Lucky Number 7

Where were you seven years ago today?  Do you know?  Because I do.  I was at Cedar Sinai in Los Angeles in Labor and Delivery giving birth to my second baby.  Today is Miss Lana's seventh birthday.

Yes, every year I marvel at how old my girls are now.  I know it gets old, but damn I just can't get over how FAST this is all going.  Everyone warned me, but when you are chained to your house waist deep in diapers you just don't believe those people.  It wasn't until the girls started school and leaving the house from time to time that I thought maybe there was something to what those people had told me.  Now I work hard to take a minute every once in a while to commit to memory where my girls are in their lives and enjoy the great little ladies they are becoming.  Even if they are a pain in the ass every day as well.  

Earlier today I was talking to the mom of one of Lana's friends in her class.  This is a recent friend for Lana, maybe since December.  We didn't really hear much about her before, but then she and Lana started playing at school and it was, "Sienna this and Sienna that."  So naturally we invited her to Lana's little party tomorrow.  Well, it's not really a party, because we don't do big ones anymore.  We are taking her and 3 of her friends mini golfing then having pizza and cake at home.  No biggie. 

 This mom called to tell me that unfortunately Sienna wasn't going to be able to make it and she felt bad about.  I understand though, we always have things going on all weekend too.  However, her mom really wanted Sienna to come to the party to hang out with Lana and her friends, because apparently she  had some trouble with other girls in the class earlier in the year.  Problems like these other girls leaving her out of playing when they felt like it, and something about a point system that can only be reminiscent of middle school mean girls.  REALLY?? We are doing this in FIRST grade?? 

I felt so bad because her little girl is so sweet.  Then I realized how extremely proud I was of Lana.  Sienna's mom had told her to find some other kids to play with when this all happened a few months ago.   Apparently she approached Lana who welcomed playing with her without incident, even though she already had a group of girls she payed with.

I guess I shouldn't be to surprised.  Lana has never been one to exclude others from playing.  Granted kids gravitate to certain other kids and form little playgroups at school.  This is something that is completely natural and  we also do as adults.  I certainly have some mom friends I'd rather go have a glass of wine with over others.  It just depends on personality.  However, if someone wants to play in her group, Lana has never been one to say no.  The more people the bigger party for her.  In a time where there seems to be so many bullies and "mean girls", I am so proud that my daughter is not falling into those categories and that she is accepting of everyone.  

In the seven years I have known my Lana, I have seen what a strong personality she has.  She is loving and loyal.  She is brave and not afraid to do something that might make her slightly uncomfortable like this:

That was her audition for the play she is doing at school.  She sang it in front of about 30 other kids from the school most of them older than she is.  She sang every word, and the musical interlude in the beginning and in between just kills me!  

On the other hand, she can also be brutally honest(wonder where she gets THAT from) and a bit temperamental(or that?).  However, she has grown into such a lovable little girl who doesn't let much bother her and is willing to accept anyone for who they are. This past year with her has most definitely been the best.  She's learned to deal with her temper and found ways to calm herself down.  That's not to say we don't still have issues here and there, but less than ever before.  As she's grown older, she's learned to deal with her temper and her anger better and has become more loving and kind.  Six for Lana has been a dream.  I  only hope seven will bring us even better times. But no matter what it brings I love this little girl with all of my heart and I am so grateful to have her in our lives. Sure there were some rough times with her in the past, but looking back it doesn't seems so bad anymore.  Funny how that happens.  Just like how "everyone" was right about how quickly this goes by.

Happy Birthday Lana Lu!  You are the second of the three extremely brilliant shining parts of my life. 

One Is Not The Loneliest Number To Her

In a couple months the family is packing up and heading to Hawaii.  (Cue the Brady Bunch creepy idol HI music.) Try not to be to jealous of me.  Okay you can.  I'm totally excited about it.  This is not a trip we would have taken right now and definitely not taken in May, but Andy's good friend, Jamie, is getting married there and he asked Andy to marry him and his fiancee, Monique.  This will be his third time marrying a couple.  It's quite a little side thing he's got going. Anyone else want to get married?  He's up for hire.  We decided right from the beginning that this would be a family vacation, even though my in-laws were pushing for us to go alone so they could come take care of the girls.  However, that would go against my "I don't fly over water without my family" policy.  Don't ask.  It's part of my anxious neurotic side.  It worked out anyway, because they decided they also wanted Georgia to be their flower girl.

