Weekend of FUN!

What a crazy weekend. It’s nice to be busy but it seriously makes the weekend feel nonexistent. And when you have to be at work at 9am on Monday morning (who am I kidding? It was probably closer to 9:30!), it takes away any downtime. Such is the life of most parents, I assume. On Friday night, we had Izzy’s end of year recital for her dance class. My $35 a month investment culminated into a festive little program where my child preformed at a higher level than I could have ever expected. I was so proud of her! Of course the evening started out with mucho drama. Daddy Man took Izzy to dance class three weeks ago in her black toe shoes and they are now MIA. Daddy Man took Izzy to dance class last week in her white toe shoes and alas those were never seen again as well. So you can only imagine my panic on Friday night when I pulled out the costumes and neither had shoes. I will take some of the blame as I should have made sure much earlier in the week that I was good to go but if Chasey could just abide by the system of labeled Ziploc bags attached to each outfit....no sense reliving so on with the story. I tore the house apart and couldn’t find either pair. So I jumped into my car and went to Payless only to find out that in Idaho Falls you can only buy nude color dance shoes and only their Pocatello stores carry the black and white shoes. I can only imagine the look I gave the clerk that explained this to me though in retrospect this was in no way her problem and I hope I wasn’t mistaken for rude. At this point I was beyond upset but my dear friend Paula came to the rescue and without even being asked, called Ms. Janelle and explained that a remiss male had come into contact with the dance shoes and while he was being severely punished, Izzy still needed replacements. While I am sure Ms. Janelle was super annoyed because every class she stresses the importance of keeping all your stuff together, she was very sweet about it. So Izzy got to dance. Chase was out of town, so my dad filled in for the Cinderella song. And the whole night was very precious.

The next day, Izzy went to Cheer Camp! And she hated it! Knowing how high strung my child is, I had great hesitancy about dropping her off for 5 hours. Especially because she went to bed way late the night before and she is not always pleasant when tired.

And I should have listened to myself because out of 57 Dancing Princesses, my dancing princess was the only one who refused to participate in the parent performance. Until about halfway through when she haphazardly wandered out on the floor.

I’m sure the cheerleaders worked extra hard for their $12 when it came to Izzy. Afterwards Izzy told me “I wanted my ‘erleader to call you but I didn’t know your number. Why didn’t you teach it to me?” My instinct was to say “Because when I make my getaway, I want it to be a clean break” but in reality I said, “We will start working on it.” So far she knows 8-5 but unfortunately neither number is actually in my phone number. I do have to mention that later that night she did start screaming "Let's GO! Red, black & white" and stamping around like a wild animal being weaned off Ritalin. She was jumping so hard, she almost broke my coffee table in half.

After that, we went to Jade’s end of year dance recital. They held it at the Colonial Theater so it was pretty high class. I put Izzy in charge of taking pictures and this is what we got.

Do we know any of these people? No. Did we get any pictures of Jade dancing? No. So we will just have to rely on our mental pictures. But Jade did a phenomenal job and was definitely one of the best in her class.

Next we went to see Shrek 4. I don’t have any pictures because I assume its highly frowned upon to bring recording devices into Edwards Theaters. But guess what happened?

Cam Cam rolled down the stairs. And the proceeded to scream her guts out. Up until this point, I have been able to take her to the movies and she would sleep the whole time. Not anymore. It is safe to say that it will be a few years before I take her back. But Izzy loved it. Cam Cam was having fun crawling up and down the aisle until the stair incident. We spent the rest of the movie watching from the hallway.

Now put all of this together with not sleeping so well, getting called out of church a few times for a disgruntled baby and trying to cook and clean for a family of 4. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm going to miss this one day...

