What are YOU blogging about on October 15, 2007?

My friend Heather is running a contest where you can win a nifty t-shirt over on her chocolate blog. Go check out the rules to enter!

A few days ago, I took this picture of Hayley:

Her hair grows fast and since I had cut her hair back in March, it was already getting long again. Actually, hang on, I’m a little stunned at how quickly it grew. Anyway, brushing it was once again becoming an exercise in patience – for myself and also for all the neighbours within a hundred yards who could hear her screaming and wailing. The thought of having to deal with that every morning before school was enough to make me consider dreads just to avoid ever brushing it again.

Instead of dreads, after Breanna woke up from her nap, I left her at home with George and Hayley and I walked to the salon and I got her hair cut. I could have theoretically done it myself but I figured she’d enjoy the experience and she really did, even though she was shy.

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With school starting in just over a week (*breathe in, breathe out, don’t panic, she’ll be fine*), I thought that maybe we should start practicing for what mornings will be like at that time. Other than the occasional early morning doctor’s appointment, we’ve never had to get up and GO so mornings are usually pretty laid back. We get up, we stay in our pajamas, we eat a leisurely breakfast, we don’t rush because there’s no reason to rush. That all changes next week and I didn’t want it to be a big shock to Hayley. I also didn’t want to spend her first day of school yelling at her to hurry up, hurry up, let’s GO now.

I didn’t bother with getting her up at 6:30 (because I was still sleeping and the thought of purposely getting up at the crack of dawn when we don’t actually need to made me want to cry a little), but we did do the basic routine. I sent Hayley back to bed and told her we would pretend it was school. I “woke” her up and told her to come on out to the kitchen. I offered her three choices of breakfast (two different cereals and a PB&J sandwich) and when she chose one of the cereals, I set her bowl out and told her to eat her breakfast while I got dressed.

When she was done, I sent her to her room where I had laid out some clothes for her (not her actual school clothes, mind you) and she got dressed. I brushed her hair, which is still a nightmare and I look forward to getting it CUT, we brushed her teeth, and then she was finished! I explained to her that during school weeks I would prepare her lunch the night before and put it all in the fridge, and then transfer it to a lunch box in the morning for her so that she would just need to put on her shoes, grab her lunch box and her bag, and go. I also pointed out to her that she had gotten through the routine in about half an hour and so if we were up an hour before bus time, she’d have plenty of time to relax. Of course, I realize that when she’s woken up at 6:30 we’ll likely have a much slower start, hence the extra time!

Later today we’re going to look for some pictures to represent her morning routine and we’ll glue them to a sheet of construction paper and hang it on the fridge (or maybe her door; Breanna’s fond of removing things from the fridge door) so that she has a visual reminder of everything she has to do each day.

It’s good for me to practice too. I’m not used to so much action in the morning either. I’ll have to get used to not checking my email until AFTER the bus has picked her up.

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In about an hour we’re going to head out to find her some pants and more shirts for school. I can’t believe she has ten days left before the big day. *Sniff* I’m both excited for her and sad at the same time. I think that may be a common theme around here for awhile. Eventually it will just become about as normal as anything else around here but for now it’s still such a big deal and I expect to write about it for awhile.

I think that Sheryl over at Paper Napkin came up with the best description of what this feels like to me. In this entry she wrote:

I, on the other hand, hide in the bathroom and breathe into a paper bag as often as I can, without arousing suspicion. You’d think they were being deployed to Iraq on Tuesday.

That’s pretty damn accurate. It’s like I logically know that it’s Just School. Hell, even more than that it’s Just Kindergarten, it’s not as though she’s packing up and heading off to boarding school or moving three provinces over to attend university. She’s getting on a yellow school bus and going to elementary school in the same city and at the end of the day she’ll come home and tell me all about her day and the friends she’s made, and she’ll bring me pictures made out of macaroni and glue. It’s not the end of the world.

But man, after spending every day with her for almost five years (oh, and there’s another thing, she turns five in exactly one month), it’s going to be a mighty big deal next Thursday.

Okay, back to breathing and perhaps writing a list of the stuff we need to buy when we head out.

Hayley’s starting school in less than two weeks, so we’ve been getting ready for that. One thing is accumulating the dress code appropriate clothes that she needs. Today she got some short sleeve white shirts and a navy tunic. She still needs two pairs of pants, one more short sleeve shirt and several long sleeve shirts, and we need some socks to wear with the tunic for now, tights for colder weather. In the meantime, she was really excited to try on the tunic and the polo shirt. She loves it.

