Kindergarten

I did it. I let her go. I cried and cried the months leading up to it. I couldn’t imagine not being with her every day. I had a horrible time at kindergarten registration, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to harness the strength to go through with it. I was really scared about the school. It is 80% free and reduced lunch, which makes it a Title 1 school. I was afraid that meant Madeleine would be not as important because of other issues associated with low-income families. I was worried that she would be in a class with no one that spoke English. Fortunately I have a friend who’s kids go to the school, and she helped quiet my fears.

Leading up to the first day, Madeleine couldn’t wait to go to school. She had no fear at all. We found out who her teacher would be the Thursday before and got to meet her that same day. I felt like it was a tender mercy from the Lord, it ended up being the same teacher that my friend strongly recommended. Her teacher is an older woman, and she is fabulous!

Daddy gave her a father’s blessing the night before; and she went right to sleep. I however couldn’t hardly sleep a wink. I was so worried about waking up on time. Worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle getting up so early with a new routine. Worried how the next day would play out. The morning finally came and it went fairly smooth. We took our first day of school pictures, got in the car to drive to school and the rain fell. What a mad house it was at the school. I couldn’t even find a parking place to walk her in, and with it pouring, I didn’t really have the option to park far and walk so I finally illegally parked (praying I wouldn’t end up with a ticket) and walked her in. Along with helping Madeleine get settled, her teacher had asked if I would stay and help for a little bit that morning. There were two little boys that morning in tears of leaving their mommy’s. I was trying to comfort them, while I tried to keep my own tears from streaming down my face. I very well know it is a part of growing up, but growing up happens so stinkin’ fast. Madeleine was totally adjusted, it was me the blubbering fool. When I finally did leave the school, I was able to have my good cry. I cried for the next few days after that and finally the sadness went away. My good friend had a back to school brunch and that helped a lot that day.

Andrew and I both went to pick Madeleine up that day, I asked her what the best part of the day was and what was the worst part of the day. She replied that the best part was getting to eat lunch at school (I knew it! She loved feeling all grown up), but that the worst part was that no one played with her on the playground. Dagger right to the heart – Andrew even had tears at this point. We didn’t want to make a big deal about it, just talked about making new friends, finding those who might not have someone to play with too, and so on and so forth. I was devastated. I felt like the one thing helping me let her go was that she would get to play and have fun with new people and to hear she played all by herself was excruciating, however, she didn’t seem too upset about it. The next couple of days she came home saying the same thing – no one would play with her on the playground. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I walked her into school that fourth day to talk with the teacher and see if she could keep and eye out for her. Well that day she came home saying she played with a new friend on the playground (BIG WHEW!!!). I happened to be at the school that Friday, and I popped in while they were having lunch. Madeleine introduced me to her new friend, and I said, “Oh! I heard you and Madeleine like to play together on the playground.”, to which she replied, “Well I try to, but she is so fast I can’t catch her!”. That little stinker!

I’m trying to adjust myself to a totally new life. For the past five years I was home with her. Now I’m working through what to do with myself. I’ve joined the PTA presidency as a way to feel connected to the school and that has been very good for me, and good because it helps others to take interest in Madeleine and look out for her. I volunteer in the media center in school one day a week and another day I spend working in Madeleine’s classroom as basically a volunteer parapro (totally separate tangent, but it was totally a shock to me to learn that there are 22 kids in Madeleine’s class and 1 shared parapro for 5 teachers – seriously!). My volunteer work has been so fulfilling, but also mind-blowing as I’m working with some of these kids in her class who have zero concept of numbers and no clue about their ABC’s. I was working with this one little boy in the class on a uppercase/lowercase matching game, and I was trying to help him through the exercise. The little boy tells me that he doesn’t know his ABC’s because he has diabetes – ha! That’s a good one!

The first week of school Madeleine came home with a pink paper stating we owed money to the cafeteria. I questioned her about this because it would be impossible for us to have a charge, Madeleine brought her lunch every day. I was trying to solve this mystery, asking her if she took anything, anything at all from the cafeteria. She finally said, well I did get chocolate milk a few days. (Ding, Ding, Ding!) I told her that we have to pay for chocolate milk and she didn’t have the money to pay for it. She said, oh Mom, you don’t have to have money, you just tell the lady you don’t have any money and they give it to you! Well we got that all sorted out and that hasn’t happened since.

