12.06.2014 -- Supposition and Surprise

Life is full of surprises. (No, really.) 

This summer, we discovered that cheerleading as a sport fits Lucy well. It’s a natural, more social, step from gymnastics and tumbling. Maybe you are like me several years ago. You already know what you think about cheerleading, even though you haven't spent much time around cheerleaders. You went to school with cheerleaders. You saw what they brought to basketball games and football games.

Please read and complete the following phrases:

White people are:

Black people are:

Asians are:

Polynesians are:
Vegetarians are:

Football players are:

Ballet dancers are:

Computer programmers are:

Cheerleaders are:

Let me tell you what cheerleaders are. Cheerleaders are dedicated, tough-as-nails (get kicked in the face much?), hard-working, funny, and smart. Cheerleaders spend hours and hours building skills and fine-tuning group routines that are physically and mentally demanding. 

Some cheerleaders are *amazing* tumblers. Some have to work harder to get their skills. Some cheerleaders look like they might model on the side. Some have more unconventional looks. Some cheerleaders are dressed to impress most of the time. To some, fashion isn’t even an afterthought. 

Cheerleading is a team sport. Nothing quite fosters team building than literally lifting, supporting and catching your teammates when they fly or fall (or flail). It’s as much a team sport as soccer. I love soccer. I love watching kids run after the ball and pour their own energy into a collective effort. I love games in weather and how kids and spectators are reminded that people don’t shrivel up when we are out in the rain or even snow.

When soccer was Lucy's main sport, I felt fine mentioning it. Lucy has soccer practice... Lucy has a soccer game. Because of my own prejudice, I am still wary of talking about her involvement with cheerleading. How sad. The sport of cheerleading is great, it's just different.

One thing that separates cheerleading from sports like soccer is the preparation time. Depending on the coach, soccer can be as much as 100% competition. Soccer athletes could still play games (compete) without practices, but, like gymnastics or dance, cheer(leading) has a very different profile. Competition time comes in closer to 1%, with practice at 99%. Like most other team sports, if a teammate is missing, it can make a truly effective practice nearly impossible. 

Did I miss national coming out day? I'm

coming out, world. I am proud mother to a cheerleader, an athlete who loves her time in the gym and her team.

I love watching my daughter at cheer practice. I love seeing her and her team all giving 100% to be in the right place at the right time, to put those hours and hours of training to work in getting their jumps high and right, to contributing their own hard-won tumbling pass to the routine, to (literally) supporting their teammates or trusting their peers not to let them fall. I see these kids practicing and I see kids (yes, her team is all girls) who are learning about the value of consistency, dedication, and preparation. They are learning that they (literally) have the power to send themselves or their teammates flying into the air, and to bring them down safely. I see girls who, despite not being built the same, are confident in their own skins because they can do amazing things with their bodies. 

I love cheer.

The other night, Lucy and I learned how to do her team's competition hairstyle and make-up. I feel like a dance mom/gymnastic mom hybrid!

10.28.2014 -- Middle Child Blues

Parents have lots of problems built in, yet we make more for ourselves all the time. For example, I started our first in gymnastics classes when she was 3, and encouraged her to take as many classes as she liked. Now that (only) two other children are in the mix, and Lucy is even busier, 3 or 4 classes a week turns into 9 or ...17!

I never did the math, even though I reminded myself from time to time that the exponential activity explosion would happen one day. Probably the bigger "problem" here is me trying to equalize my parenting and time allotment from child to child. A noble idea, but impossible and maddening.

If I were wise, I would just accept that the oldest will have advantages that the others won't, and that the youngers will have advantages the oldest didn't. It seems so simple!

Take Gabe's Kindergarten experience. His is very different from Lucy's, although they are both enrolled in the same school and we live in the same house.

Gabe is in a Chinese immersion program.
The only program available to Lucy was the... English immersion program.

Gabe's school day is much longer than Lucy's Kindergarten school day.
Gabe eats lunch at school. Lucy never did.

