The kids wanted to make a chalk outline of me tonight. Please tell me this isn’t an accurate representation.
Lily,
You are five now! FIVE! You’ve been looking forward to this birthday for the past several months and now that you’re finally five you’ve already started pining for six. Slow down, girl! I had to remind you that five is going to be awesome!
In the few days that you’ve been five you’ve already shown signs of being so much bigger than I expect. At the grocery store this weekend you proudly pushed your little cart around and helped me get the groceries. You said you had something to tell me later…or maybe you could tell me now as a secret. When I leaned down you confided that sometimes you like being treated like a grown up! It is fun sometimes, huh? You also impressed me by standing up for yourself at the splash pad when a bigger girl tried to take the sprayer you were playing with. SO proud of you for that and it makes me worry less about how you’ll stand up for yourself when you start school in a few weeks.
Speaking of kindergarten…Just a few more weeks until we start the adventure that is school! I’ve been trying not to talk about it too much because I think that clues you in that it’s kind of a Big Deal which can cause some anxiety. You seem to operate better when we don’t make things a Big Deal. A couple of weeks ago you made fast friends with a distant cousin that is your age. That also made me feel better about how well you’ll do with making new friends at school!
You’ve decided that you don’t want to do dance again this fall but have opted for gymnastics. I think you’ll really enjoy it. I think I’ll be a nervous wreck watching you learn to do flips.
We’re still struggling from time to time with getting you to pick up the pace a little bit. Meal time often stretches out upwards of 40 minutes. I’m thinking that the set time on school lunch will help with that little issue. You do seem to get sidetracked by watching yourself in the mirror instead of brushing your teeth and we’re not yet sure how to deal with this!
We’re also working on the issue of respect for grown-ups. You can get a little sassy at times so we’ve been having talks about respect and the right way to talk to people. Which, for the record, does not include sticking out your tongue, poking your nose in the air or calling us silly names. I don’t think this is something you will do to your teachers at school but we’re working on getting you to curb this with us too. All part of growing up!
So far, five has been awesome! You continue to crack us up with your sense of humor and I’m often moved by how sweet you are with your little brother. You guys do so well together and I hope that your relationship only continues to get stronger. I’m really excited to see what else FIVE has to bring!!
Love,
Mom
The Brazilian steak house was a hit. The meat hangover was not so bad on Sunday but it may have been masked by the lack-of-sleep hangover. Somehow the kids didn’t seem to care that we didn’t get in bed until 3:00 on Sunday morning. Oh no! They were still up at 6:30 on Sunday morning wanting to watch cartoons! And eat breakfast! And other such nonsense!
So, the restaurant was pretty cool. (BTW: Cameron thinks that ‘cool’ is the ultimate word for awesome things. You can’t say that something is nice or pretty or neat. “You mean it’s cool, mom?”) Best service I’ve ever had! We never had to ask for drinks or more rolls or anything. Lots of meat. Most of it was really good but there were a few things I didn’t really care for. And…I’m one of those well-done-lovers which I’m sure is frowned upon by actual steak connoisseurs. Whatever. Overall, it was great and I would go again for a special occasion or with a group of people.
After dinner we headed to a smokey bar (WTF, right? I thought almost everyplace was smoke free now.) to see some great rock ‘n roll! The show was awesome but there was that unfortunate incident where the lead singer apparently felt I wasn’t rocking hard enough (AKA: jumping around like crazy and doing wild air guitar/drums like the rest of the people there) and he actually called me out in the middle of a song. He was actually very funny about it and gave me his guitar pick as a peace offering after ‘picking’ on me. I really was having a great time and totally enjoying the show but 1.) I was completely sober, and 2.) it’s just not really my style to dance with reckless abandon (especially when I’m sober). Of course, I spent the rest of the show trying to demonstrate that I was, indeed, rocking out and felt like I was being critiqued by not only the band but the people standing around me. Great fun!!
1. We had a lot of fun over the July 4th weekend. Spent time with friends and family, ate good food and had a generally full but low key weekend.
2. Lily has started to notice boys lately. I’m not sure whether I think this is cute or scary. She seems to have a thing for NASCAR drivers so we’ve got that going for us. She’s told us more than once that she “likes his face” in reference to a couple of different drivers and recently told me that she liked the way a couple of boys looked. I asked her what she liked about them and she said that “they look cool like the race car boys.” *groan* I was hoping we had at least a few more years before she became boy crazy.
3. In other very interesting news…we got a window air conditioner for our play room. The room is above the garage so it just doesn’t say as cool as the rest of the house. Wouldn’t really be a big deal except our treadmill is in that room and it gets quite steamy when you’re doing a workout with the door closed. Now we can turn on the window a/c while we’re exercising and keep it nice and cool.
4. Cam is so in love with his Batman and Superman jammies that I’ve started doing a load of laundry mid-week just so I can wash them and not have to fight with him to wear Buzz Lightyear two nights a week.
5. Jason and I are having a date night on Saturday and we’re going to check out this Brazilian Steak House place. Apparently there are guys walking around the dining room with swords filled with various types of meat. There is a dial on your table that you turn to green when you want more meat to be delivered. You turn it to red to say, “Whoa! That’s enough meat for now!” Then back to green, and so on. I’m not usually much of a meat person but I fully expect to have a meat hangover on Sunday.
1. Cameron always, ALWAYS wants to listen to ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ by KISS and ‘Ruby’ by The Kaiser Chiefs. It’s OK by me if I never hear these songs again.
2. Lily has taken to chewing on her hair. I’ve threatened to shave it off.
3. I’m convinced they are the slowest eaters in the world. It routinely takes them upwards of 40 minutes to eat breakfast. This leads to lots of nagging and unpleasantness every morning as we try to get out the door to work.
4. Cameron can’t just go to bed at night. He’s often up in 5 – 10 minute intervals at least a couple of times after we tuck him in.
5. Lily must be channeling her adolescence because the girl is so very sassy sometimes. This, of course, lands her in trouble for making nasty faces to us and THEN when we follow through on punishment she tries to back peddle and swears that she’ll be good. Too late sister! You should have made that choice when I asked you the first time. So, we do this song and dance for a few rounds until she’s ready to accept our terms upon first offer. It’s exhausting.
