Delusions of... Everything

Sweet 16

I'm now the mother of a 16 year old daughter.  Not sure how that happened, but it did.  Time flies so fast.

This is after Handy Man took her to get her gift.  At least someone in the family finally got a laptop!

 

Last night was her Sweet 16 Birthday Party!  It was tons of fun.

I still can't believe she's 16!

Attendance

There is one thing that Dancing Daughter is going to find a challenge during the rest of her high school years and that is attendance.  She is an amazing student.  She does all of her work quickly and efficiently and she remembers to turn it in, something Star Wars Son had trouble remembering to do.  She does extra work to get honors credit in the classes that offer it.  She's well behaved in the classroom and participates in discussions.

Her downfall is attendance.  She's an active girl doing both dance and church activities in the evenings.  She frequently wakes up exhausted and feeling sick, stomach ache, headache, overall aches.  Many times I make her get up and see how she feels, then I insist she goes to school but tell her she can call me if she keeps feeling sick.  Sometimes, like the other day, when I wake her up she is just so exhausted she starts crying, begging me to let her stay home. 

It's really conflicting to me because she is such a great student.  When she misses school she makes up the work even if she has to stay after school to do it.  Unfortunately teachers have the option of lowering a grade based only on attendance.  She hasn't had one of those teachers yet, but I know she will at some point.

I know as a parent I should make her avoid activities that keep her out in the evenings, but she loves dance and church youth activities so much that I feel really bad suggesting she cut back on them.  Plus I have that whole, "she is such a great student", idea in my head.  It's hard to justify to her why she needs to cut back when she's getting a 4.0.

I'm relieved it's the end of the school year and I don't have to worry about it until the Fall, but it's a worry in the back of my mind.  Have any of you been in a situation with your children like this and if so how did you resolve it?

Celebrating

This has been a big week of milestones for our family.  So many changes and celebrations.

Wednesday:

• 10:00 am job interview for me
• 2:45 pm phone interview
• 4:30 pm we got word that the sale of our Des Moines house was final.

Thursday:

• 11:30 am a big old bunch of cash was deposited into our credit union account.
• 1:00 pm the very large 9% HELOC loan on our primary house was paid off!!
• 2:45 pm Star Wars Son presents his speech for the senior project graduation requirement.  (More on this next week where I will hopefully have a link for you to watch the documentary he made)

• 5:15 pm Went to Dancing Daughter's student led conference.  She totally rocked her power point presentation.  (More on this next week too!)
• 6:15 pm Went to the Pub for dinner to celebrate the sale of our house, SWS reaching all of his graduation requirements and Dancing Daughter being a confident amazing student.

Friday:

• NO SCHOOL!!
• 7:00 pm (doors at 6:30)  Big concert at our house!!  Yes we are crazy!  Yes we might regret this!  We are hosting three amazing local hard core bands in our basement tonight!  This will be SWS's band, Act of Bravery, debut concert!  The two other bands have played venues around the city and we are thrilled to have them playing at The Basement Breakdown!! 

Any local facebook friends reading this are welcome to come!  Message me for the address!  We need all the grown ups we can get.

Community Property

We are a community property family.  We have one computer, one TV and one camera that we all share.  Except for Dancing Daughter who can (and does) sit in front of the TV for hours, we don't watch much TV so there is no fighting waiting patiently for a turn.  Different story with the computer.  If I ever when I get a job I'm lobbying for computers for all!

We seem to share nicely when it comes to the camera.  Handy Man doesn't use it very often, the kids and I do.  I have done almost no picture taking since I was laid off.  The camera has not been neglected though.  The kids have been shooting up a storm.

Dancing Daughter found a treasure in her hamper...

 

Then she liked what she saw in the mirror (like her haircut?)

Star Wars Son (well his friend) has been using it to take pictures of bands for the myspace band pages he's been designing.

And yesterday a miracle happened.  The dog brought me his ball, he wanted very much for me to take a break to play with him.  He looked so adorable I just couldn't resist.  I grabbed the camera for the first time in weeks.

What do you love to do that you find sometimes gets pushed to the side when life gets in the way?

Heirlooms

Tracey over at Nine Acres did this really cool post about inherited treasures.  She suggested that if we, her readers, had a treasure from a grandparent to photograph it and make a post.  I decided to participate!

My maternal grandparents were very involved in my life.  I adored them.  I'm very thankful they were always there for me.  They are both gone now, but the treasures I have from them are many.  I have china, serving platters, jewelry, books as well as many other items all worthy of a post.  However my most precious treasure is this charcoal drawing.

This drawing always hung in a place of prominence at my grandparents house.  When I was a kid I always thought it was a photo of my grandpa.  They used to dress boys in weird clothes in the old days!  It wasn't until I was an adult that I found out it was a charcoal drawing of my great-grandma as a child.  My great grandparents died before I was born so I never got to know them.