I took Lucy to school every day.
Gabe often gets to walk or ride his scooter to school with Lucy.

This is the tip of the iceberg.

So...what does that have to do with...anything?

Well:

The other day, I got an email from Gabe's Chinese teacher requesting help from parents in her morning class. She explained that the afternoon class was getting along fine, but that the morning class was falling behind due to "behavior problems."

When Lucy was in Kindergarten, I got into her classroom regularly enough. Not all the time (I did have Gabe to care for, after all), but I was able to squeeze it in. Before yesterday, I hadn't spent any time at all in Gabe's class.

When I read that email, I decided that I needed to find a way to help in Gabe's class. Imagine how much stronger that resolve became when Gabe's teacher approached me one afternoon - when I picked him up after school - to ask me to come to class to help Gabe pay attention better.

I guess it never occurred to me that Gabe would have any difficulty in school. In retrospect, I think I should've been more aware. When Gabe is faced with something that is new to him, it's pretty normal for him to get frustrated to the point of withdrawal. I've tried to teach him to tie his shoes at least 20 times. It feels like fifty. He won't sit through it. Its like the instruction hits the "special kind of torture" receptors in his brain. His Chinese teacher explained that Gabe often just goes into his own little world and plays by himself while the teacher instructs the class.

So, I made arrangements and spent 3 hours yesterday with Gabe in his Chinese class. It was fun. It was eye-opening. It was exhausting!

It has been a long time since I've learned much that was truly novel. Until yesterday, I had forgotten how exhausting it is to be immersed in a foreign language. I remember being absolutely wiped out when I was immersed in other languages in France and in Africa. Those three hours of helping the teacher and reminding kids to stay on task and not talk while the teacher was talking was a great reminder of what Gabe is doing every day in school.

I made arrangements to spend a couple of days each week in Gabe's class. I had a hard time getting to that decision - chalk it up to mom guilt - but I found someone to babysit Charlie who I feel will add a lot to his world. I am so relieved to have time scheduled for me to focus just on Gabe!

10.26.2014 - The Rainbow Bridge

Zoey has gone to meet her maker.                                                   (Euphemisms fascinate me.)

I just realized that this means I'll need to update the blog description, so I might as well write something about it, too.

We (our family of five) took Zoey in to the vet for euthanasia a few weeks ago. It was hard. She had fallen a few times - her legs just gave out under her while she was standing there - so I made a few calls and scheduled the appointment we had been dreading for years. The vet, Joe Liljenquist, is a friend of Brian's so we may have gotten extra special treatment, but I doubt it. All of the staff were great. They even sent us flowers!

All of us, except Charlie, shed tears by the time we'd left Zoey, still warm but unmoving, there in the vet's office. Charlie seemed to think it was no big deal: Zoey was going to be an angel dog and to live with Grandpa Dave in heaven. This seemed alright with him.

Having not owned a dog before, I didn't really know what to expect. In retrospect, I think I could've made an educated guess. When I was a kid, my mom made a difficult decision to remove a pet cat from our home. I loved that cat a lot. A LOT. I cried hard when I found out. I could've guessed that I would react similarly to Zoey being gone.

One of my cousins saw an online post of mine about losing Zoey and responded with the text of "The Rainbow Bridge," which I hadn't seen before. What a lovely thought, that Rainbow Bridge where our four-legged companions wait for us... I hope it's true!

When I read "The Diggingest Dog" to Charlie, he often requests that I change the story so the dog, Duke, is Zoey. Whenever Zoey is subbed in for Duke, Charlie asks that I also substitute Charlie in for Sammy Brown. This is how I know that Zoey still plays a part in Charlie's story. We have enough pictures that I think Charlie will always have "memories" of Zoey, but I don't know whether they'll come from him or the pictures.

Brian and I got Zoey for our one year anniversary. She enchanted us with her impossibly blue eyes and velvet coat. She destroyed lots and lots of things we were attached to. She taught us what it was like to leave a crying "baby" in a safe place to learn how to self-soothe.