You might remember that the girls were in a wedding about a year and a half ago as flower girls and had a blast.  At the time I thought that might be their only opportunity to be flower girls, since my sisters and Andy's brother are already married.  Georgia is Jamie's Goddaugther though, and there are no other girls in his family or on Monique's side either, so we win!  Monique-(who I should mention here is an avid reader of my blog and a fantastic person, and not just because she reads my blog.  I really like her and think Jamie found a great girl.  Hi Monique!)-asked me a couple months ago if Georgia would be in the wedding.  I knew Georgia would be beyond thrilled and since we were already planning on heading to HI, of course I said yes.  She wanted to ask Georgia herself, so we set up a time where she and Jamie could come for dinner so they could talk to Andy about the ceremony and ask Georgia to be in the wedding.

The week before they came, I decided to tell the older two girls that Georgia was going to be in the wedding and they were not.  I knew that it would be better to prepare them, because they all do so much together and we try to keep things even, that I was afraid of how they might react if they were blindsided by this info.  I do not have a problem with just Georgia being in the wedding.  After all, she is Jamie's Goddaughter.  Sonya was supposed to be in my best friend Melissa's wedding when she was younger, but me getting pregnant with Georgia sorta messed that up.  I'm glad I know my girls well though and decided to tell them because Sonya got upset when I told her.  I told Lana a few days after  and she didn't get quite as upset at first.  Then a couple of hours later she was saying to me, "Georgia is NOT going to be happy that she is the only one being a flower girl."

"Oh no?" I asked.

"No she's going to be sad that Sissy and me are not doing it with with her," she told me.

I wasn't so sure.

Unfortunately, about three hours before Jamie and Monique came over, Georgia was hit with one of her migraines. Since I was making dinner and we weren't going out, we still kept our plans with them.  I figured they could still ask her even if it was in a pukey state.

Monique had made a cute little invitation on the computer asking Georgia to be her flower girl.  At one point in the evening Georgia asked to come out of her bed because she wanted to say hi to everyone.  It must suck to know that there is fun going on without you and there is absolutely no physical way you can participate.  I always feel so badly for her.  I picked her up and carried her out to the living room where she shielded her eyes from the living room light.  She gave everyone a meek hello and Monique told her how she felt bad for her.  But she had something that might make her feel better.  She pulled out the card to show her, and she lifted to head up for a minute to try and figure out what it said, but we ended up reading it to her.  I'm not sure she completely got what was going on, but she nodded her head yes, that she would be her flower girl and asked to go back to bed.  I felt bad for Monique, because it wasn't exactly the response I'm sure she envisioned when she was making the sweet card.  I knew once she felt better she'd get it though.

Two days after  her migraine when she was completely better, she found the card sitting on the counter and said,

"Oh!  Let me try thisth again!"

Then she read it out loud with a big smile on her face.

"Are you excited to be a flower girl?" I asked her.

"YESTH!" she exclaimed.

Then she said, "And just I get to be the flower girl!  Not Lana or Sthonya!  Just me!  I'm the ONLY one!"  She repeated this about five times over the next two days.

Sorry, Lana.  I don't think Georgia is upset at all about being the only one to do something for a change.  It'll be a nice opportunity for her to get out of the shadows of her big sisters.  Plus, we get to go to Hawaii, so you know, there's that.  I just hope we don't come across any cursed idols.  I would hate to wake up to a tarantula on my bed.  (dooodaleedoooo...)

Just Proving Further How Much She Is Like Her Father

Over President’s Day weekend, Georgia got a migraine.  That damn thing lasted almost two full days.  The first day was the worst.  Especially because the last 2 she has gotten have started around 5 o’clock in the evening.  This would be great if she would just go to bed and sleep all night, but no.  She sleeps until about 9:30pm and then is up every 20-25 minutes to throw up.  I end up staying in her bed with her because it’s easier than running down the hall every time I hear her start to cough.  Not to mention I don’t want to miss the throwing up, because that means more work for me what with changing sheets and bathing her at 2AM.  A task I’m no stranger to, but is not something I enjoy.  As you can imagine sleeping in 20 min intervals is not so refreshing for the next day.  Didn’t Kramer once try that on Seinfeld?  I seem to recall it not working out for him so well either.  Yeah, there is a reason we sleep for a solid block of time at night.  

