I love this kid

I don't know if you ever have days like this, but this was a day that just affirmed how much I love my kid's personality. Some days really seem to grab me with what a great kid she is, how curious and thoughtful and just thoroughly delightful to be around. We went on a walk tonight after dinner, delivering some fruit salad to my mom and meandering around town because the weather was nice. I adore just hanging out like that, discussing inconsequential tidbits. I realize that some day in the not-too-distant future, hanging out with Mom is not going to be on her list of life's pleasures. I hope that I can stave that off for a while. I've never done this parenting thing before; I'm hoping that my kid will have a short rebellious period because I truly delight in her company and personality.

Monday night we took the dog to the vet. Somehow she had gotten injured, probably out at the shop, but that part is kind of up in the air. She had a gaping wound in her chest, about half the size of the palm of my hand, where we could see her muscles. It wasn't bleeding really, just open to her insides. So Stuart called a friend whose wife is a vet and checked to see if she would examine Muddy. Yes, on a Monday night at 8:30. Bless her heart, she said yes, so we all loaded up and headed over. L was so excited to go meet a "girl vet". Anyway, long story short, L got to help put stitches in the dog. That vet is AMAZING, a wonderful person - once L told her that she was interested in being a vet, too, she took L under her wing. She let her sterilize tools, explained every detail of what she was doing, let her help shave Muddy's fur in that area, offered to let her help clip off the dead skin around the wound (L turned that down in a hurry), and let her help put in the stitches and clip them. It was like L's own little glimpse of heaven on earth. She delighted in watching Muddy come out of her sedation and in listening to the vet talk about dog care. The vet showed L how dogs have a third eyelid, let her feel some of Muddy's bone ridges and her teeth while she was sedated, showed her parts of the ear canal, etc, etc. When we finally loaded up the L and the dog to go home, she collapsed against her seat and said "I DEFINITELY want to be a vet." I guess an experience like that will convert you to one side or the other!

Surprising my kid

One of the side effects of owning our own business is that L and I often get recruited to help run errands for the shop. This typically is no big deal; L actually likes going into many of the car parts stores for parts or delivering things. Yesterday, Stuart had to deliver a car to Wichita to be tested on the dyno. He had to drive the customer's car there, since it was lowered so significantly that it couldn't be loaded on the trailer. So L and I followed him in our car so that we could drive home with him. However, what we did not tell our dragon-obsessed child was that we were going to stop at the Warren Theater to watch the movie "How To Train Your Dragon". L has been fascinated with dragons for about 4 years, creates her own, collects stuffed animal versions of them, miniatures, etc. So she's been dying to go see the movie. And she's never been to the Warren, with the comfy plush seats, the tuxedo-wearing staff, the malt shop, the cool lights...an experience. So we pulled into their parking lot and she didn't even seem to notice - she was reading a magazine, and was apparently in her own little world. However, it was PRICELESS to see her face when she focused on our location and realized what we were doing - her little face seemed to actually shine with excitement. She was feeling a little car sick, so we went in and got a root beer and some popcorn to settle her stomach. I love being able to surprise her with new experiences like that - as an only child, she is privy to way more of the adult world than your average child, and as a teacher's kid, she goes with me to work every day. There is very little that goes on in our lives that she is not part of, so the experience of surprising her with a genuine "I-have-no-clue-this-is-coming" surprise was memorable.

