We had a fun time with my friend Barbara and her family this week...they stayed with us during the fair since they had cows at the fairgrounds and our house is far closer to the fairgrounds than theirs (3 vs 25 minutes!). It was a houseful of chaos and craziness and it was obviously distracting because now that they are gone, I miss my girl!
Yes, the mom that is gung ho to send her kid off into the wild blue yonder to experience all life has to offer still misses her girl! We would be leaving early tomorrow morning to go get Bryn from camp if she were in a one week session like we had originally planned. Instead we still have a week to go before we go get her. And since the email and letters haven't been flowing in our direction, I am just needing a little reassurance that I haven't scarred her for life by sending her to camp for two weeks at the tender age of 8. I guess I better start saving for her therapy just in case.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Animal Camp Round 2
Bryn is back at camp. She had another picture taken with Cherry Cola (the llama), met a hedgehog, a baby wallaby and a baby lynx on the way into camp, secured another bottom bunk in the same cabin that she was in last time, has a nice bunkmate and has 3 of the 4 counselors. And is hopefully really, really healthy!
We have a busy week coming up here at home...more meetings with pool guys and landscapers (ugh...this process has been painful and seemingly never-ending), some houseguests for a day or two, an oil change for the van and a couple of playdates (for Mom and Grant!).
Bryn passed Level 3 swimming lessons. She was pretty excited as this was try number 3. Grant was thrilled to be able to play in the toddler pool while she was taking her lessons and he even shared his toys with the other kids in the pool. Of course he still screamed bloodyn murder when it was time to get out, but I suppose I have to take what I can get!
We have a busy week coming up here at home...more meetings with pool guys and landscapers (ugh...this process has been painful and seemingly never-ending), some houseguests for a day or two, an oil change for the van and a couple of playdates (for Mom and Grant!).
Bryn passed Level 3 swimming lessons. She was pretty excited as this was try number 3. Grant was thrilled to be able to play in the toddler pool while she was taking her lessons and he even shared his toys with the other kids in the pool. Of course he still screamed bloodyn murder when it was time to get out, but I suppose I have to take what I can get!
Friday, July 16, 2010
Better
Things are looking up. Lots of fun adventures to pull me out if my funk.
On Wednesday, Aaron and the kids and I went to a dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. It started out well enough with a littel fossil digging...
Bryn happpily posed with the animatronic Triceratops and Parasauralophus
Grant, however, though the big, loud moving dinosaurs might be the scariest thing ever.
We ate dinner at Fritz's (a hamburger place where a little train delivers the food). Grant thought this was a vast improvement over the dinos.
On Friday, we shipped Bryn off to Grandma and Grandpa's house and I went out with the girls. Nice dinner and a trek over to the casinos where I managed to only lose $8.45. Not too bad for an evening of entertainment.
On Saturday, Aaron and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary. The years are flying by - it doesn't seem possible it has been 11 years already. I am truly lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful husband. I don't tell him enough how great he is. We went to eat at the Webster House and had what was possibly the best meal I have ever eaten. Shrimp and grits, salmon, gruyere mac and cheese, fried green beans...Yum. I had no idea there was a place in Kansas City with such good food. We came home and watched The Hangover - hilarious.
Looking forward to another busy week. Reality TV night with the girls, swimming lessons, meetings...guaranteed to keep us all on our toes and me too busy to be sad!
On Wednesday, Aaron and the kids and I went to a dinosaur exhibit at Union Station. It started out well enough with a littel fossil digging...
Bryn happpily posed with the animatronic Triceratops and Parasauralophus
Grant, however, though the big, loud moving dinosaurs might be the scariest thing ever.
We ate dinner at Fritz's (a hamburger place where a little train delivers the food). Grant thought this was a vast improvement over the dinos.
On Friday, we shipped Bryn off to Grandma and Grandpa's house and I went out with the girls. Nice dinner and a trek over to the casinos where I managed to only lose $8.45. Not too bad for an evening of entertainment.
On Saturday, Aaron and I celebrated our 11 year anniversary. The years are flying by - it doesn't seem possible it has been 11 years already. I am truly lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful husband. I don't tell him enough how great he is. We went to eat at the Webster House and had what was possibly the best meal I have ever eaten. Shrimp and grits, salmon, gruyere mac and cheese, fried green beans...Yum. I had no idea there was a place in Kansas City with such good food. We came home and watched The Hangover - hilarious.
Looking forward to another busy week. Reality TV night with the girls, swimming lessons, meetings...guaranteed to keep us all on our toes and me too busy to be sad!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Some days are like that...