Madeleine is one of the smallest in the whole kindergarten, and spunky to match it. She got in trouble yesterday because she punched a boy. I was HORRIFIED! When I asked her why she would ever punch a boy, she said it was because she liked him – oh my! I made her write an apology letter so hopefully she’s learned her lesson.

Overall, I’m happy with my choices. I love Madeleine’s teacher. The principal of the school is amazing, and it has been so great to work a little behind the scenes. Oh and there ended up being only 2 out of 22 kids that were non-English speakers, I can handle that. Her teacher did tell me of one year a few years ago when she had 15 out of 21 non-English speakers – I can’t even imagine it.

When I was growing up, my mom loved having us at home. She would get so sad when the summer break would be ending because she truly loved having us around. That always meant so much to me. Especially since I am one of five kids all born in a grand span of seven years – she definitely had her hands full. I feel the same way. I love having my Madeleine with me all the time. It’s been hard to adjust with the majority of our time dedicated to school, but we’re making it work. Now the time we do get to spend together is valued and not wasted.

Madeleine sorting her school supplies in her classroom.

Madeleine’s class song

Doing her first day of morning work.

Madeleine’s cubby (they share with another kid in the class). Her teacher initially had her put her lunchbox in that slot until she soon realized how difficult that is for Madeleine (she’s so small!) so it’s been moved to another spot in the classroom. She also had to move Madeleine’s folder slot to the lowest point because she just couldn’t reach!

Madeleine in her new classroom.

2 weeks of Madeleine. I just noticed 7 different pairs of shoes – yikes!

Madeleine’s first homework assignment: to create an all about me poster. Okay, so I went a little crazy.

I’m a runner now

That’s right. Uh huh.

Although I did run track in high school, well, I was a sprinter and high jumper in high school and when my coach wanted us to do a 1 mile warm up, I would always make it seem like I was doing a 1 miler, but that NEVER happened! In fact even running 400 m was a stretch. Then in college I was motivated to drop my freshman 15 (more like freshman 20, hey, I’m an overachiever- okay?) I started to run on the treadmill at my apartment complex because, let’s face it, running in 0 degrees is never fun for anyone, I ran for about 3 months enough to quick and easy drop the excess LB’s and of course quit.

Fast forward a million years later (slight exaggeration), and here I am today. Freshman 15 was a thing of the past, now I have the life ##… well let’s just say I’ve slowly crept up the scale. I’ve tried a couple of times in the past couple of years to pick up running again with the couch to 5k (C25K) program, and the first time I did it about 2 years ago I got to where I could run 20 minutes – plateaued and then stopped. At the dawn of this new year, and I was officially fed up! I wanted to prove to myself I could do it again. I mentioned it to a few of my girlfriends, got them on board and we signed up for our first race. I began week 1 again on the C25K with my friends and family support. It stunk! So many times I wanted to quit, but I kept plowing through. The best thing about the C25k program is that it allows you to gradually build up to running for longer durations by doing walk/run intervals, which really helped me to avoid injury and keep the shin splints away.

I finished the training program in 8 weeks, which allows you to build up running for 30 minutes straight. Problem is, I can’t finish a 5k in 30min. So once I “graduated” from my program my next goal was being able to actually run a full 5k. My first time doing it, I ran it in 39:29, except I’m a ding dong and thought that a 5k was 3.2 miles instead of 3.1 so I had a little bit better time then that. I didn’t care what my actual time was. I was ecstatic I actually ran almost 10 minutes longer than the longest I could run. I’m slow as molasses, but it’s still faster than walking.

So a week ago I got to run my first race. I ran the Color Run here in Atlanta, and I’m so glad this was my first experience. It was very laid back, technically not really a race but a run since it wasn’t timed, but it was so much fun. Everyone starts the race in a white shirt. Every kilometer you pass through a color station where volunteers spray/throw powdered color on you. It was great for keeping me pumped, every time I would start thinking I would need to start walking I would see a color station up ahead and I kept plowing through. By the time I was finished I looked like I ran through a rainbow. Towards the end I was getting so winded, but I didn’t know where Andrew and Madeleine would be stationed watching me run by, so I knew I couldn't let them down by seeing me walk. I also wanted to add my own special touch to my race wear so I sewed my own sparkle skirt to run in, which turned out to also be a big motivating plus for me because I stood out, and as people were watching the race they would see the sparkly girl (who looked like she was on death’s door) and cheer me on, which made me feel pretty darn good.

