Spring in a Basket

It's late April and last Sunday was Easter. If Mother Nature had no intention of delivering Spring, the Easter Bunny sure did, even if just in a basket.

He loaded Js with a bird house and seed;

and Ms with a watering can and gardening gloves.

Upon discovering the wares, J asked if the Easter Bunny had also hidden eggs. We informed him that because of the inclement weather, he was unable to this year but assured him Daddy and I would set one up for them.

Donning their coats and rain boots,

They searched for eggs outside and managed to find them all before the rain came back again.

One thing's for sure: Gloomy days or not, for M, the sun always rises and sets with her brother.

Speaking of rising....He is Risen ~ Alleluia!

Spring Break: Hotel

It's Spring Break in WA State. The weather's been crappy and it sort of just creeped up on us. We didn't make any plans and I was fine with that until I started hearing of the destinations other people were going to visit: Mexico, Orlando, Disneyland. Ugh. I made a mental note to book a getaway for next year. In the meantime, we were stuck at home with a climate that more resembled Christmas Break than Spring. Yeah, we're so outta here next year!

Sometime last weekend J must have figured out that we were doing nada and asked D if we could go to a hotel for Spring break. We asked which one? he said the one downtown where we stayed when we moved would be fine. Anything but home, I guess.

On Thursday we did just that. Unfortunately for J we didn't travel the five miles to the Phoenix Inn, instead we went up north to Tulalip Resort & Casino. Because we're stellar parents like that and take our kids to a casino for entertainment ☺

The kids love hotels. They went swimming, had dinner, and that's pretty much about it other than hang out in the lovely room.

He watched a movie on the comfy bed:

She watched herself in the mirror of the fabulous vanity:

The next day was sunny and perfect. We went to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival:

There were fields of flowers in all different colors: Nothing like a little taste of spring on Spring break!

It was beautiful, and all of the tulips hadn't even bloomed yet.

Upon getting home that night, I told the kids they needed to say Thank You to daddy for taking the time off to take us on this little adventure. J said we needed to say thank you to him because he's the one that thought of it.

He does have a point there. Thank You, J! It was just the getaway the family needed.

Circle Time

The spelling Caste System in J's 1st/2nd grade class goes something like this:

Octagon: 3rd grade

Square: 2nd-grade

Circle: low 2nd grade

Triangle: 1st-grade

J has been a triangle since the start of the year. Rigth where he should be. He's not going to be invited to the Spelling Bee Contest anytime soon, but he's right at his level. This has never been a cause for concern to either D or me. He does wonderful on his weekly tests. More often than not he brings home 100 percents. This, however, has prompted some inquires of his own. Why, if he gets 100 percent almost weekly, is he not moving up to the next level?

He finally asked me enough that I turned around and asked Mrs. S. She told me that the only way for them to move up is if they get 100 percent or miss very few on the pretest. Cold turkey! She thought it was cute that he was so interested in moving up the ranks and promised that the next time he did well on his pretest and if the circle words weren't too challenging, she would move him up for that particular week only.

Some weeks later he was:

The words were a little more challenging and on Friday he came home with only about a 75 percent score. No worries. We were proud of him for the effort.

A couple of weeks ago at conferences, however, he was dying to have Mrs. S spill the beans. He contiuned to prompt us to ask her what was going on. And then she told us: He had been moved up to a circle. You'd have thought he won the Nobel Prize I was so proud of him. This was his goal. He worked hard, and he met it. I loved the enthusiasm I saw in him. I wish I could bottle up just a little bit of it so that he'd always have that sense euphoria at his fingertips as a reminder of what hard work can accomplish.

A dose of reality came in his backpack the other day. He won't be running circles around these words. But he worked a little harder and ended up with 11 out of 14 right. I have no doubt he'll be posting 100s really soon here. And I can't wait to see the look on his face then!

Keep Your Eye on the Hike

Aside from the occasional headache, I've always had the good fortune of being relatively healthy. I hardly get colds, and my last blood test showed my blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol levels as normal. When I was pregnant with M ~ at the ripe age of 42 ~ my OB was always amazed at how well I did throughout. I was lucky enough to not be plagued with the usual ailments most pregnant women endure, especially at my "advanced age" as it's referred to in medical circles. D used to jokingly call me a specimen.

Shortly after giving birth to M, however, I began to experience some discomfort between my shoulder blades. I went to physical therapy for six months in a vain attempt to get the problem corrected. the lack of positive results have led me to resign myself to living with it forever. And it's that same lack of positive results that promoted a conversation between D and me a couple of months ago. I mentioned that in addition to the physical pain I endure, the emotional one may be just as bad if not worse.

