In high school I was fine in math for grade seven and eight. In grade nine I started having trouble but I had a great teacher who helped me though it. In grade ten I failed spectacularly despite asking my inept teacher (who was good at math but sucked at teaching) for help constantly, and I passed grade eleven and graduated only because I took what we all referred to as “BoBo Math”.

I hate that Barbie that apparently spoke aloud saying, “Math is hard” because it fits a gender stereotype that needs to be eradicated, but the truth? I was that Barbie because to me Math was hard.

Still, that was algebra and high end math. When it comes to basic math, I’m fine, albeit a bit slow and often reliant on a calculator. So here is a bit of math I can handle, and I think that you can too.

Study it carefully. There may be a pop quiz tomorrow.

On Friday I had an interesting opportunity to see Hayley in a school environment. The schools always have a Terry Fox Run annually, and the teacher had sent home a note saying that if any parents wanted to come out and run, walk, or just stand on the side to cheer, that they would love to have us. It was a nice day after a night of rain, so I took Breanna and went up.

The race started after morning recess so they were still all outside when I was arriving. I stood for a second at the fence and I was able to see Hayley playing with a soccer ball with a few of the girls and a woman who is the yard monitor. Hayley never saw me and I didn’t want her to because it was fun to see her interacting with people without any awareness of my presence. I didn’t linger too long though, because I didn’t want anyone to wonder why some woman was peering through the fence at a bunch of school kids – I’d hate to have missed the run because I was taken to the police station to be questioned about my Peeping Tom tendencies!

When I had signed myself in, I chatted with some other moms that I recognized from the after-school pick-up, and then we were all ushered out into the school yard. It was awhile before Hayley came out; they called out the grades in order from the oldest down to the Kindergarten level so that the younger you are, the less time you had to run (or walk). Still, Breanna and I cheered on all the kids and the principal who was right in the thick of things. I saw one of our neighbor’s kids and several other kids were wooed by Breanna, calling out to me with exclamations of, “she’s so cute!” as they ran past.

Finally, it was time for Hayley to get ready to come out. I was waiting by the Kindergarten door when they came out to the hallway and she spotted me through the windows. I couldn’t hear her of course, but I saw her mouth the words, “that’s my MOM!” to all the other kids, and then she was waving excitedly at Breanna too. The teacher waved for me to come in so I joined them and was impressed by how easily she organized 20 kids into two neat, orderly lines. Then we were off!

It was almost like being with a teenager. Hayley held my hand for all of, oh, 30 seconds, and then she was off. Have you ever noticed Hayley’s gazelle-like legs? That kid can run. Trying to keep up with Breanna on my hip was insane so I stopped trying. It wasn’t like she could get lost or anything. Eventually I came around the full circuit and put Breanna back in her stroller which made it a bit easier. Still, although Hayley would periodically stop to walk long enough for me to catch up or would come running back to meet me, most of the time I watched her racing ahead with her friends. I was the mom who was ditched by her daughter for her way cooler friends.

And you know what? I loved it. For all the heartache I went through the first couple of weeks, putting on my brave, happy face and I sent her off to enter the school while she cried her way across the school yard, I can not tell you how good it felt to see her smiling and laughing and having fun with her school friends. Two or three weeks ago, she would have been clinging to me the whole time. This time, she was happy I was there but she didn’t need me to help her along.

When it was over, I went back in with the class because I had to pass by the office to sign out, and it was time for the Kindergarten and grade one kids to head to the cafeteria for lunch. Hayley said, “I don’t want you to go yet” and I told her I had to go home to give Breanna a nap and that I would be back soon to pick her up. I was worried she would get sniffly and teary-eyed, but she just hugged me and then hugged Breanna and that was it. All the kids have to sit with their lunch bags on their laps in front of their cubbies and when they’re all sitting and ready then the teacher leads them down to the cafeteria. I spoke with her teacher for a few moments about possibilities of volunteering for some future activities (something I am dying to do!) and when I was ready to leave, Hayley wasn’t even looking my way, she was talking to the boy and girl next to her, all animated and bright-eyed about something. I didn’t bother to say goodbye again, not wanting to interrupt her, so we left.