The next morning when I finally decided it was time to be awake for the day and not just to hold the bucket for two minutes, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.  The good news was that unlike other times she’s gotten a migraine, we had nothing going on that day.  We could just chill at home while she slept and threw up.  Andy took the other two out to do some things so they weren’t cooped up all day.  

When she gets a migraine, this is what happens: As the day goes on and the throwing up starts to subside, she will get hungry and thirsty.  Then I start to try and get her stomach back to normal by giving her spoonfuls of coke and salty crackers of some sort.  Now before you give me crap about the coke, I normally do not let my kids have soda ever.  Even when they do have soda it is usually something caffeine free.  But for some reason the coke helps to get her body back to where it needs to be.  Go figure.  Also good advice for stomach bugs that won't go away. 

The salt in the crackers is the other thing she needs.  Last time the final thing that worked to get her back to normal was McDonald’s french fries.  I know, I know also not something my kids ever eat,  but damn did it work.  Just a side note: Why is it that two of the worse things you can put in your body are two of the best things to get her body back to being good?  I don't get it.   Anyway-the bigger problem is keeping these things down.  Her little body get so thrown off with the constant purging of nutrients, that it doesn't want to hold on to anything even once the migraine is gone.  So then she will throw up if it's to much to soon, which depletes her body further which can lead to her being dizzy again.  It's a vicious cycle. I'm still trying to figure it out.  Then when I think I do, it changes again.  

So this time she was in my bed watching TV as I was cleaning or putting clothes away, or one of the other 100 things I can never get done.  She was not feeling dizzy at that point and I had given her a bowl of crackers to try and keep down.  She had only nibbled on a couple and I walked over to her to see how she was doing.  

"How are you feeling?  Still dizzy?" I asked.

"No," she replied.

"Well, you should try and eat some more crackers then," I told her as I picked one up.  

"I had a little bit," she said. 

"Try and have some more," I encouraged and popped the cracker in my mouth.

"Well, I licked da salt off of one," she said looking at me.

"Which one?" I asked munching on the ritz.

"Da one you just put in your mouth," she smirked at me. 

I can't even begin to tell you how much she reminded me of Andy in that moment.  I doubt she had really licked any of them and even if she had, there was no way she knew exactly which one it was.  She did it purely to mess with me. Even in the midst of feeling so crappy, she was able to do it.  So looking forward to having two of them like that in this house.   

Learning Something New

Living in Southern California, you will always here people talk about how it’s so great because you can go skiing in the morning and the beach in the afternoon.  Technically that is true.  Well, the beach part we have down.  We all love going to the beach in the summer.  Skiing however…it’s not exactly my thing.  We have been up to Big Bear a couple times with the girls just to go sledding.  Every year we say we are going to take the girls skiing.  It’s so close and now is the time to teach them, right?  I might as well learn something new while we’re at it.  So back at the beginning of November I booked us at a hotel for MLK Jr weekend.  Too bad I didn't know then that we would be in the middle of one of the hottest and driest winters in So Cal history.  But they  make snow, and it still gets cold in the mountains at least right?  So we went anyway despite the fact that there has been no percipitaion since the middle of December.

We left after the girls got out of school that Friday, and I want to say it was about 85 degrees that day here in Burbank.  I had check the local forecast for Mammoth, which is where we were going, and it was to be in the chilly 60s during the day and the freezing 30s at night.  Stop laughing Megan Drew.  Just because your schools in Wisconsin have been closed for four days this winter due to unhealthy below freezing temperatures doesn't mean that 30 doesn't feel cold to some of us still.  I think that is the part that I find most fascinating about this winter.  Here we are in California with summer like weather for weeks, while the entire east coast has been under a pile of snow for a month.  My sister Beth is on her SEVENTH snow day!  She doesn't live in Wisconsin though.  Nope she lives in Virginia.  A place that MAYBE gets two snow days a year.  But Global Climate change isn't happening or anything.  Sorry, I digress.