I think I hate it only because my child, who will only turn five in a month and two days, suddenly looks about seven years old. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, you’d think at least my toddler would still look like a little girl. After all she does still have the chunky little legs and she’s still learning to talk (the explosion of vocabulary she’s going through is a post for another time). But then I gave the kids a bath and I put Breanna into her new little nightgown, and cute as it may all be, she too looks suddenly older.

I just want to know who it was that let my two little girls grow up so much all of a sudden. Because it certainly wasn’t ME giving permission.

Jessica is asking us what brings us joy. She’d like to know what brings us joy in our everyday life, our wealth, our health, our homes, our interests. How about all of the above?

Everyday joys – Having two young kids is frustrating sometimes but it brings the most incredibly happiness too, things that I never could have imagined before. Just today I can think of so many things they said or did that brought joy to that moment: Hayley, playing cat and insisting that her snack be a bowl of dry Honey-Nut Cheerios so she could eat out of the bowl on the floor like a cat (and yes, I obliged!). Breanna, running up behind me as I cleaned the floor on my hands and knees, throwing her arms around me and screaming, “‘ug! ‘Ug!” as she hugged me. Hayley remembering about 90% of the bus safety rules that I was teaching her before she heads off to school, and seeing how proud she was to know them. Breanna practically rolling her eyes back in her head as she said, “Mmmmmmm” while eating her breakfast. Hayley making a bed on the floor for her sister and trying to put her down to nap. Breanna asking her sister, “Oo alrigh?” when Hayley started crying after banging her foot on the bookshelf. Etcetera, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Some days the frustration never ends. Luckily, neither do the little moments like those.

Wealth – I don’t really know what wealth is. I do get joy out of getting paid for my other blogs that I write. Getting paid for something I love to do is amazing. Even more though, I get joy from a very simple and relatively cheap thing – I love slipping into the dollar store and getting a pack of crayons or markers and some drawing pads or colouring books, and bringing them home. I loved walking into a store a couple of months ago and finally finding a little stuffed Orca that Hayley had been wishing for since seeing Free Willy. I loved finding a little flashlight with interchangeable covers that cast shadows of different Dora characters and seeing Breanna nearly explode in joy when I gave it to her. I would love to know what it’s like to have wealth that means big houses and travel and total financial freedom, but most days, it’s buying little things that I know my kids will love that gives me incredibly joy.

Wellness – Lately I’ve been walking a bit more than the usual romp to the park and although I dreaded each trek before it started, I ended up feeling incredibly pleased and revitalized after each walk was over. A little tired, yes, especially the one day that it was eleventy billion degrees with humidity outside, but it just felt so good to go out and walk at a good, aerobic pace without anyone to slow me down. If I could just remember how good exercise makes me feel, I might keep doing it more!

Home – I get joy from seeing toys in my living room. Not all of them out all across the floor at once, but I love seeing toys and knowing that it means I have two kids in my home. On the opposite side of the coin, I get great joy from picking everything up in the evening and seeing a nice, big, clean living room. I am a bit of a housekeeping dork. I don’t like to DO the housework, but (much like the exercise) once I get started, I don’t mind so much and I find myself pleased as all hell when everything is done. Today I was ecstatic that I got my bathtub sparkling clean and shiny (after letting it slide a bit too long) and that the new cleaning wipes I bought made the kitchen glow. I know, how June Cleaver of me.

Interests – Where do I start and how do I finish? I get joy from blogging here, naturally, or else I wouldn’t do it. I also get it from reading what others have to say whether it’s in their own blog or here in my comments. I find joy in taking pictures, even if I’m no pro, just having a snapshot in time makes me happy (and the incredible amount of CDs that have my pictures burned on them would be testament to that!). I find joy in a good book (hello all those hours and HOURS where the Harry Potter series consumed me!), in a good movie, and in cooking. Part of it is just because I wouldn’t do all those things if they didn’t make me happy, but these days it’s also a joyful experience because it’s when I get to step back from being Mom for a short moment or two, and I get to be Sherry again. Just Sherry, doing what she loves to do.

So what it all comes down to is that I find joy in a multitude of ridiculously simple things. It doesn’t take much does it?

Jessica wanted to know because she wants to bestow a free gift of a JOYS filing system. I have heard more than one person sing the praises of JOYS. Do you know why I hope I win the gift? Because this is what my current “filing system” looks like.

Also known as, stuff it in my desk drawers, remember that it’s there, and try to find it later. This system is why George and I tore the entire apartment apart, trying to find Hayley’s school supply list and paperwork a few weeks ago. It was after 24 hours of panic that I remembered it was attached to a clipboard in the very bottom of my drawer. Yeah.

So cross your fingers. CLEARLY we require a system that actually works without producing extra grey hairs and panic attacks.