I was so proud. I was proud of how she ran for the majority of 20 minutes, walking only when she truly had to, proud of how she was so involved with her friends, and proud of how far she’s come in such a short time.

Tomorrow is picture day. Having met two of her good friends (one is a boy! A boy that she drew pictures for last week! Ack!), I already have two faces to put to the names. I can’t wait to get the class picture so I can have faces for every name she comes home with.

I know, I have a blog, perhaps I should use it. I’ve been really busy the past several days, mostly because I was preparing for Hayley’s birthday party which was on Saturday, and then cleaning up on Sunday because who wants a big mess after spending all that time cleaning up in the first place? I was also out at Hayley’s school on Friday for the Terry Fox Run, and that was a lot of fun as well.

Another thing I did last week was reading and reviewing a great novel, The Splendor of Silence. I’m still trying to catch up on a lot of things that need my immediate attention, so an entry is coming about Friday and Saturday, but in the meantime I’d love it if you’d hop on over to my review blog to read my book review.

I need a nap.

I really love the principal at Hayley’s school. He’s very involved with the school in general, which sounds obvious, but not everyone works that way. He’s always around. He’s in the office when he has things he needs to do in there, but he moves around a lot. I’ve seen him outside during gym time for the last gym class of the day when I was waiting outside the school yard to pick Hayley up (Kindergarten gets out a bit earlier than the older kids), and he was clapping and cheering for the students who were racing around the field. Hayley says that she often sees him because he apparently wanders the halls and pokes his head into classrooms and waves at everyone. I almost always see him at least once a day because he often comes out either first thing in the morning to greet the buses and open the school doors for students, or else he comes out and talks to all the parents who are waiting for their children at the end of the day. He addresses Hayley by name despite having several hundred students, and does the same for many other kids who run by. When he talks to the parents, he knows who we all are and who our kids are. Heck, he even remembers Breanna from our meeting the second week of school and every time he sees her, he crouches down and says, “Hello Miss Breanna!” and inquires about how Elmo is doing (even if she’s left him at home).

He’s the perfect elementary school principal, with a voice that carries but isn’t deep and scary for little kids, and he’s almost always smiling and talking to everyone. He’s a lot like my principal was in elementary school and it makes me feel a lot better when I send Hayley off to school.

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Hayley makes me laugh a little, even if it’s in exasperation. She never wants to go to school (except last Thursday night when she was disappointed she wouldn’t see her friends on Friday since they had a day off). Every morning I have to convince her to get out of bed and hover over her to make her eat something. Every single morning she tells me at least once, “I don’t really want to go to school, Mommy.” I don’t exactly blow it off, but I only address it with a simple, “Well that’s okay, but you’re going anyway. You’ll have fun with your friends and sing songs and have a good day.”

And every single day she comes out of school with a big smile and chatters on and on about all the fun things that she did that day, and who she played with, and the songs they sang or games they played.

She loves school, but you’ll never convince her of that at 7 a.m.!

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So far we’ve had two library days, random gym (are they EVER going to set a gym day so I can know which days to send her in pants instead of her beloved tunic?! She’s only ever agreed to wearing pants once in the past month so I know she’s done gym in a tunic, and I’d rather not have her doing that since she still doesn’t have much awareness over how much you can do before your butt shows.), homework, and lots of artwork sent home. Last week I literally shrieked with joy when I opened her bag and found a Scholastic Books order form – I *loved* ordering stuff from Scholastic as a kid. We picked out a bunch of books and ended up ordering thirty bucks worth of stuff, and to me it’s totally worth it because the prices are excellent and we could really use some new books to read around here at bedtime.