Crossing the finish line felt AMAZING! I ran the whole thing without stopping. However I did feel a little gypped. As a reward to myself for finish the c25k program I bought a Garmin GPS running watch that tracks my mileage, time, heart rate, pace, elevation, viability– okay, never mind, but it does track just about everything! Anyways, I was watching my watch like a hawk so when I rounded the corner and saw Andrew and Madeleine I was pumped because my watch said I had about a 1/4 mile left to go so I was going to power through to the finish. However, they were right at the finish at only 2.88 miles, oh well, I still did it running, no walking, and the sense of accomplishment was HUGE! After you finish the race all the runners received their color packets and we had a color throwing bonanza. It was fantastic.

My next race is already on the horizon. I need a goal to work toward so I can keep up with my running. Another 5k in Atlanta in May, should be lots of fun and a little less colorful.

I’ve learned that running is hard. It is such a mental battle with myself to keep going. I think of a million and one reasons why I should stop, or how I hurt, but I also try to lie to myself and tell myself it will all be over soon, and almost always when my run is over I feel so great and feel like I can conquer the world and can hardly remember how crummy I felt running up that never-ending steep hill. I’ve also learned I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I have never – read NEVER – been able to get up early to work out. Heck, I don’t like getting up early to go on a really fun vacation – this girl appreciates sleeping in. However, I’ve been getting up at 6:45 to run, and I always wake up before my alarm – whoa, that has never happened before. My most favorite day I ran was a few weeks ago. It was early; I was running at my favorite park and right at the beginning this big athletic man passes me running. Well I strongly dislike being passed, okay I’m competitive even if I have no chance in h-e-double hockey sticks of running fast, it still peeves me. So he passes me, but I continue to run behind him about a hundred miles away. I ran at least 2.5 miles chasing behind him, and I was coming up to my very last 1/4 mile. I rounded the corner and there he was walking back towards me clapping his hands telling me what a good job I was doing, I about lost it! It made me feel like a million bucks – such a kind person to help me through.

So I’m a runner now. My 20 year old self would be so proud. Unfortunately my today self doesn’t lose the LBs as quickly as my decade younger self did, but that’s okay, I’ll get there. One mile at a time.

Cute Qwips

Madeleine’s teacher at church stopped me on Sunday and told me what Madeleine said in class the previous Sunday. The lesson was on prayer and how we begin our prayer by saying, “Heavenly Father”. Her teacher told me that Madeleine then announces to the whole class that Heavenly Father is not real to which one of her little friends in the class says, “yes he is, he’s a spirit!”. We had a little talk about Heavenly Father when she came home from church. I told her what her teacher had said and told her that Heavenly Father was indeed very real. She tried to tell me that “no he isn’t because I can’t see him”. I said to her, “Do you have a heart?”, she said she did, and I said, “How do you know you have a heart? Can you see it? Heavenly Father is the same. Sometimes we can’t see or touch something, but that does not make it any less real.”. – Wow! What a proud parent I was to find out she was spreading false doctrine at church!

Madeleine loves to blow me kisses, and they are my absolute favorites because she adds such a nice sound effect with her wind blowing the kiss. It makes me smile every time, no matter how busy I am. After she blew me a kiss tonight she said, “you can’t see my kiss, but it’s magic.”. You know what, she’s exactly right, those kisses are magic.

At 4.5

Why is it that time before Madeleine seemed to go at a snails pace and now it feels like it is on hyper speed? I despise it! I cannot believe she will turn 5 this year. Five seems so old to me. At 5 you are really no longer a baby, and then there’s that whole school thing – yikes!

I hope I can always remember how fun she is at 4.

We were at the grocery store the other day and this elderly lady came up and starting fussing all over Madeleine with how cute she was, patting her on the head, blah, blah, blah. She walks away and Madeleine says, “Uh, Mom, that grandma touched me.” . It totally had me in stitches.

