Eva's Turn

After we left the gym at St. Stan's, she was very insistent that we call it Futsal and not Soccer. 

"They are not the same, Mommy.  You stop the ball.  A lot.  You stop the ball with your sole and you kick the ball with the inside of your foot."

She's still the same shy-until-she-gains-her-confidence girl that stands on the sidelines and watches.  And she still really doesn't like it when everyone watches HER, but after I yelled at her to go after the ball and she immediately kicked it in to the goal, she's already excited about what she can do.  She's hoping that at next week's scrimmage she can be on the team that gets to wear the little yellow pennies ("Our team didn't get to dress up this week.") but after just one session with Coach Thiago, she's already asking when she can go back and she's clearly disappointed that she doesn't have soccer, ahhh futsal, every day.

So Much Like Auntie Annie

She would not even let Jamie help her

When Ann and I were old enough to care, we would look through old photos that were scotch-taped into those sticky clear film photo albums and look back at the adventures we had as kids.  And inevitably it would come up that there were more pictures of me.  Where was the picture of Mom when she was pregnant with Ann?  Where was a picture of Ann riding a trike?  Why weren’t there any pictures of Ann with her face smeared with dirt in the backyard in Michigan?  The two pictures I recall of Ann’s childhood are one where she’s trying to guzzle from a capped beer bottle in the kitchen in Portage and another where she is holding up Aunt Judy’s pregnancy underwear when Julie was a few weeks away from entering our lives.  Ann didn’t even have her own baby book.  The seldom recorded statistics of her toddlerhood were scribbled in the margins of my baby book that had been filled out 2 years earlier.

It’s true.  Second kids get the short end of the stick.  And so it’s been with Eva.  She’s starting soccer and dance class and learning to ride a bike without training wheels and rapidly turning into a “big girl” right before my eyes, but none of those things have resulted in a blog post to celebrate the event.  None of these resulted in Mommy sitting down to reflect on how grateful and blessed she is to have this child and this life. 

Sam invited a friend from the Y over this weekend, and when the new mom, a mom I didn’t really know yet, saw Eva she kept saying “she’s adorable.  She’s adorable.”  And I thought, yah, I guess she is.  I’ve been so busy trying to balance the needs of two children while working full time that I rarely slow down and appreciate this adorable creature who is growing up right before my eyes.  I listen to the endless mom-mom-moms every day and hear myself constantly sighing and saying “just a second” more than I ever imagined I would, and when Eva wants to talk and talk and talk in the car I often just want a few moments peace without any noise.  But yesterday when I pulled up to the daycare and Eva wanted to show me how she could now ride a big girl bike without training wheels, I saw it.  I stopped and saw my daughter and her incredible determination and persistence and expressive joy.  And yes, she is adorable.

As was Annie. ( Even if we have very little photographic evidence of it.)

 

 Tiny Tots Soccer

 

 Creative Movement Dance Class

 Helping Mommy Plant the Spring Garden

 Fearlessly Loving Every Slide (big and small) at Great Wolf Lodge

 Doing Girlie Stuff with Brooklynn

 "I can do it myself!" is something she says often.

 Painting Her Own Bedroom Mural

 Skating with Harmony

 Hanging in the Tree House in Winter

 

Aunt Judy's Jeans and a Reindeer Shirt

As we race across the black asphalt to the school doors, Eva turns around and looks up at me.  "I'm so excited, Mommy," she says.  "You're coming to my show today."  In the car she told me that some kids would be wearing stars but she'd be wearing a hat and Harmony would have bells.  Eva's little purple shoes slide on the ice and she makes a happy "Whoooooooaaaa" sound as she catches her balance and then begins skipping.  Bubbly and excited and full of energy.  Climbing the stairs towards her classroom she doesn't seem to notice that every girl in the hallway is decked out in some bright red taffeta skirt and white tights and patent leather shoes.  A threesome I don't recognize twirls for each other in front of the office door, but Eva just skips past them in her red reindeer shirt that is probably already a size too small and the jeans she got from Aunt Judy over Thanksgiving.  Earlier I tried to talk her in to dressier black pants with white polka dots, but she insisted that she loved these pants from Aunt Judy the best.  What Eva wears when we leave the house is not one of the battles I've decided to tackle. 

At Mrs. Norton's classroom we are greeted by Stella and "the dad."  Most mornings we guess who will be there with Stella, "the mom or the dad," and even though Becky and Ryan are our friends, at pre-school drop off we call them "the mom" and "the dad."  Eva turns for her "kiss-and-a-hug" and then I walk away as she says hi to Mrs. Murray.  In the halls are more girls in frilly silvery holiday dresses, and I pass Harmony on her way up the stairs. 

"I'm in so much trouble," I say to Jamie.  "Every girl here is in a frilly dress.  I didn't know."  Harmony's very proud of her full dark red skirt with black lace.  Her big sister dressed up for a choir concert a few nights ago and Harmony could not wait to be girly too. 

"I might have one at home if you need something," Jamie says, and I tell her I think Eva will be fine.  I'll think about it.

But as I get in the car I start to cry, and I'm not sure why.  Is it because even at 4 my little girl is already going to start getting the message that looks are important, that what she wears will be studied and scrutinized and compared?  Is it because my little girl is growing up and entering the world where other mean girls might hurt her?  Is it because I feel like an epic failure of a mother because I didn't think that a pre-school singalong warranted purchasing an ensemble that included patent leather shoes that will never be worn anywhere else?