Yesterday we moved on to yet another staple of school – she brought home a sponsor form for the Terry Fox run. Which is cool and naturally we’ll sponsor her, and I’m sure her grandparents on both sides will too, but she got the form yesterday and the event is on Friday. Uhh… thanks for all the time to collect sponsors? Yeah.

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No matter how crazy she may drive me sometimes, my favorite time of day is now the point where Breanna and I are waiting outside the gate for Hayley to come out. Picking her up is the best time of day of all.

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I’ve posted up a review of the Bob Books in my review blog, and I have to say that if you have children who are at an age where they are eager to learn to read, you should check them out. They’re awesome and Hayley loves them. Even younger kids would probably enjoy listening to them because of the alliteration. (Breanna just doesn’t like having me read to her at ALL, though she does like looking at the pictures on her own terms.)

I need more coffee.

Ah yes, what happens when an appropriately named streetcar gets an unfortunate acronym: Go to Seattle and take a ride on their new S.L.U.T. I can’t stop laughing because I am a 12-year-old boy.

Sometimes my girls will fight and scream and cry and wage an all-assault tug-of-war over one lone toy (never mind that there are approximately 85762 other toys to choose from around here) and it makes a vein I was never previously aware of throb mightily in the middle of my forehead. I find it so frustrating to deal with sibling rivalry even though I know it’s not uncommon and probably even completely normal. Hell, my own sister and I fought like cat and dog growing up, so it’s not like I didn’t know it could happen.

Still, I guess that I wish they could fast forward to where my sister and I are now, where we are so close (even if there’s an entire province between us) and get along so well. I honestly can’t remember the last fight we had, when it was, what it was about, not a thing. So I guess that I just see how great things can be between sisters and then I see my girls practically going to war.

And then they surprise me. I’ll see Breanna lift a spoonful of Minigo towards Hayley to share. I’ll see Hayley break some treat in half to share back. I once gave Breanna a cookie and before I could go ask Hayley if she wanted one, Breanna held up her other hand and asked, “Aylay?” I gave her another cookie and she trotted off to give one to her big sister. I’ll see Hayley and Breanna dancing together, looking at books together, lying on a blanket on the floor together to watch TV, making funny faces at each other, and laughing hysterically over who-knows-what together.

Those are the times that I can’t stop smiling and I can almost forget the other moments where all I can hear is, “Mine!” “No, MINE!”

And sometimes when one is a little unsteady on her feet or nervous, the other will lend a hand and guide the way.

(Sometimes the guides wear superhero capes to the park. Sometimes the little sister pretty much thinks her big sister IS a superhero, so that all works out. I’m going to seriously miss going to the park when this nice last-ditch summer weather ends.)

It’s time once again for the Fall Into Reading challenge. It’s very simple – you create a list of books you would like to read over the course of the coming season and share it on your blog to challenge yourself to do some reading. I love this because ever since I became a mother my reading has gone downhill (for adult books that is; on the other hand I could recite most Dr. Seuss books from memory by now). I’m going to keep my list a reasonable length to keep myself from getting overwhelmed, and some of the books are going to be re-reads.

I’m sort of hoping that if I just get myself back into reading a few things that aren’t on my computer screen, then I’ll get back into the habit again. I used to be the girl who – literally – walked around with my nose in a book all day every day and I never would have dreamed of going to bed without a bit of reading first. Let’s see if I can get back there again.

This Fall I want to read the following:

1. The Splendor of Silence (this is my current read)
2. Why Moms Are Weird (re-read)
3. The Red Tent (I’ve started but never finished it)
4. The Time Traveler’s Wife (re-read)
5. Five Days In Summer

If you go sign up for the challenge you can win a gift certificate from Amazon to then purchase some new reading material! Let me know if you’re participating too.