Because Madeleine is so tiny she gets lots of looks anyways. She absolutely hates it when kids, obviously smaller than her will say, “what a cute baby” to her. She’ll look at me and say, “Why did they call me a baby?”. We were at the park on Saturday and I was letting her ride her balance bike (basically a regular bike, but it has no pedals or training wheels so it teaches you to balance, she just pushes off and picks her feet up to ride it) as I was run/walking the park. There’s one big hill on the backside and I let her ride down it. She was quite the head turner as she’s flying down the hill. Several people stopped me to ask how old she was or to comment how surprised they were to see a child so small balancing as she was.

Her favorite song right now is “Party Rock Anthem” because we have the Just Dance game for the Wii and she’s memorized just about the whole dance. She’ll put that song on repeat and go to town!

We talk very candidly about her adoption. She loves to hear how she was born. She knows she did not grow in my tummy because my tummy is broken. We were talking about it again one day and she said, “Mom, whose tummy did you grow in?”. Like, isn’t everyone grown in different tummies? She knows that she has a birth family that loves her so much, and I’m so happy she realizes that love is nonexclusive. My wish for her is she always remembers how special and loved she is by all.

We’ve been reading the Book of Mormon every night before bed, and she’s always the one to remind me to read. I love having her snuggled up to me in bed as she learns about the gospel.

I’m so very grateful that this special child is ours. I cannot imagine my life without her in it.

My other addiction

Since I’m full disclosure, I have another addiction.

I dream about this place. I can hardly contain myself while I’m there. The people know me there – like by name. There is no other place like it (that I’m aware of anyway).

Curiosity peaked? It’s Fabric World, yes, I’m a fabric geek like that.

As in true addict form, I spread my addiction to others so I’m less of an oddity. I tell the manager I’m ready for my advertising and commission check for the number of referrals I send to this place.

This is one of those places where it’s feast and famine, but I never leave without something. When it’s a famine, I’m still able to scrounge up some cheap notions like an 8 yard roll of pom pom fringe for $3, or buttons for a penny each. When it’s a feast, watch out! They get remnant fabrics from the fabric district in LA. Designer cottons, minky, home décor fabric. In fact on a normal basis there is nothing over $4/yd in the store – including the home décor stuff. However, when they have their really good remnant sales, it is only $2/yd. This is a no thrills store just fabric, and lots of it. I understand for many, the hunt and did thing is not there style, but for me it’s like a treasure hunt!

I hit a new low last time I was there because this stranger walks up to me and asks if my mom owns a bridal shop in Loganville (why yes she does), she said she and my mom got off tangent talking about fabric stores and that she was going to Fabric World. My mom mentioned that was one of my favorite stores and low and behold I was there when she ended up there. Caught like a deer in the headlights.

I’m usually in full manic mode while I’m there grabbing anything that catches my eye, so it took some incredible self constraint while I was there last to take some pictures with my ipod. Madeleine is always so good when we go, even though we, (I mean I) spend hours shopping. You can see her happily content buried in the shopping cart.

Because I sew a ton, and I have a little thing for fabric, it’s so incredibly difficult to have any form of control while I’m there. I can’t get fabric for that price anywhere! I get the bulk of the fabric for Madeleine’s clothes from here.

 

I keep threatening the staff that one day while I’m there I’m going to jump up on a table and start rolling around and throwing fabric like Uncle Scrooge in his money vault.

Love this place. I’ve banned myself for the immediate future, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it!

I’m a Shoe Addict–that’s the 1st step, right?

Okay, not for me. I don’t especially like shopping for shoes for me. I feel like I have gigantic feet (9 1/2), and I was always so embarrassed by them especially because I am not very tall. Shopping for shoes for Madeleine is a whole different story. I hope she’ll always keep her cute little feet. My weird feet wish for her is that she’ll end up a perfect size 7, isn’t the best shoes always a size 7?