At the office I do the thing I do now when I'm troubled and torn... reach out to my community of facebookers, friends who will give it to me straight and tell me what I should do, whether or not I will actually listen to them.  Most people seem to say Eva will be fine.  She's strong and independent and she has a mind of her own.  But put a dress in your bag just in case when you go back for the singalong.

So I have the dress (minus the patent leather shoes) in my bag and my camera in my hand as the show starts.  But the dress is not needed.  My brilliant little angel with a white hat that is supposed to turn her into a dove walks in to the church and points her reindeer-covered belly at me and smiles while she sings from the front row.  And when we go to the basement for cookie decorating, she slurps up frosting and Mike & Ikes and runs circles around me as she seeks out all her friends.  And only then do I notice how many other little girls are in leggings and long-sleeved t-shirts and how many other mothers look exhausted but happy to spend a little extra time with their little girls who will be growing up way too fast.

Let's Goooooooo!

 

 

She woke up an hour early and headed immediately for the laundry room to find her purple polka dot dress and her pink flower pants "because that's special, right, Mama?"  She said she didn't want to eat anything.  "I just want to go.  Let's goooooo!"  When I told her that Sammy was still sleeping and we had to wait for him to get up and get ready she ran in and grabbed his feet.  "Sammy wake up!  You need to get up.  NOW!"

 

To kill time I tried to take a few pictures in front of the house but she threw her backpack at me and made crabby faces and repeated how she just wanted to goooooooooooo!  45 minutes before we needed to leave the house.

 

After just a little drama with Sam and his pants that have a button that he insists is simply too big for the size of the slot that it's supposed to fit in to, Eva ate half a banana and a homemade blueberry smoothie without spilling a single drop on her polka dot dress, and we climbed into the Mazda and raced to school just in time.  Before we'd even reached the parking lot Eva spied Stella's car and she wanted me to park by her friend, but Stella and her daddy didn't look ready to part, so we took a few pictures in front of the school and walked around the side entrance to find our way to Mrs. Norton's classroom.  I could hardly keep up with Eva as she bee-lined through the crowd of preschoolers and parents, and even the arrival of Stella couldn't slow Eva down.  Only when she discovered the classroom door closed did she pause and stand by me, chewing on her tongue and shuffling nervously against the wall. 

 

The classroom door opened and she shot in between all the parents and it took a while for Sam and I to finally reach her long enough to give her a kiss and a hug and say I love you.  And off she went to play with princesses and zoo animals and magnetic dress up dolls in wooden boxes.

 

My baby.

 

 

 

 

What We Do When It's 90 Degrees Outside

She Swims

 

Ever since the first time she went to the Aquatic Center, Eva has been calling the pool "Swimming Lessons."  Last year she climbed on the playground equipment and covered herself with sand and hung on her mommy while Sam completed Level 1 swim lessons there twice.  And this year Eva got to play in the water a few times during family trips and daycare trips.  So when I told her I had signed her up for real swimming lessons, she jumped up and down and clapped and squealed that she was going to go down the big slide at her lessons.  Three years ago I spent many days in the hot sun redirecting Sam to the water when he did pre-school swim lessons, so I wasn't sure what to expect with Eva.  She has never been afraid of the water, but she's also never been in a class of any kind, never been expected to sit in a circle and listen to directions and take turns.  During the last few days every time she told me she was going to go down the slide at swimming lessons I told her she needed to pay attention and listen to her teacher, do what her teacher told her. 

 

Aside from the weird peeing-on-the-cement-while-waiting-for-class-to-start incident, Eva's swimming lessons were unexpectedly delightful.  She sat in the circle on the cement as the instructor told them the rules and they all shared their names.  She followed the children in front of her as they lined up like ducklings along the side of the pool.  She raised her arms and pretended to be a tree as the instructor chopped her down and lifted her in to the water.  And when they gathered in a circle to listen to instructions on the proper way to make scoops out of your hands, Eva stepped in to the middle of the circle and faced the instructor and paid close attention as if she were the only child in the class.  She laughed through the bobs and kicked her legs fast and slow during red light green light and yelled for Sam to watch this watch this watch this as she collected the rings tossed out by Mic The Pirate.  When we got in the car at the end of the evening she was sad it was over because she wanted more lessons and she couldn't believe she had to wait a whole day until she could do it again.  "Did you see me Mommy?  Did you see?  I listened to my teacher.  I was a good listener. I listened to me teacher."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Takes A Village to Do a Family Race

There are some things that might be a little challenging as a single parent that I can still manage to pull off, but running in a race and then having my kids at the finish so they can run in the kids race immediately afterwards is not one of them. But thanks to a lot of friends who tag-teamed to watch my kids and entertain my kids and hold my kids' race bibs and tennis shoes and epi-pens, and basically just give me an overall secure feeling when my 6-year-old raced off in to the crowd by himself, all three of us were able to race in the annual BK5K.  Last year it was Sam's first big race, and this year even Eva got in on the action.  The strong winds that were forecast for race time never really materialized, and the sky just lightly spit on us a few times before the kids race.  Everything took a little longer than we expected (except my PR), but both kids ran the entire 1K and both kids beamed with delight at the finish line cheers and both kids got medals and both kids immediately told me they were hungry and wanted a slushy and a hot dog.  It turned out to be a beautiful day for a family race, and I am so grateful for our village of caretaking friends that showed up to make it all possible.