So obviously I knew it was coming, but it was still a shock that this morning I woke Hayley up not by shaking her and saying, “time to get up for breakfast” but rather by singing Happy Birthday in her ear. She pretended to be asleep but she just hasn’t learned yet that giggling is a dead giveaway. She wasn’t too thrilled about going to school, but when we got there she immediately announced to the other Kindergarten teacher that it was her birthday and then she trotted off towards the door. She took in a bunch of TimBits to celebrate with her class, then she even delivered one to the other Kindergarten teacher (she’s so nice, she always greets Hayley and would walk her right in if Hayley was having a hard morning) and another one to the principal. Good sucking up, way to go!

Mornings are not a total rush of insanity since I do almost everything the night before and get Hayley up way earlier than we need, but they’re busy enough that I didn’t get a chance to snap a photo of her in the morning. I rectified that when I met her after school and although I had had all day to think about how she was five now, I was shocked by pictures of my little grown-up girl.

When she got home we gave her the presents I had wrapped up for her. Breanna gave her Operation since Hayley loves board games more than pretty much any toy. Actually, when we were walking through the toy section on Monday, I said to George that the hardest part of buying her something is that she’s not really into any one thing. She’ll play Barbies but doesn’t really love them. She’ll play Polly Pocket with her friend but she doesn’t want any of her own. It’s like that with all toys, really, she likes them well enough but isn’t crazy over them. That was when George pointed out that she does love games so we went with that.

We gave her a stereo. She likes to go to sleep listening to the radio or music. I had given her my old boom box but I had gotten it as a teenager so it was old and the CD player just finally kicked the bucket one day. From there she started listening to the radio and even bought herself a tiny mini-boom box (palm sized) for five bucks at a garage sale but the antenna wasn’t very good and it was hard to pull in good stations (she likes the classic rock station best, go figure). She was really happy with the new stereo. It will play CDs again, it still has a radio, and it also has a tape deck so she can play the Barbie tapes she has. And it has a remote so she was ecstatic that she can put in the Carrie Underwood CD that we also got for her (her favorite singer) and play “Jesus Take the Wheel” eleventy billion times in a row from across the room.

She was also really happy to open up a gift from my sister. She got a pretty dress and another board game, Trouble. That was a hit. We played a game immediately and then she played another round with George after supper. Breanna is a little irate over these games she can’t play but I placated her by letting her slide the pieces for the Dora Candyland game around the board while Hayley and George played at the table, so that helped soothe her angered ego a little bit.

Of course, I think the best present for her is the fact that the school is closed for a ped day. Because, you know, three weeks in they need a day off. I thought she would be ecstatic over not having to go tomorrow, and she was until bed time, at which point she was greatly saddened that she wouldn’t get to play with her three favorite friends until Monday. That’s good news to me because it means school is improving for her!

I normally bake birthday cakes but our oven died and apparently it’s the element, not the fuse, whoopee. So, for the first time in my life I bought a birthday cake from Loblaws, our friendly grocery store. Their cakes are delicious, not dry and overly sweet like some bakery cakes are, with the Cinderella motif, it was really pretty. We’ll take care of the oven and I’ll bake a lady bug cake for her party next weekend but in the meantime, a princess cake was a huge hit.

I have a five year old child. I still don’t know how that happened since I only gave birth last week. But there it is. She’s growing up and time is just not going to stop, ever.

More photos are available on Flickr.

Happy birthday, Hayley!

Five years ago today, I was at the hospital because I was supposed to be getting some Cervadil stuck up inside my “personal area” (and really, there’s not much private about it anymore considering how many people in that hospital saw it; amazing how you stop caring once you’re in labour) so that I could be induced the following day. I was waiting around and then my doctor came in, took one look at how much I was contracting on the monitor and he said, “oh no, no. You really don’t need this, you’re doing fine on your own. Go home, get some rest in your own bed and come back at 6:30 am tomorrow. Go relax.”