PC Magazine lists the ten weirdest USB devices. I particularly like the fondue pot, and the thumb drive that actually looks like a thumb fits my sense of humour.

1. This morning, I was trying to avoid getting up because I didn’t sleep well last night. I laid in bed for awhile and Breanna sat beside me, entertaining herself. At one point, I opened up one eye to see what it was that was keeping her so content. She was sitting up in bed, playing with a calculator and had my Star Trek Technical Manual open in her lap.

Clearly, being a total dork is genetic.

2. George made a cheese omelet in the microwave this morning. Although Breanna had already eaten half a bagel, she climbed up on my lap to eat some of the omelet so George put some on a little plate for her. She’s still not very handy with a fork, so she dropped a few pieces on the floor before I managed to show her how to stab the pieces with her fork. Those dropped pieces bothered her so much though, that she kept saying, “Mommy! Uh-oh! Daddy, Daddy! UH-OH!” I reassured her that it was fine and I would pick them up when she was done.

Then when she was finished eating, Breanna – with all her OCD tendencies that I always joke about – hopped down to the floor, squatted down to inspect the egg on the floor, exclaimed, “Oh NO!” and then picked up one piece at a time. With each piece, she announced, “gaw-bage!” and then trotted over to throw the offending egg into the garbage. My floor is all clean and I didn’t have to do a thing other than applaud Breanna. I’m wondering how soon I can teach her to stand at the sink and wash my dishes.

DAMN my batteries for needing to be charged! Hayley is in her room right now making up a rap song about how she’s “Hayley the strong, and nothing is wrong, my muscles are long because I’m Hayley the strong”.

I can’t stop giggling.

Last night George stayed home with Breanna and his dad and I took Hayley to her second to last soccer game. There’s one more game next week, and then the season is over although I think our team may be participating in an extra tournament. I’m sad that it’s almost over. I enjoy soccer although at this age it’s nothing like the older teams. Her team consists of girls ages 4-6, they only play four against four, there are no referees, and there are no official goalies (of course any of the girls can run in front of the net to try to block it like a goalie would). It’s not about competition, it’s about having fun and learning to play as a team. It’s kind of funny because none of them really get the concept of passing the ball to a teammate, so it’s just a bunch of girls running up and down the field, randomly kicking to get the ball down to the goal.

Hayley really likes it too. For awhile I was thinking of not re-enrolling her next year because she didn’t seem that enthused. If you asked her, she would insist she loved it, but out on the field, she would run half-heartedly and more often than not she would suddenly throw herself dramatically on the ground, claiming that she “fell” but it was just her way of being the class (team?) clown. Between the dramatic tumbling and the fact that she would do somersaults any chance she got, I was actually thinking of foregoing soccer in favor of gymnastics next year.

I don’t want to overwhelm her with activities, and with school starting in just two weeks (!), I don’t want to sign her up for anything in the Fall. In the Winter, I’d really like to get her into swimming lessons, and there’s an arena nearby that has extremely reasonable prices and is apparently quite good. I’ve also always wanted to get her involved in the Sparks/Brownies/Girl Guides organization because I loved it as a kid and bet she would too, but I don’t think that will happen until next year.

Either way, i had pretty much written off soccer as a possibility.

And then, wouldn’t you know it, with only two games left in the season, something suddenly clicked with Hayley and she got it a bit more. She’s still very hesitant when there’s a group of girls kicking to get control of the ball all at once; she’ll run up and then stop because she doesn’t want to get into the middle of it. However, last night she was more assertive than I h ad seen her all season. She did goof around a bit, she did talk to her friends too much on the field, but she kicked that ball too. Twice she was the one who kicked the ball back into play after the ball went out of bounds and she delivered a good, strong kick each time. And several times, when the ball found its way to her she kicked them ball, trying to get it towards the goal. (One time she kicked the ball the wrong way in the confusion of eight girls trying to get to the ball, but even if she had scored on her own team I would have applauded anyway, just like we did when one of her teammates actually DID score in the wrong net.)

It’s a shame that it took until almost the end of the season for her to gain enough confidence to really start getting involved. If we had another month of twice-a-week games left, I think she would even get to a point where she would be more willing to chase after the ball. I think it’s partly an age thing; a couple of the girls are older, six years old, who were playing for their second year, and they were the ones to aggressively go after the ball and get it down the field.

We have until next February to decide what we want to do for next year (and of course, we’ll ask Hayley what SHE wants to do) but I’m not opposed to doing soccer again next summer; now I’m seeing how she might understand better next year and have even more fun.

I know I’m going to miss it after the season closes, either way. It’s been fun screaming and applauding on the side for all our girls. Good thing I won’t have time to miss it too much since I’ll be so distracted with SCHOOL starting. Sheesh.