I am not sure exactly what has me down, but I have been on the edge of sad for a few days. I spilled over sometime last night and am stuck now. Temporarily, I am sure, as these moods always seem to pass. But I am not gonna lie - I am in quite the funk.
It all started with catching up on Deadliest Catch. For those of you that are fans, you know what is coming. I don't know what it is about Captain Phil. Maybe the sometimes longish hair reminds me of my own dad (although I am pretty sure that Dad never crab fished and I am very sure that he doesn't cuss, drink or smoke quite as much as Captain Phil). Maybe it is the way he cusses his sons yet loves them fiercely. Maybe it is the way he lights up at a practical joke or a good bit of fun. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know when I heard that he had died, I broke down and cried like he was an old friend. Watching the shows leading up to his death and knowing what is coming for him and his family just makes me so darn sad.
Which brought to the surface the sadness that lingers for my friend Krista. Her husband's 37th birthday would have been today, but instead of being able to celebrate his birthday with him, she took her kids to their shrink so they could work on processing his death. How can that be right? It is nothing but just plain sad.
I am sure I do not even have to mention that turning on the news or picking up the newspaper is just plain depressing. Missing children, war, disease, oil in the Gulf, people arguing over politics.
Discussed with a friend tonight the death of her only daughter, which happened 3 years ago. No weddings, no grandkids, no more Mother's Day presents. Heartbreakingly sad.
Can't a girl catch a break? I know there are wonderfully lovely and happy things happening to me and around me all the time. But some days the sad things just seem to outnumber the happy.
Here's hoping for a little more sunshine and a little less rain tomorrow.
It all started with catching up on Deadliest Catch. For those of you that are fans, you know what is coming. I don't know what it is about Captain Phil. Maybe the sometimes longish hair reminds me of my own dad (although I am pretty sure that Dad never crab fished and I am very sure that he doesn't cuss, drink or smoke quite as much as Captain Phil). Maybe it is the way he cusses his sons yet loves them fiercely. Maybe it is the way he lights up at a practical joke or a good bit of fun. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know when I heard that he had died, I broke down and cried like he was an old friend. Watching the shows leading up to his death and knowing what is coming for him and his family just makes me so darn sad.
Which brought to the surface the sadness that lingers for my friend Krista. Her husband's 37th birthday would have been today, but instead of being able to celebrate his birthday with him, she took her kids to their shrink so they could work on processing his death. How can that be right? It is nothing but just plain sad.
I am sure I do not even have to mention that turning on the news or picking up the newspaper is just plain depressing. Missing children, war, disease, oil in the Gulf, people arguing over politics.
Discussed with a friend tonight the death of her only daughter, which happened 3 years ago. No weddings, no grandkids, no more Mother's Day presents. Heartbreakingly sad.
Can't a girl catch a break? I know there are wonderfully lovely and happy things happening to me and around me all the time. But some days the sad things just seem to outnumber the happy.
Here's hoping for a little more sunshine and a little less rain tomorrow.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Catch up
We had a nice 4th and enjoyed hanging out at the neighborhood party. The rain put a little damper on the fireworks although Bryn declared that it was the best 4th of July EVER! The kids ran around in the rain and splashed in the puddles while the adults huddled in the garage and watched!
Bryn started twilight Girl Scout camp this week. The bus picks them up at 1:30 and drops them off at 9 pm. She is having a blast.
I am battling some kind of cold/infection. Yuck. Lots of nausea and sore throat and headache. Woke up a zillion times last night either freezing cold or sweating like crazy. Hopefully it is the same thing the kids have had and it will be over as quickly for me as it was for them. I did get some good rest yesterday since Aaron was sweet enough to come home from work early - I have the best husband ever!
Bryn's behavior has continued to be stellar....no getting out of bed and virtually no whining or complaining. It is like a little slice of kid behavior heaven around here. For the time being, anyway!
Bryn started twilight Girl Scout camp this week. The bus picks them up at 1:30 and drops them off at 9 pm. She is having a blast.
I am battling some kind of cold/infection. Yuck. Lots of nausea and sore throat and headache. Woke up a zillion times last night either freezing cold or sweating like crazy. Hopefully it is the same thing the kids have had and it will be over as quickly for me as it was for them. I did get some good rest yesterday since Aaron was sweet enough to come home from work early - I have the best husband ever!
Bryn's behavior has continued to be stellar....no getting out of bed and virtually no whining or complaining. It is like a little slice of kid behavior heaven around here. For the time being, anyway!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Hooray!