My idea of “relaxing” was to go home and watch the saddest episode of “Third Watch” ever written where George made a valiant effort not to laugh while all my pregnancy hormones and I sobbed hysterically on the couch. Then I went to bed and actually had a decent sleep (for the last time since that day, I think!).

Five years ago I looked like this:

I can’t believe that tomorrow the tiny little six-pound-eleven-ounce baby that was in there is going to turn five years old. I don’t even know how that’s possible.

She’s not all that impressed to be going to school on her birthday but hopefully the fact that she’s taking a box of TimBits in with her to share with her class who will all sing “Happy Birthday” to her will ease her into acceptance. When she comes home she’ll open her presents from George and I and from Breanna. Breanna’s giving her the game “Operation” and I can’t wait to try it out with her, I always loved that game. George and I got her a little radio and CD player for her room. She had been using mine but I got that when I was about 14 or 15 years old so it’s a bit, er, ancient and the CDs wouldn’t play anymore. She likes to listen to music when she goes to bed, so it will be a big hit; we’re also giving her a Carrie Underwood CD to go with it since that’s her favorite singer.

Five. FIVE. I am a little stunned. I’m going to go and repeat FIVE until I believe it. It may take awhile.

Some things about Breanna what with the vocabulary explosion as of late.

1. She counts but she refuses to say “one”. She learned counting partly from us (especially Hayley who loves to count things in English, French, and Spanish) and partly from Caillou (it pains me to admit that, frickin’ Caillou). No matter what we try to do though, she won’t say “one” because she leaps straight to “two, free, foe, five, nine”. Attempts go like this:

Sherry: One.
Breanna: Two!
Sherry: No, no, say one!
Breanna: Two!
Sherry: Say hi.
Breanna: Hi.
Sherry: Say bye.
Breanna: BYE BYE!
Sherry: Say one.
Breanna: Two!

2. She loves looking at a book we have with farm animals. She knows most of them, except for the sheep that she keeps mistaking for fluffy cats. But she knows her chich-en, her dog, her cow, her pig, and so on. She knows horses too, except her pronunciation is a bit off. I don’t want to take her to any farms lest she offend women standing in the near vicinity.

Sherry: Look Breanna! A horse!
Breanna: Whore! Whore! Whore!

Errr. Like one of my friends said, it might be interesting and ill-advised to take her on a horse and carriage ride through some of the less desirable, short-skirt areas of Montreal.

3. One of my favorite things to do is to sit down next to Breanna and pretend to cry. She knows it’s not real, she knows that I’m just playing, but no matter what she’s doing, she will stop and immediately stroke my arm and say, “Don’t cry!” Then when I smile and say “Okay, I won’t” she takes her turn and lets loose with some very dramatic Emmy-worthy fake crying so I can do the same to her. “Don’t cry, Breanna!” “Otay!”

4. The other night, I got into bed and as I was dozing off, she rolled over in her sleep and shouted, “Cookie! Cookie!” Then she went back to sleep. She’s dreaming of cookies, I think she needs an intervention.

5. If she does something funny and you laugh at her, she’ll look at you with a smile and ask, “What? WHAT?!”

6. She misses Hayley when she’s gone to school. As soon as Hayley’s gone, Breanna will ask me, “Where Aylay?” even though she knows exactly where she is. Throughout the day, if you ask her where Hayley is she’ll spread her arms out and say, “Aylay gone. Gone. School.” Then yesterday I was wishing that I had taken my camera out of my purse to take some video because I had set Breanna down in the school yard while we waited for Hayley to come out and when Breanna spotted her big sister coming our way, she started running as fast as her little legs could go, arms wide open, screaming, “Aylay! Aylay! Aylay!” It was ridiculously cute.

Once upon a time she wasn’t talking much at all. Now she’s working hard at trying to keep up with her big sister. There is no such thing as quiet in this apartment unless they’re sleeping. Sometimes I want to weep at the constant chatter the two of them provide. But mostly? I love it.