Fifteen years leaves a lot of room for memories: I have so many of Zoey. There were so many things I got to experience because of her. I came to know new places, new people, and new things about myself. I wanted to put "the sweetest thing" under her name on the memorial plaque we ordered from the pet cremation place, but Brian won me over when he reasoned that we should leave it at her name.

I'm not what some people call "a bucket-list person," but if I were, if I had to do it over again, if I could somehow benefit from my own life experience and advice... I would put "own an awesome dog for 15 years" on that list. (That's a lot of ifs, I know.)

10.25.2014 - Stress Writing

It has been a long time. What's that song? ....It's been a long, long time coming, Lucille?

Never mind.

Kenny Rogers is underrated... that gravelly voice...  the songwriting... I almost never listen to his music, but when I do, it gets me every time. Hey: did you know that at least several educated people believe that listening to music is super good for you? See?

If you follow those last couple of links, you will find links to studies/articles on how music reduces cortisol. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is great if you need to engage in fight or flight, but chronic stress (high levels of cortisol) makes many people's health goals harder to attain. It's a big deal.

Stress is on my mind, because I'm human and I'm an American! Kidding aside, though. Stress is a risk for everyone, as far as I can tell. Lately, I've been accepting stress in the forms of having our house on the market (uncertainty about the future), worrying about our kids (there's always something), and getting things checked off my Responsible Adult To-Do List (RATDL). 

Sometimes, I successfully flip stresses on their backs by breathing deeply, listening to music, chewing gun, exercising, writing, and letting go and letting God. It doesn't happen as often as I would like. (This is where I wanted to insert a gif of a turtle or a beetle stuck on its back, all of its legs wiggling uselessly in the air.) 

Internet: please make an gif of a turtle stuck on its back. 

Thank you. 

I did find this, however:

Huh. Before 10:45 p.m. on October 25, 2014, I was unaware that "Let Go (and let God)" is actually a song. I would really like to include a link here on the origin and history of "let go and let God," the phrase, not the song, but I can't find anything on the interwebs after my exhaustive 6 minute search. Here's a music video, though.

The above song by Dewayne Woods doesn't really do it for me, but at least now I know! (I love to know, by the way.) My amazing husband gives me a hard time, sometimes, for "being on my phone too much," but what I think he fails to understand is how often I am just using that phone to find the answer to a random question I have, or read up on something I'm curious about. I rationalize that this shouldn't count against me as "phone time," because I could be doing this with other resources, the phone is just faster and more convenient. Same with using my phone to communicate with friends. I feel so much better now that the world has access to my personal excuses on this publicly accessible blog! (wink)

Update on the kids:

I went to a gym sleepover with Lucy last night. We stayed up until 4:00 a.m. Many wise people collected their children before it got too late. They are undoubtedly much better rested than our family today, but it felt good to support Lucy and to get to know more people involved with her gym better. Three separate people decided to share their (unsolicited) opinion about Lucy. They love her. These things are good for a parent to hear.

Gabe has a new obsession passion: Skateboarding. Today, he spent a good amount of time lamenting his lack of skateboard instruction. He just feels that his dad has failed to adequately teach him how to skateboard. He IS five. That's a lot of wasted years! I'm going to have to work that parental shortcoming into his therapy budget. Gabe loves time with friends. It fills his cup. Love him.

One of Charlie's new things is his way of saying prayers: He has ditched the old format and in favor of his own. His prayers sound like Power Rangers adventures. They are different every time, so he has that going for him... Charlie loves preschool and loves the air of authority he commands by walking around with his fists on his hips. He's gotten very good at telling all of us what we ought to do at any given time.

Brian is busy with... well, mostly the same stuff, but not the same... (I don't REALLY know.)  ...Since nature abhors a vacuum, I will just say: Brian has been spending a lot of time thinking about how amazing I am and how lucky we are to have each other. He has been losing sleep trying to figure out how best to memorialize our love. He thought of buying a constellation, or having one formed with satellites. He thought of doing a sort of "Mt. Rushmore West" with our faces immortalized in stone - forever locked in a passionate kiss. Of course, I told him that was really too much, and that he could just rub my shoulders next time we are sitting next to each other.