Homemade Macaroni 4/2/10

So today was a rather lazy day for us - it is Good Friday, so we didn't have school. L and I slept late, played on the internet checking out funny Google map photos, etc, all morning. We went to town this afternoon, ran errands, stocked up on groceries for the next week - all of the necessities, which L tolerates, but not well. We stopped at the shop on the way home and dilly-dallied there, too - the point of all this is, we didn't get home until about 6, when we usually eat. And I had my heart set of making a specific new recipe tonight for dinner, one from The Pioneer Woman. Everything on her blog is amazing, and none of her recipes have ever failed me. I had my heart set of making her "Fancy Macaroni", so I gave L a banana to tide her over and made the macaroni. We wound up not eating until 7, but it was so worth it. Homemade macaroni with bacon in it - made from scratch with egg yolks and cream and butter and all of that good stuff. It was heavenly comfort food. So my family pitched in to help create it and then watched Cars on TV while it baked. I took dinner out to them in the living room when it was ready - yes, I know that isn't actually great parenting to eat dinner together in front of the television, but that's real life around here sometimes. At any rate, L cleaned her plate before I even sat down with my plate and my book. She asked for more, so I directed her to the kitchen to serve her own. She returned with a helping of macaroni bigger than her own head and said "This will do for now". I laughed so hard I couldn't eat, but she actually proceeded to eat every bite of it. I guess I'll chalk that up to appreciation for the recipe!
My other funny moment with L today was as we were sorting through her school papers from the week, deciding what to keep in her file box and what to recycle. There was a drawing that I could tell wasn't created by her, but it wasn't signed by anyone else. I put it in the recycle pile, thinking it was a note from someone or a mistakenly-picked-up paper, but she said, "Actually, I'd like to keep that. (Boy's name) made it." Well, that got my attention. This is the same boy that told her he really liked her a few weeks ago, and she told him that she thinks he's a really nice person, but she doesn't think she's old enough to like boys "that way" (thank goodness!) Anyhow, I was intrigued that she'd want to keep the drawing from him; I just said okay and moved it into the file pile. Then she said, "Actually, I was thinking we could give it to cousin G for his birthday - the drawing is kind of monster-ish and G likes monsters." Ahhh, that's better - not keeping it for the sake of sentiment, but RE-GIFTING it...

Lullabies

Nothing on earth makes me feel more mom-ish than being able to sooth my crying child by wrapping her in a cuddle in our "big blue chair" and sing to her to calm her down. Feeling her sobs slow down while her head is tucked under my chin, feeling her breathing slowly return to normal while she cuddles up while I sing "The stars are out, the moon is out..." - that's what being a mom is all about. My kiddo is growing up so quickly - I treasure these little moments where I still have the power to soothe her. I pray that I'll be able to retain some of that ability to make things better, to be someone she always turns to when she is troubled.