Mammouth Mountain is about a four hour drive from our house and unfortunately, the girls fell asleep in the car so when we got there at 9:30pm  they were a bit wired and wouldn't go back to sleep until after 11.  Yay.  It's not a bad drive though.  And we definitely didn't need to worry about those chains I brought for the van just in case.  

View from our room.  Note lack of snow, but closeness to the lift!

Andy kept saying how there wasn't going to be any snow and it was going to suck.  I, being the eternal optimist, said none of us knew how to ski anyway and this would be a better way to learn.  Guess who was right?  (It's me in case you didn't get that, but read on to find out more.)

The next morning we got up, ate breakfast and got ready to go to our ski lesson.  I had booked us a private ski lesson for the whole family, because it ended up being the same amount if we would have all taken group lessons.  The girls had never done this and Andy and I have been before, but I don't really count the one time I went skiing over 20  years ago.     So ski lessons were definitely a must.

Funny side story about me.  It was my freshman year of college the last time  I went.  I had never been before and all of my friends who had been skiing their entire lives assured me it was EASY!  I would pick it up no problem!  I didn't need to take a lesson!  I was 18, so you know, I believed them.  They told me as long as I stayed on the green circle runs I would be ok.  So they took me to the top on the ski lift, showed me how to get off the lift and then promptly left me.  I stood at the top of that mountain with no idea how the hell to get off of it.  Eventually, one of the really tall frat boys we had come with, showed me  how to "pizza" my skis. Then he helped me by putting me in front of him and skiing down, much like they do with little kids.  You would have thought that would have been enough for me, but no.  I got down once I could do it again by myself this time!  Only  there was nobody with me to take the ski lift so I did it alone.  No biggie right.  I got this!  Toward the end of the lift,  I scooted my but to the end of the seat like my friends had shown me and went to stand up.  Only I never stood up for some reason, and the next thing I knew I was still sitting going back around to go DOWN the mountain.   Well I couldn't allow people to see me going down the mountain on the ski lift!  That would be much to embarrassing.  So I did the only thing I could think of. 

I jumped. 

Off the ski lift. 

Face down into the snow.

Yeah.

So, that happened.  It goes down as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. They had to stop the lift to help me up.  I wasn't too far off the ground when I jumped.  Maybe 8 feet?  So I was perfectly fine, except for my bruised ego.  I was done with skiing after that and hadn't tried it again since.  Andy and I did go snowboarding about 10 years ago and I did like that better, but the ski lift still gave me anxiety.  This time I was determined to have someone show me how to ski and try to do it for real. You know face my fear and all that.  

Back to the present!  So we got all of our ski gear and headed to the area where we would be taking lessons.  We weren't having them for a while, so Andy, who has a bit more experience than I do, helped the girls get their skis on and they practiced in a little side area for a while.  There wasn't really even a slope, but we just wanted them to get a feel for it.  They took to it quickly.  

I will be honest here and say I was a bit concerned about taking my girls skiing for a few reasons. Sonya and Lana. Sonya is a perfectionist and if she can't get something right away she gets frustrated and tears follow.  She doesn't want to give up, which will make her more frustrated and difficult to deal with, and that just leads to even more crying.  Lana will try something and if she doesn't get it right away or decides she doesn't like it she will just give up.  And not give two shits about it.  No amount of bribery will change her mind if she decides she doesn't want to do something.  Georgia will just follow whatever her sisters do.  She is very influenced by them and if left on her own would probably try and do well with just about anything.  However, if her sisters aren't doing it, then forget it.  So I had no idea how this was going to go.

The fact that it was 60 degrees was helpful.  They weren't cold.  Cold would have definitely made it worse. Especially for Lana who puts her bathrobe on and complains when the house is at 70 degrees.  

 When it was finally time to take our lesson we were all excited and ready.  Our instructor, Ken, was great and all three of the girls started picking it up fairly quickly.  Turns out I picked it up fast too.  By the end of our three hour lesson we were all on the biggest of the practice hills and Sonya, Andy and I were even picking up weaving in and out of the cones and turning.  The little girls were doing well too and Lana didn't even complain once.  I'm pretty sure that was a first.  