Well, hello June!

What was I thinking? I was excited for school to end until it ended and I realized that my beloved children would be home all the time, making messes and eating all the time.

Summer Curriculum:

Swimming

Gymnastics

Music

Reading

Mathematics

*Cleaning/Organization*

05.02.2014 -- A Little Lower

Two things:

Miss Swan is like a three year-old.

Lowered Expectations is a principle that can be applied across many disciplines. Dating AND blogging, for example!


With that in mind, here is today's blog entry...

Gabe has been having pretty heavy seasonal allergies recently. The last few weeks. This has left his eyes red and his nose runny most of the time. Last night, Brian noticed that his eyes (one eye especially) were worse. One was swelling up, and Gabe was rubbing it like he had no choice.

After running to the store to get some Benedryl for what we both thought was allergies that had run amok, and giving Gabe 1/4th of a tablet, I looked at his eye again and recognized a swelling that I've had before. Cellulitis.  I know that there are more accurate words to describe his condition, but I'm not going to worry about it right now (Lowered, see? This has to go both ways, Dear Readers).

Plans for the evening went out the window in favor of getting Gabe to the doctor. The doctor prescribed eye drops for pink eye, and an oral antibiotic for the cellulitis. The prescription was supposed to be called into our pharmacy, but didn't show up in the pharmacists computer when we finally made our way to the front of the line in the drive-up window.

It was the most eventful wait in a drive through that I've ever had! Brian heard a customer yelling at the pharmacist from her car.  She had been there for quite a while. He got out because he could hear her trying to start the car.  He and another guy pushed the dead minivan out of the line then got our jumper cables and helped her jump start her vehicle. It must have been a rough day for her.

Speaking of antibiotics and prescriptions...  I heard on the radio the other day how differently nations deal with antibiotics.  Apparently, France uses a lot of them, Sweden, not so many, and in China...  In China, apparently, antibiotics are available over the counter and are used a LOT. What does this mean? Apparently, friends, we are headed for a post-antibiotic era.

I put a lot of links in the above paragraph in case you are interested in learning more about antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance. Here's another one.

     

Now. Before you leave this page, watch this:

03.25.2014 -- Ch-Ch-Changes

If I were the type to hyperventilate, I would be hyperventilating, I think.

My niece is going to have a baby.

This bumps me back a generation!

I got about 60% of my hair cut off today, and colored.  It turns out I have a decent amount of gray hair.

I like change, or at least, I like to say that I like change.  In reality, change makes me nervous. It makes my mind race. It makes me reevaluate my life and my choices more than normal, and I find myself trying to evaluate my life and my choices a lot even on the most standard days.

I have two nephews on missions.  Three nieces have graduated high school. Gabe will be entering  kindergarten in a few months, and Charlie will be in preschool.

I like change, I do.

I just want to be able to do things perfectly, that's all. I just want to be a perfect mom and a perfect aunt, a perfect wife... You get the picture. Sadly, I routinely forget birthdays.  I forget important meetings. I neglect to follow through on things like daily violin practice. I don't do laundry every day or even every week.  I hardly ever iron.

Sigh.

I have worry wrinkles.  Or are those deep thought wrinkles?  Let's go with deep thoughts.

There are some big decisions that weigh heavy on my mind right now:  Lucy has asked to reenter the gymnastics program at her gym.  That is a big commitment of money and time, but a worthy pursuit. Gabe will be eligible to enter a Chinese Immersion program at the local elementary school.  I have him in a Chinese/English Preschool right now, and he often complains about having to go. For me, the gift of learning a second language so young is such a valuable one, that I am willing to push him into it.  I almost don't care if he likes Chinese. ...And what if he loves it?  What if he falls in love with the language and the culture and moves to China when he's an adult and I rarely see him or my grandchildren?

See what I'm working with?

No wonder I have wrinkles.