One of my go-to lines is "I'm already an old mom. I don't want to be a (fat, bald, or whatever other problem fits here) mom too!" D's response was that I should take better care of myself because once the kids are teenagers I may not be able to participate in family activities; namely, hiking. It instantly struck us both as funny that a hike is what he focused on. Never mind that I may not be able to drive them around or that they may have to push me around in a wheelchair, it was a hike that had him concerned. We like to hike every once in a while, but we certainly won't be mistaken for hikers.

A couple of years ago, when I turned 43, I told myself that by my 45th birthday I was going to have lost all of my weight and maybe even be working, but certainly hold the title of Court Reporter after my name in the State of Washington. It's through no fault but my own that I sit here today, 18 days before my birthday, and have to write that I've met none of those goals. I can throw out a myriad of excuses ~ some of them even valid ~ as to why that's the case, but I won't. Because the truth will always rear it's ugly head. And that truth is that I didn't keep my eye on the ball.

In an October 2010 post titled "Mommy's Prayer" I likened losing 10 pounds to climbing Mt. Everest.

There's that mountain again. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

To add to the misery, last week something happened in my neck. I have no idea what it is, but it hurts. A lot. Apparently I've been complaining about it ever since because D mentioned it to me last night. While at first I felt a little insulted, I was quickly glad that he told me. I don't want to burden the whole family with my ailments on a daily basis. I know from experience that that type of complaining gets old really fast and starts to lose its value shortly thereafter.

My mom, bless her heart, has been complaining about her health in one way or another since I can remember and it's been the bane of my existence. While at this point I certainly take her complaints more seriously, there was a time where I just stopped listening. I told myself that I never wanted to do that to my family. And now here I sit. I guess it happens to the best of us. Even with the best of intentions, we all eventually, as we ascend the mountain of life, come to the fork in the road where we must make a choice. Very often the trail we choose, whether consciously or not, will be the same one our parents once traveled. My mom has been traveling for many years and on many different paths. And while I don't claim to have the endurance to summit while on many of them, most of them I'd be honored to follow. The complaining about my health route is not one. It's a lonely road that is sure to lead to a dead end.

So, I'm going to do something about it. All of it: The neck, the weight, the title.

Keeping my eye on the ball proved to be a difficult task. Perhaps it's because I should have been focusing on the hike instead.

Hair We Go Again

"She's got such pretty hair. Does it just flip up like that?" Receptionist @ the gym

"We all love her hair. It's great." Girls @ gym daycare

"Love the stylish hair." Mom @ KinderGym

"Her hair is amazing." Stacy @ Capital Speech and Learning

Above is what I imagined M's hair would look like. Dark and thick like her dad's; curly like her mom's.

Instead she got just the opposite: Thin and straight ~ and sticking straight up!

I've written quite a bit on this topic, I know. I also know that Salma must get tons of compliments on her coif, but the ones above weren't intended for her, they're for my M, all in a 24-hour period. I shamelessly kept count, yes. I was starting to get used to it, frankly. D once mentioned that he too was bombarded with similar compliments/inquiries when he was out with M, but when he told me that upon entering the play area at the gym he had found M sitting on the lap of a different girl than the aforementioned while she played with her hair, I just knew I had to write about it one more time.

Even in those early days I would hear comments about her "cool hair," and I have to say that most seemed to be genuine. I suppose if ever hair that looks like that is going to be "cool" it's going to be when it's sitting atop a baby's head.

At about six months she got the first compliment on her "haircut," which wasn't a haircut at all. It looked something like this:

Yeah, I don't know either. It was a bald-in-the-back version of Kate Goselin's hair. And luckily for all those involved, I didn't think about putting up a picture until now that it's too late. You're welcome.



Here's her wig at about 10 months:



And the back:
Things were looking up. By her first birthday she had had her first bang cut and it was adorable.


And then it just grew! She went from pixie to long in no time. That's when the "flip" came into play. Until it grew so much and got so heavy that it was gone.


We went through trims, mostly to the bangs ~ even tried the Katy Perry look (don't have a picture of her either), but two weeks ago we went in and got her first real haircut. I was so scared we'd ruin that beautiful mane. I was so nervous that the flip was gone forever and that the scissors would not only nip the section where it used to be, but the little bit of baby left in her as well.


A few minutes in the "Bobby Ca" and this is what appeared:


Let me just say now that I think those little pig-tail things they do at Jack & Jill's are hideous. Something about the part being so perfect ~ it reminds me of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals (Oh, how I wish I had a picture of him). But this is coming from the person whose had the same haircut or some slight variation of it for the last 20 years, so I don't necessarily think I'm a qualified authority on hair. All of that aside, however, I wasn't sold.

Until the next day when the thingys came out and her hair flowed freely. It was a little more blunt than what I wanted, but I loved the way it fell on her shoulders. And the flip is back!

We went to the gym that day. The reviews are in: The younger set is taking notice now too, and they approve. I was informed that some of the other little girls were swooning over her new do. Mia, well she was thrilled!

She may not have the Salma-do I once envisioned, but I don't think she'll have any complaints about the one she does have.