair number of arguments already. But all I can do is sit back and listen and laugh.
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