When I was pregnant with Dancing Daughter I thought about my grandpa a lot.  He had died five years prior to that pregnancy, but I just felt he was always with me during that time.  Handy Man and I were having a hard time agreeing on a girls name.  One day I was looking out the window, not really thinking about anything and the name Emma popped into my head.  It was one of those "whoa" moments when I knew that had to be my soon to be born daughter's name.  Handy Man was not as convinced as I was, my mind was made up, I was just waiting for him to catch up.

The whole time I was in labor I felt my grandpa's presence.  I just felt like he was watching out for me and waiting for the baby to be born.  When she was finally born after too many hours and a major complication for a different post, Handy Man brought her to me and said, "Here is your Emma Christine."  She looked up at me with a mischievous twinkle in her eye and I gasped thinking, that is the same twinkle my grandpa had in his eye.

Now you might all think that's wonderful she taking after her great-grandpa, but they are not related.  My mom was adopted.  There was none of his DNA to pass on to her.  It was at that point that this non-religious person knew that my grandpa was my daughter's guardian angel.

About three months later I was talking to my mom about my then very elderly grandma.  They had been having the "who gets what when I die" conversation.  My mom and I each had things we were attached to.  My mom was very hurt because my grandma wanted to "give the charcoal drawing of grandma back to the Wyatts, since you are not a blood Wyatt... It should stay in the family."  After my mortification that my grandma said that to my mom (my grandma had issues) it hit me that it wasn't a drawing of my grandpa like I always thought.

Me:  Mom, who is that a drawing of?!!

Mom:  It's your great-grandma Emma

Me:     WHAT?!  Grandpa's mom's name was Emma??!!

Mom:  Yes, why?

Me:  I didn't know that.  Why didn't anyone ever tell me that?!

Mom:  I thought you knew.

Me:  Seriously?!  All this time I have a baby girl named Emma and no one mentioned the connection to me? 

Pfffttt... Families!

I'm going to do another post about how horrible my grandma treated my mom, but for now let's just say I made sure that drawing stayed with us when my grandma died.  I'm convinced my grandpa named my daughter.  That drawing will stay in our family for generations along with this story.  Emma and I talk about her great-grandpa a lot.  He would have LOVED her.  He was a dancer too.  He had a great smile, just like her, he used to drive my grandma crazy with his energy, the same way Emma drives me crazy.  He was an avid reader, just like Emma.  He loved kids, Emma loves kids.  Who knows, maybe there is a little piece of him in her after all!

The first thing I moved into our new house was that drawing.  I put it on the mantle and it has stayed there every day since.

Do you have any inherited treasures or is there an item you are looking forward to inheriting?

Distractions

My time on the computer is very limited because four of us share one computer.  Around our house it's harder to get time on the computer than on the one TV we have.  So when it's my turn I have delusions expect to be productive.  Yesterday I'd been sitting in front of the computer for almost an hour trying to put a post together, any kind of post, with no luck.  I kept thinking about stuff and being in front of the computer I was looking up the stuff I was thinking about therefore getting nothing written. 

Here is an example of what was distracting me.  While Dancing Daughter was making herself some food she was singing in the style of Tiny Tim.  Please tell me some of you remember Tiny Tim?  Tiptoe Through the Tulips?  She wasn't singing that song, but she was singing in that high pitched warbling voice.  It was a song made up at moment that said something about "what a great singer I am, so great I'm going on American Idol."  It was completely out of tune and hilarious.

I YouTubed Tiny Tim to show dancing daughter.  The first clip that came up was a performance from Laugh In, remember that show?  Anyway Tiny Tim was just as weird as I remembered him and DD had a good laugh.  My mind was working though... Seeing Rowan and Martin reminded me of the Smothers Brothers, don't ask.

I YouTubed the Smothers Brothers and saw a clip with George Harrison, it was a cute clip but I had to explain to DD who George Harrison was.  She knows (and loves) the Beatles music, she just doesn't know their names.  That video led to a Hey Jude performance by the Beatles on the Smothers Brothers show which we watched together and sang very loudly to.

This led to YouTubing more Beatles to watch and sing very loudly to, which we did... A Hard Days Night, I Want to Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, All You Need is Love and You've Got to Hide Your Love Away.  That was so much fun

Remembering that Pearl Jam covered You've Got to Hide Your Love Away for the I am Sam soundtrack caused me to search for that performance which led to finding Eddie Vedder solo videos that I HAD to watch.

Without all those distractions I wouldn't have written this particular blog post.  Not to mention coming up with posts for Sing-a-Long Saturday and Pearl Jam Sunday.  Sometimes a distraction is all that's needed.

Dancing Daughter

Who knew how much you would challenge me as a parent?

Who knew how dramatic and emotional one child could be?

Who knew one child could ask so many questions?