Luckily, I am a bargain shopper. I make about 70% of all Madeleine’s clothes which works great for being able to perfectly fit her small frame, plus saves me a lot of money. However, I haven’t the foggiest idea how to make shoes, nor do I care! I get the majority of Madeleine’s shoes from the seasonal consignment sales in our area, and I scored big time last night! I spent a total of $34.50 on all the shoes in the above picture (minus the cute feet, they were priceless). The bulk of them were brand new with tags or hardly worn at all, and I got some fabulous brands (Nordstrom, Stride Rite, Old Navy). In case you were wondering, we have a thing for shiny shoes in our house.

My Woodworker

I have been so crazy busy lately! I am now in the primary presidency in my ward at church, and I was tasked at the beginning of the year to hold an 8 is Great or baptism preview for the kids who will be turning 8 this year and making the choice to be baptized. I drove myself crazy the weeks before getting all the details perfect. I made a baptism workbook for the kids with their name on it, and an information sheet for their parents on everything they would need to know to get their child baptized. It turned out so great! I was exhausted, the night before I stayed up ‘til 5:30 in the morning finishing details and then up at 7:30 for church. We sent out invitations to all the kids and their parents to come. I started the night with a baptism quiz for all the kids, then I had a little girl that I had been baptized last year give her experience, following which the Bishop did a mock interview. He was so cute and had all the kids go down to his office and sit in chairs all around his desk, and he told him the questions he would ask them in their baptism interview. Then he took them on a tour of the baptism font and even let the kids get down in the font – they thought it was the coolest thing ever!!! We finished up with a brief intro in the Faith in God program and Cub Scouts/Activity Days and had yummy 8 cookies and punch to finish out the evening. So glad that is over!!!

Next we have had the viruses that love to invade our home come back for a visit – seriously?!?! I’m so over this sick season, from the yucky, horrible cold we had to take Madeleine to urgent care for in November, Hand Foot and Mouth disease – the worst ever!, and now, as Madeleine calls it the pee pee poops, formerly the dee-ree-rahs, how fun for me. Especially when the pee poops decides to make a surprise appearance in the tub. How much longer ‘til spring?

In other randomness, I was helping Andrew do some things for work down in the basement (his new office) and he was motivated to do some wood work and called on his trusty assistant. Don’t let the video fool you, she was all about the drill press until she knew I wanted to video her doing it, that stubborn stinker! She eats it up being able to help her daddy. I sure do love this little family of mine!

Daddy’s Little Helper

Strawberry Shortcake

Ok, I know that Halloween was a ridiculously long time ago. However, I want to remember this past Halloween, if anything for the hours and hours I poured in to making the costume – ridiculous, I know.

I’m not the best “go with the flow” type mom – okay that’s not entirely true, just mostly related to what she wears. I know one day I’ll have to somewhat hand over the reigns and actually let my child decide what she wants to be for Halloween. Let’s face it, at 4 she changes her mind all the time anyway, so I’m just helping to guide her on the right path, right? Okay, not really, but while the fight is not too great, I relinquish control. When we were thinking about what to be for Halloween, we went through the possibilities of all the princesses, and I was looking for some inspiration. Cha-ching! It hit me. What about making an adorable vintage strawberry shortcake costume, like the one’s I played with as a child. Problem is, they reinvented Strawberry Shortcake to make her more current, hip, and cool – what’s up with that? So getting Madeleine convinced she wanted to be that Strawberry Shortcake was a little tricky. I checked out the vintage Strawberry Shortcake DVD at the library and had her watch it. That helped her warm up to the idea, but she still wasn’t 100%. She called it “the little Strawberry Shortcake” because in the old version their houses were all humongous looking cakes with gigantic fruits all around – something I never really thought about. I wasn’t deterred! I told her she would have the cutest purse and next year she could be … (fill in the blank, because you know as well as I that next year she’d come up with a different idea altogether). Done!

I of course should have planned ahead and started way ahead of time, but that’s not how I roll. I did paint the tights ahead of time. In case you were wondering, it’s near impossible to find green and white striped tights for little girls. So there I was the day of our church Halloween Trunk or Treat, sewing like a mad woman (and to set the scene further, going through some pretty intense miscarriage pains), but I was bound and determined to get it done! I did, just in the nick of time, and she LOVED how it turned out so that made it so fun. She won a best costume prize at church, which you wouldn’t think would be a big deal to her, but it was and that’s part of the fuel for my madness. Luckily the costume got tons of use – Ward Trunk or Treat, to preschool, dance, friend’s party, and Halloween itself.