Friday 3/26/10, take 2

So today, after we went to the great Tanganyika Wildlife Center, L and I grabbed some fast food for lunch. McDonald's for L, since they currently have toys from the movie "How to Train Your Dragon" and my kid is dragon obsessed. She's been a dragon fanatic for years, so this movie is right up her alley. I think that we are going to go see it tomorrow and she's terribly excited. Last weekend, at Wal-Mart, we saw that they have stuffed animal dragons from the movie. That whole concept is akin to the holy Mecca for L - "stuffed animal" and "dragon" squashed together - life just doesn't get any better than that. Has she read the books? No. She professes to not realizing that the books existed...although I've brought them home to her before and she chose not to read them. At any rate, the movie has spiked her interest, which I guess is the best possible outcome. She is also supposed to be reading the Little House on the Prairie books as research for her gifted project, so I guess we'll see how that shakes out...
At any rate - back to the original story. We ate fast food, making 2 stops because I am anti-McDonald's for no apparent reason, but I do adore a specific chicken sandwich at Burger King, and lucky for me, a Burger King was next door the the Micky D's. So we ate our junky food and then L asked what else we could do. Our trip to Tanganyika was significantly shorter than we had originally anticipated - 2 hours, rather than the 3 or 4 we thought we might spend there - because it was stinkin' WINDY! The sun was out, it was sparkly-springy, probably would have been an outstanding day, if it weren't for that darn wind. The whip-your-hair-into-tornadic-tangles sort of wind. Unpleasant. So we visited the animals and split, with promises to return on a day with less offensive weather.
After searching the GPS for interesting things to do in the area - ("Cowtown? Nope - it's outside, and we just escaped that wind." "Art museum? Nope - not open today.") we decided to go to Old Navy. L has recently become significantly more interested in fashion, and in her own fashion in particular. So off to Old Navy we trotted, with visions of trying on clothes floating through our heads. I grabbed a couple pairs of jeans and then was tugged to the girls' section. L found about 100 things that she wanted to try on, which we narrowed down to about 20. Thank goodness there was no employee at the dressing rooms, or we would have had to make who-knows-how-many trips to the cart to try on our 6-items-at-a-time. Anyhow, to keep events in line with pretty much every shopping trip I've had since becoming a mother, nothing I tried on made me fall in love, and pretty much everything L tried on was super cute on her. I'm going to generalize and say that everything looks cute when you're her age, perhaps. Anyhow, she had chosen 2 specific types of jeans that she wanted to try on - flares and skinny-legs. I have been the "buy-the-jeans-at-Target" type of mom, where I get what looks reasonably cute and has an adjustable waist. My sins of omission are being pointed out to me now, by my child who has now discovered that Old Navy sells flares and skinny leg jeans. Which are "SO CUTE". And they are. She tried them on, and the expression on her face was priceless to me - so awed, so mature - "Mom, look at these! I've never tried on anything like this before and look how cute they are!" It immediately brought back that desire I remember feeling to fit in with what the other kids had, which sometimes was feasible and sometimes not. It's hard for me to have perspective about what's important here - is it important to have what the other kids have (within reason) to feel like part of the group? Is it important to learn about being an individual? Is this the way to teach that lesson? I can't imagine that she likes the jeans just for the sake of cuteness, but rather that she likes what they stand for. Ugh - I don't want to hyper-analyze my 3rd grader's every move, either. At any rate, we now own the jeans - one pair of flares and one pair of skinny-legs. And my thoughtful kiddo pointed out that they are both a little on the long side, and she'll be able to wear them all summer AND to school in the fall. :)
So after the shopping expedition, we went to Cold Stone Creamery for decadent ice cream. Ahhh, indulgence. I had amazing berry sorbet and L had - get this - blueberry muffin flavored ice cream with white chocolate chips. She ate about 1/8 of it. Then she asked me to remind her not to get it again. So, note to L in the future - no more blueberry muffin ice cream!
L and I made cake tonight - this would be after Stuart fell asleep on the couch - homemade applesauce spice cake. Actually, L started helping and then decided that she wanted some applesauce to eat, and absconded to the other room with a plate and the leftover applesauce. Anyhow, it turned out to be an amazing, easy cake - we'll be making it again. A dense cake with raisins in it, with a little powdered sugar sprinkled over the top instead of frosting. Yum...it's what L and I had before bed. As you can see, we have thrown nutritional monitoring out the window during spring break. We're living like indulgent, live-in-the-moment sorts this week.

My dog appears to be having some sort of mini-meltdown outside - I can hear her maniacally scratching in her doghouse, and my hubby has been asleep on the couch for 3 hours, so I suppose I'll go calm the dog.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Today is the last weekday of spring break. I was going to call it a bittersweet day, but I can't actually find the sweet in it - just bitter. I could happily partake of another week or two of time home with my family, taking life at a slower pace. So far this week, L and I have cleaned house, cleaned out closets, gone to the Hutchinson Zoo, the Wichita Zoo, and today we went to Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Goddard. We have taken the cousins to see "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" movie, and played at Grandpa & Grandma's house. I feel like the week has flown by, and I'm sad that I don't feel more refreshed from the time off. However, we had an amazing time at Tanganyika today. I was upset because my camera's batteries ran out not long after we got there. I had brought along some new, freshly charged batteries, and for some reason they didn't work. And the gift shop was out of AA batteries. So no photos. However, I realized how much more "in the moment" I was during our day when I wasn't photographing - much more invested in the activities. Life lesson. We got to hand-feed lemurs, feed the giraffes little pellets (although they wouldn't let us pet them!), feed the lorikeets little containers of juice (L got nipped by one!) and L fed the rabbits, too. We saw mama gibbons with tiny babies, baby penguins, red pandas, and, my personal favorite, the clouded leopard. If spring break has to end, this was a good note to go out on.