Who knew one child could eat so much pasta?

Who knew how much joy and happiness a daughter could bring to my life?

Happy 15th Birthday to my wonderful Dancing Daughter.

 

To see the photo of the day go here.

New Years Eve

The teens are invading our house this evening.  It will be the first time both my kids will have friends over at the same time.  It could be interesting.  Dancing Daughter and Star Wars Son are about as different as two people can be, yet so much the same.  Neither has any patience for drinking, drugs or smoking. 

DD is an active Christian who attends church activities twice a week (sometimes three times).  SWS is a self proclaimed atheist, although when pressured he will say that he MIGHT believe in the Force, which we all know is very spiritual.

DD is very uncomfortable hearing foul language.  SWS and his friends are all about the foul language. 

DD and her friends have no tattoos or piercings, SWS and his friends are all about the body art (not that SWS has any body art, besides pierced ears, but whatever).

DD is not into the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing.  SWS has had a few "serious" girlfriends.

DD wears a purity ring.  SWS.... Well whatever.

We are not really sure how many kids on either side will be showing up, but at least we have the computer back and running well.  While  one group is using the only TV we have, the other group can be on the computer or playing one of the 1,000 board games we have.

We have 3 half racks of soda, 5 bags of chips, many leftover Christmas cookies, meat and cheese platter, crackers, hummus, salmon ball, carrots...  And wine for me.  I think we are all set!!

This and That Thursday

Dancing Daughter has a Dancing Friend who had surgery last week for Scoliosis.  I took DD to see her in the hospital on Sunday.  She was in the PICU.  I'd never been in any kind of ICU before.  It was rough to see the cribs with little bundles inside.  Her friend was doing ok... She was a little medicated, but otherwise chatty. 

We joked that Dancing Friend wouldn't be shorter than DD anymore.  They expect her to get an inch to an inch and a half back in height.  DD thinks that's great!  I just hope she has a speedy recovery!

I've been a baking machine, but find it next to impossible to take pictures as I go.  My hands are always messy with flour or butter or any manner of goo.  I've baked 15 different items for our Holiday Open House on Saturday.  My freezer is overflowing with:

• Snowballs
• Fudge
• Cheesecake squares
• Chocolate pecan bars
• Snickerdoodles
• Heath bit Snickerdoodles
• Shortbread
• M & M cookies
• Heath bit, chocolate chip and pecan cookies
• Chewy Coconut cookies
• Pumpkin bars
• Double Chocolate Mint Cookies
• Rice Krispie Treats w/ M&Ms
• Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats with Nutella
• Date, pecan, coconut, cherry balls!!

Our annual Holiday Open House is on Saturday and I'm so not ready.  I still have food shopping and preparing to do, the bathrooms need to be cleaned.  The windows really need to be cleaned to, but if it's going to be cloudy I'm not going to bother.  I need to go to the liquor store.  Thankfully Handy Man has Fridays off, he's a great help with party prep!

On the other hand, I'm almost ready for Christmas.  Besides all the baking, all the decorating is done.  I've sent out my cards, I've almost completed my shopping, I've wrapped everything I have.  I'm still waiting for some online orders to be delivered.  I even have DD birthday present!  Her birthday is the 6th of Jan., right about the time everyone is partied out.

How are your Holiday preparations coming along?

Ms. B is Our Hero

I typed up a fairly long post about how Dancing Daughter has been doing in school and before I could publish it, *POOF* it was gone.  I'm not retyping it, so here is a condensed version.

DD:  I'm depressed, I don't like my new school, I want to go back to my old school.

HM & I:  You complained all last year about how much you disliked it there and how you didn't like the teachers, or the kids.  Remember the ranting you did about how you needed a bigger school?  How you needed more kids to choose friends from?  How Mr. W didn't teach you anything in math?  Remember how many times you said you hated that school?

DD:  Yes.  Can you get me back into that school?

HM & I: *SIGH*

Handy Man and I met with DD's counselor, Ms. B, last Monday (while we were supposed to be entertaining out of town guests).  We told her everything that's been going on with DD.  She was very helpful coming up with suggestions to help DD cope with the major differences of this very large and new environment.  She transferred DD out of a class she couldn't handle.  She hooked her up with a couple girls who are well matched for DD's personality.  She suggested she join the Key Club where she said there were kids like DD.

Dancing Daughter joined the Key Club and loved it.  She was thrilled to get out of photography and into ceramics.  She's excited about her new friends and even though they are older they are being very nice to her and sit with her at lunch.  She made it through last week only crying a couple of times, most importantly she made it through the weekend without having any kind of breakdown.

Handy Man said that if DD makes it through the first quarter of school and doesn't want to leave we are sending flowers to Ms. B.  I feel so blessed to have this wonderful woman advocating for DD.  I know it's her job, but wow, does she do it well!!!