Madeleine and Cammie Jane– they are cousins and close friends

Her token silly face…

So you can see the back detail. The pinafore was the biggest pain because I just had to make it up as I went. Really happy with how it turned out!

    

And so I have it noted for posterity, the year before she was Madeline from the Ludwig Bemelman books and I was Miss Clavel, the nun over the school.

I’m Baaaaaaaaack!

I know, it’s been a ridiculously long time. I’ve resolved to post over the course of the past 2 years (yikes!) and obviously did not succeed in those resolutions for whatever reasons, but here I am now!

As far as it relates to me, I think social media is a blessed and cursed thing at the same time. It’s incredible the relationships that can be made and fostered, the wealth of ideas and knowledge easily at your finger tips (huge fan of Pinterest!!!), and the ability to shrink our world so people and ideas are not as far away as they used to be. Say goodbye to the notion of long, lost, friends – hello facebook! With all the wonderful things, there is also the flip side of the coin. It can be such a black hole of time that I can get easily sucked up in. Public gossip, online drama, comments, followers, and overall constant comparisons to others can work against my general happiness and purpose, if allowed, and let’s face it, that can easily happen. I will never have the most friends, be invited to every activity, do picture perfect activities all the time, dress the best, go on the most exciting places, easily pop kids out on a whim (I jest :), but that is okay, because I really like me! I try to remember that often people show the rosy world to what there reality is, and that is not a fair comparison.

I bring this up because part of my hesitation in the past to post was my own self consciousness of what I contributed to my online presence. Must have amazing photography – check! Must have witty and grammatically correct writing – check! Must show interesting lifestyle – check! Avoid any view of less than perfection – check! What is THAT? My life is not perfect, now don’t get me wrong. I lead a pretty awesome life, but I have my own share of trials and heartaches. I am in the constant fight to remain positive in my miscarriage battle. I am not great at it. This past year I added another 2 miscarriages to bring my total to 8, and I’m not going to lie. It STINKS!!! I feel like I get the wind knocked out of me and it takes a while to build my resolve for happiness again, but I do it! Another secret, err, not so secret to those who show up to my house unannounced, I’m a horrible housekeeper. So I can make a mean meal, I can sew a pretty awesome outfit for my 4 year old, I’m pretty good photographer – these are my strong points to offset my faults.

My precious girl after church today.

In my blogging void, I have missed out on journaling what has happened in my family for the past (almost) 2 years. I hate that! I’m terrible about sending my family pictures, including Madeleine’s birth family. This is for me the best place to share, the good, the bad, and the ugly! So forgive me for bearing a little bit of my soul. I’m encouraging myself to put my best real self forward, if not for anything else, but for my family, and if I can reach out to some friends too, I would love it!

We’ve obviously stayed a family of 3, but our adventures increase. Because Andrew works from home now, we have the ability to spend a lot of time together, and I love it when Madeleine will say, “Hey guys, we’re a family, aren’t we?”. It’s like we have our own personal fan club.

Speaking of Madeleine it’s amazing to me to see how much she’s grown. She’s taken gymnastics ever since she was 1 and has really excelled at her gym. If you could see her cartwheel (bragging alert) I’m sure you would be amazed. She’s got an amazing talent for someone so little. Her gymnastics’ teachers love her and push her to work hard. She’s also taken t-ball and dance, but gymnastics is her favorite! She’ll start kindergarten next year whether I like it or not! I can’t believe how the past 5 years have flown by with her in my life. Time goes on warp speed with Madeleine, and I don’t like it, not. one. bit.

Madeleine with Ms. Janey 

Because of the housing market collapse our home remodeling company was no longer able to support our family and an opportunity presented itself last year for Andrew to work with a friend in his outdoor equipment company. Basically they sell all the backpacks, gear, sleeping bags, you name it to wilderness rehab programs. Andrew loves to work with all the different companies and research gear, it’s right up his alley!

Me, I’m just same old me. I really feel like I haven’t changed much over the past couple of years. I drive Madeleine to preschool, go to playgroup, sew, cook, take pictures, repeat!

So here I am, back to blogging!