It worked! At least for now! After about 45 minutes of wailing and arguing and crying (and getting no where) after being told she was going to miss the party and have to pay for a sitter by selling something or doing chores, Bryn pulled herself together. She didn't mention it again, had a good time beating the sitter at the Great States of America game and stayed in her room/bed all night long! Hallelujah! I would love to think it will all be better from here on out and we will never have to do anything like this again, but I realize that is unlikely. But for now, I am thrilled and highly impressed with Bryn's behavior choices!
The downside of last night is that Grant proceeded to have a temperature spike and start barfing shortly after we got to the party last night (we planned on getting home early to get Bryn to bed, but not that early!). He was up a couple of times in the middle of the night (so much for enjoying the fact that Bryn wasn't waking us up!), but he seems to feel a lot better this morning. And we had some more evidence that he is growing up...he said "double u" this morning instead of "ba do do" when W was the letter of the day on Sesame Street. :(
The downside of last night is that Grant proceeded to have a temperature spike and start barfing shortly after we got to the party last night (we planned on getting home early to get Bryn to bed, but not that early!). He was up a couple of times in the middle of the night (so much for enjoying the fact that Bryn wasn't waking us up!), but he seems to feel a lot better this morning. And we had some more evidence that he is growing up...he said "double u" this morning instead of "ba do do" when W was the letter of the day on Sesame Street. :(
Friday, July 2, 2010
We'll try this, I guess.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. We are about to employ some "natural consequences" (aka Love and Logic) for some ongoing behavior issues starting with Bryn and once we get her straightened out, we will be moving on to Grant. Poor kids.
I already blogged about the sleep issues we have been having. For a little over a week, we have been telling her that as long as she goes to her bedroom at 9:00 every night, she is free to do whatever she wants as long as she doesn't come out of her room and bother and/or wake us up. She has been up until at least 11:30 every night reading, playing Nintendo and doing whatever it is that 8 year old night owls do. One would think that this would make an 8 year old night owl happy enough and she would therefore leave her tired parents alone between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am. One might also think that she might realize that when she is dead tired when we drag her out of bed at 7 am that she should go to sleep earlier. Not so. And the battle continues.
Since I haven't yet figured out the consequence for not staying in bed, I am coming down hard on another behavior issue. There have been some problems with exclusion and some mean behavior when Bryn gets together with other kids (really only two sisters which makes a group of three, which any female knows is an absolute recipe for disaster!). Anyway, instead of going to their house tonight for their 4th of July party, Bryn will be staying home with a sitter and figuring out how to pay her. Since she doesn't have any money since she hasn't been doing her chores (yet another issue), she will have to sell something worth the $25 it will take to pay the sitter. I am sure you will be able to hear her screaming all the way to Pennsylvania when we tell her.
Now, I might be making it sound like I have a horrendously ill-behaved child, and that is far from the truth. In fact, she is a sweet, smart, funny kid. But she needs to become a sweet, smart, funny adult and since it is my job to make sure that happens, we are going to work on the little things before they become big things.
Wish me luck...
I already blogged about the sleep issues we have been having. For a little over a week, we have been telling her that as long as she goes to her bedroom at 9:00 every night, she is free to do whatever she wants as long as she doesn't come out of her room and bother and/or wake us up. She has been up until at least 11:30 every night reading, playing Nintendo and doing whatever it is that 8 year old night owls do. One would think that this would make an 8 year old night owl happy enough and she would therefore leave her tired parents alone between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am. One might also think that she might realize that when she is dead tired when we drag her out of bed at 7 am that she should go to sleep earlier. Not so. And the battle continues.
Since I haven't yet figured out the consequence for not staying in bed, I am coming down hard on another behavior issue. There have been some problems with exclusion and some mean behavior when Bryn gets together with other kids (really only two sisters which makes a group of three, which any female knows is an absolute recipe for disaster!). Anyway, instead of going to their house tonight for their 4th of July party, Bryn will be staying home with a sitter and figuring out how to pay her. Since she doesn't have any money since she hasn't been doing her chores (yet another issue), she will have to sell something worth the $25 it will take to pay the sitter. I am sure you will be able to hear her screaming all the way to Pennsylvania when we tell her.
Now, I might be making it sound like I have a horrendously ill-behaved child, and that is far from the truth. In fact, she is a sweet, smart, funny kid. But she needs to become a sweet, smart, funny adult and since it is my job to make sure that happens, we are going to work on the little things before they become big things.
Wish me luck...
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