Lana and Georgia Pizzaing downhill.

Sonya getting the hang of it.  

Our instructor told us that Andy, Sonya and I were ready for the Green Circle hill that was right there next to us.  The little two, not quite, although they were getting it.  That particular run was two miles and for new skiers it would take at least 30 minutes to get down.  For  Lana and Georgia it would take about two hours.  He said it would just be too steep for the in certain parts.   

No matter, it was the end of the day at that point and they were soon closing the lifts, so we thought maybe we could try that hill the next day.  

The good thing about being in the mountains on a holiday weekend with not much snow is that it was completely dead.  There was no wait at restaurants and it wasn't packed with people everywhere.  It was great for us, not so much for the people who work there.  The next morning we got up and contemplated going to the other side of the mountain where there was an easier shorter run, but the run we were right next to was so close and the practice hills were better for the little girls.  

We practiced for a bit on the learning hills and then Andy decided he wanted to try the big run.  We asked Sonya if she wanted to go and amazingly she did.  She had been doing better than I thought she would, but she does tend to be afraid of things, so I wasn't sure she would do it.  They left, and for the next 40 minutes I was nervous for them to come back.   I pictured Sonya coming back in tears saying she wanted to go back to the room.   I distracted myself with practicing with the little girls and they started to get better and better.  By the end they were both weaving in  and out of the cones on the practice runs too.  

Lana taking a run, Georgia waiting

Snow/ice angels

Finally I heard Sonya calling for me and I looked up to see her smiling from ear to ear and waving excitedly.  She absolutely loved it.  I breathed a sigh of relief.   She loved it so much she wanted to do it again.  I decided to put my big girl pants on and brave the thing that gave me the most anxiety, the ski lift.  We went and ate lunch first, but after lunch Sonya and I headed right to the lift.  Turns out that thing is really fucking high in the air.  Turns out that I never thought I was afraid of heights, but I think I might be just a little now.  Turns out, my nine year old was less afraid than I was.  She was calming me down,

Me: "Wow!  We are really high huh? Breeeaathhe, juuust breathe...."

Sonya: "Mom (eye roll) it's FINE!"  

Me: "Ok but I have to get off of this thing too."

Sonya: "Oh that part is EASY!"

Oh sure maybe for someone who didn't JUMP OFF ONE 20 YEARS AGO!!!

Good news!  I managed to get off the ski lift just fine.  After that I felt better and wasn't worried about skiing down.  However...DAMN it was a looooonnnngg hill.  Because they hadn't had snow in so long, what was on the hill was not the best to ski on .  There were quite a few patches of iciness.  I had to "pizza" most of the way down.  Sonya was ahead of me a good amount of the time, looking like she came out of the womb skiing.  Since she had already been up there with Andy she knew which way to go.  That was good, because the last thing I need was to end up on a blue square run.  I would still be sitting on the mountain if that was the case.  We got to the bottom and my feet and ankles were killing me from braking the whole way down, but I had made it down and I was incredibly proud of myself and my daughter who had just done it twice! Plus, PLUS!  I didn't fall once!  I was done though.  Didn't need to go again.  

Sonya on the green circle run

Sonya and me on green circle

We found Andy and the girls and he decided he wanted to go again. Surprisingly, Sonya went with him for her THIRD time.  I was kinda happy just to do the practice runs again.  Not to mention I was extremely exhausted.  Then something weird happened.  I thought I didn't want to go again, but I started to get the urge to want to go again.  Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time, because it was the end of the day and the lifts were closing.  Plus Lana had decided about 15 minutes before Andy and Sonya came back that she was done.  Her skis were off and she was chilling making angels in the snow/ice.  I'm pretty sure Georgia would have continued to ski until it got dark.  She was having a blast.

After Andy and Sonya got back we returned all of our ski gear, since we would be leaving the next morning.  Then we went back to our hotel to sit in the hot tub for a bit before getting ready to go out for dinner.  