Self Therapy

I was going to save this blog from becoming my pitying grounds but I can’t help myself. I miss my mom more that I could ever express and I still don’t feel like I have even “recovered” in the slightest ways. These days it may be easier to put a smile on my face for a few hours but I still have a Grand Canyon size hole in my heart. I honestly don’t feel as though I will ever be able to move on. I actually don’t really want to. I want my mom back. I still feel like when I hit the breaking point, when it becomes absolutely too hard to do this for one more second, my mom is going to come walking through the door. Some nights when I’m sitting at home alone after the kids go to bed, I just stare at the ceiling and cry. It’s very isolating to have a husband on the road three weeks a month and only a 4 year old and a baby to keep you company. Those are the moments where I want to pick up the phone and call my mom. And tell her things like...

Izzy learned to ride a bike!

Cam Cam learned to crawl!

And then learned how to use a computer the very next day!

Izzy is still taking pictures

But there are no more phone calls. There are no new memories to add. There are no redos. This is the reality I have to face and don't want to. What makes me the most sad is looking at my little beings and knowing that they will have no idea how loved they were. I just wish things were different.

Dance, Dance, Dance!

I have tried for the last few days to upload the video of Izzy and Chase dancing, but it is not meant to be. I will keep trying. If you want to see our little dancing queen in person, you are in luck!

Her final performance is Friday, May 21st at Sandcreek Middle School at 7pm and admission is FREE.

Hope to see you there!

The Teeth

I know I'm not one of "Those" Moms.

I don't worry about being perfect.

I don't worry about being 100% nutritious 100% of the time.

I don’t make my kids eat all of their dinner before dessert (unless we are invited guests at someone’s house but that is more bare minimum common courtesy).

I don’t keep my three year old within an arms distance at all times. In fact, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to send her to the restroom alone in the restaurant (I know I may be alone is this belief but telling her to look for the stick figure that looks a like a girl works AT LEAST 75% of the time).

I try not to hold myself to a higher standard that I could realistically accomplish. This is for my own well being.

And I expect Izzy to brush her teeth twice a day on her own initiative. I refuse to nag.

Sometimes I look at the Stepford Moms (as I lovingly call them) as they switch up a perfect hairdo for ANOTHER perfect hairdo in between dance and gymnastics (because you can’t possibly expect your child to perform mediocre tumbling routines with a ponytail because it CLEARLY requires a migraine inducing, eye splitting, tight tight tight bun instead) and I kind of wish I had their drive. It’s not a jealously thing, as most of you know that I’m lucky if my child is there with her underwear on the inside of her clothing, but more of a content notice that things are different. I really have no desire to be that parent. Honestly I just want my kids to be happy, productive members of society who make good, ethical decisions.

Wow, this is a long lead in to this post but in my relax parenting method, it never occurred to me that it was time for Izzy to go to the dentist. I didn’t really think about it until it came up with my dentist that I had a three year old that has never been. And I kind of got yelled at. More like firmly reminded that good dental hygiene needs to start at an early age.

So off Izzy went.

And things went really well.


Surprisingly.

I was convinced that I was going to have something funny to blog about so I kept calling Chase for an update. And he kept saying that it was just moving forward like expected.

Sigh.

Some days I can’t catch a break. The only out of the ordinary thing was that Izzy insisted on keeping her prize token instead of trading it in for a toy because it was shiny. The kid is like a raccoon. The dentist said her teeth were some of the best three year old teeth he has ever seen. And not one cavity or even irregularity. And so I am affirmed that I am doing something right and I don’t even have to stress myself out on a daily basis.

But I haven’t given up hope that I will get a funny teeth/dentist blog post because have you seen these redneck teeth?

Surely Cam Cam will deliver. I mean, seriously, what baby gets the outside top teeth before the front two? It’s not normal.

Whether She Likes It or Not

Poor little Cam Cam. Lately she has become Izzy's little sidekick. Whether she likes it or not. Izzy tells me, "Cam Cam wants to watch TV with me." Well folks, does it really look like Cam Cam is a willing participant? I tried to explain to Baby #1 (Izzy) that Baby #2 (Cambri) will get more out of crawling around and exploring new things rather than being held against her will in one place. Alas little Izzy does not understand. She thinks that little Cam Cam is a doll and should just do what she is told to do and stay where she is told to stay. I have a feeling that Izzy is going to be a leader all her life and Cam Cam will be her loyal subject (whether she likes it or not).