Later that night  when the girls had gone to bed, Andy and I talked about what a successful weekend it was.  Sure it's incredibly expensive, but I did manage to borrow all of our snow gear from friends, and really what's money compared to an amazing time learning something new with your family?  For me it was one of the best times I've ever had had with all of them.  It gave me a chance to be fun mom who learned something new with them, instead of naggy do your chores and homework mom.  It gave me a chance to actually sit down and hang out with my husband instead of cleaning the house and the kitchen until ten o'clock at night.  So was it the best skiing weather ever?  No, in fact I'm sure most people would say it was the worst.  But as far as I'm concerned though it was the best and I would do it again the same way in a heartbeat.  Okay well maybe a little bit more snow would be nice. 

A family of skiers!

Frozen in Song

Most of you who read this site have kids, or know my kids.  And if you have kids there is a 99% chance that you've seen the Disney movie Frozen sometime in the past few months.  And if you've seen the movie Frozen, you've heard nothing but the soundtrack on repeat since the Christmas music subsided at the beginning of the year.  Well, at least that's the case in my house.

Now let me just admit right here up front that I personally LOVED the movie.  I think it is probably in my top three Disney movies of all time.  I don't know if it was the fun music, or the fact that it's a story about sisters saving each other and not about a prince saving them.  But yeah, I loved everything about it and cried a good 40% of the movie.  I may have  been PMSing.  Anyway-right after we saw it, I downloaded the music and within two days the girls knew all the words to every song.  Okay, fine I did too.  We play it at home and in the car.  I will go through a day or two where I just can't listen to it anymore and within a day I want to hear it again.  I love to belt out, "Let it Go" in the car with the girls.  We have a blast.

One day last week we were in the car with Andy and I think he had enough of the soundtrack.  We weren't going far, just to Menchie's, so we drove with no music.  Then the girls started the soundtrack on their own singing a capella.  We took a break in Menchie's and they started right back up when we got in the car going from one song to the next in the order of the soundtrack.  I joined right along.  So when I found out that the El Capitan theater here in Hollywood was having a Frozen Sing-A-Long, it was a no brainer to take the girls.  This Sunday morning we will be singing our hearts out in the theater, and they are beyond excited.

A couple days ago I pulled out my phone and recorded the two little girls while they were home.  Georgia singing "In Summer" and the both of them singing "Let it Go".  Unfortunately my phone cut off the end of "Let it Go", but it was long enough.  You don't need to suffer through the ENTIRE song.  So for your entertainment pleasure, my own cast of Frozen....

I'm pretty sure we won't need to follow the bouncing ball or snowflake on Sunday at the sing-a-long.  We've got these songs down pat!

She's My Little Runaway

Hasn’t every kid at some point in time decided they were going to run away?  To be honest I don’t remember going through it myself, but I have heard stories from friends, and I kind of recall my sister Megan deciding she was going to leave at some point. A few weeks ago, Sonya decided she was done with this place.  

We were arguing about something.  Who knows what?  She wasn’t listening to me, throwing attitude my way and I was apparently annoying her.  It's been a trend around here lately.  I'm fairly certain that this is just a small glimpse into the teen years.  She was outside with her sisters pouting for a bit, but then she came in and went straight to her room for about five minutes.  I wasn't sure what she was doing in there until she came out to the kitchen to grab a pear from the fruit bowl and took it back to her room.  It was then that I realized what was going on.  

I walked over to her room and stood in the doorway where I found her packing up a small backpack.  I'm not sure what she had put in there, but I knew there was one pear!  She was smart enough to bring sustenance.   

"Whatcha doing?" I asked, trying my best not to break into giggles.

"I'm running away," she told me.  She was also doing her best not to laugh, because she knew that she wasn't going anywhere and she was being silly, but she was out to prove a point dammit!

"Oh.  Huh.  Where are you going?"  I asked.

"That's not something you need to know right now," she indignantly replied.  I assumed she wasn't telling me because she didn't know where she was going herself.  

"Well, that's too bad," I said.  " You are going to miss out on movie night tonight and the special surprise we are taking you guys to tomorrow."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Ok, well, I still love you and I'm sad that you're leaving," I told her.  "You are welcome to come back anytime you want."

She didn't say anything to me, so I left the room and let her continue.

It was then that the wonder twins came in the house and became curious as to what was going on.  

"What's sissy doing?" Lana asked.

"She's running away," I informed them.  

"Where is she going?!" They asked.

"I don't know," I said.  

They tried to go talk to her and find out her plans, but she wasn't giving anything up.  Then she marched out of her bedroom with her bag over her shoulder and headed out the door. She did manage a "bye" toward us over her shoulder as she walked out into the evening.
Keep in mind that it is around 5pm and starting to get dark and all of my girls are very much afraid of the dark.  I had a feeling she wasn't going far.  

The little girls ran over to the window to see where she had gone and reported that she was just sitting on the porch swing out front.   Lana started thinking about life without Sonya and asked,

"Hey mom! What are you going to do with her room?"

"Lana, she's not really going anywhere.  Don't worry about it," I told her.  

"She's leaving, she's leaving!!" They yelled.  

Apparently,  Sonya wasn't up for being watched so she decided to walk away in the hopes of making it look more real.  Lana bought it.  

"If Sonya really does leaves, I get to have her desk right?" She asked.  

"Lana...."  I gave her the 'that's enough' look.  Although I can't say I didn't laugh about that one later.  

I wasn't really concerned that she was really going far, but then I did start to worry that she might try and walk to one of her friends' houses.  Luckily that was about the time that Andy came home from running some errands.  He had run into Sonya in the driveway and she told him of her plans to run away.  He took the same approach I did and told her that was too bad, but wished her luck.  Look at us being on the same parenting page!  I gave me the rest of the story when he walked in the house.  

I continued to make dinner and let her go for a few minutes, but send Andy over to look for her out the window.  He couldn't see her anywhere so, okay, I started to worry.  I sent him out to see if he could glimpse her walking down the street. He started calling for her and didn't get a response but then found her just hiding behind one of our cars.  It was obvious she had no intention in going anywhere, just wanted to get a little attention.  I guess it did work for a bit.  

Andy coaxed her inside where she went directly to her room.  I heard her crying but he managed to hash things out with her. He's good like that.  Sometimes she and I butt heads so his intervening usually helps smooth things over.   I only hope it's this easy in six years from now.  She didn't want to go anywhere, and we worked things out, which was good for us.  Not so much to Lana's liking though.  She was really hoping for her own room with a desk.  Next time, Lana.      

Making Menchie's Proud

Several years ago I wrote a story on here about Sonya's gymnastics experience of climbing the rope. She was just five when she climbed that rope and so determined to do it.  Now she can climb that thing four times in a row.  Lana is still taking gymnastics but had yet to master the rope.  She would get about halfway up, look down and decided "forget it" then drop.  Sonya and I kept encouraging her to go all the way, but unlike Sonya, she just doesn't care as much about things.  She never got riled up about it or worried about it the way Sonya did.  She wasn't ready and really didn't care one way or another if she did it or not.  Just one of the major differences in those two.  Sonya will make herself crazy trying to do something and do it right.  Lana will do it when she's good and ready.  No amount of coaxing or bribing is going to make a difference.  She will care when she wants to.  The end. Although whenever she did get to the top, she knew she would get a trip to Menchie's, just like Sonya did.  

Then we went to Disney on Ice a few weeks ago and Andy is certain that is what sparked her interest of finally getting to the top of that rope.  There was a point in the show where Ariel spun and did tricks on a rope above the ice.  I did notice after that she was more determined to try and get to the top of the one at gymnastics class.  There were a couple of classes she almost got there, but I wasn't there to encourage her or see it, so she didn't quite get there.  

Then last week before class she said, 

"I'm gonna do it today! I'm going to climb to the top of the rope!" 

I made sure I was there by the end of class just in case, and damn if that kid didn't do exactly what she said she would. 

You might be able to tell from the video that there was a point she contemplated giving up, but I started my encouragement yelling and I  think that helped to keep her going.  Well, at least that's what I thought.  

On our way home that night as I was congratulating her and telling her how proud I was, I asked her if she almost gave up.  She admitted she did.  

"Why did you keep going, because I started yelling at you to keep going?  Did that help?" I asked, feeling like a proud supportive parent.  

"No," she told me.  "It was because I really wanted to go to Menchie's."

Nice.  Well, whatever it takes I guess!