She Was Just Born Yesterday...Right?

I swear, and I’m not kidding, it was yesterday that I was in the hospital giving birth to my daughter, wasn’t it? I mean, I can remember it all like it just happened yesterday. There’s no way this much time could have passed without me realizing it, or at least the events of that day getting the slightest bit foggy, right? Then how is it that she starts kindergarten tomorrow? This isn’t right, it can’t be here this soon. She can’t be starting kindergarten tomorrow if she was just born yesterday, can she? Yesterday, she looked like this…
I remember checking into the hospital, not knowing what to expect. I remember them hooking me up to all the monitors so we could hear her heartbeat while she was still inside. I remember them telling me it was time, and to get ready to push. I remember holding her in my arms for the first time and being completely overwhelmed with love I didn’t know was possible. I remember looking into her eyes for the first time and feeling completely at peace with the world, knowing that I helped to create a miracle. I still swear that was yesterday.

Now tomorrow, I’m supposed to send her into a building made of brick that looks like a school, with a gymnasium that smells like a gym is supposed to smell, and a cafeteria that looks like a cafeteria is supposed to look, along with 600ish other children and a handful of teachers, none of whom I know anything about, and walk away without shedding a tear? Not a chance. There will be tears, and they won’t be hers.

I wouldn’t put it past my over-confident first born (newborn) to stroll into that building like she owns the place, without even a second look back at mom and dad. Knowing her, she probably will own the place soon. Or at least think she owns it. Her attitude gets her into (and out of) interesting situations all the time. But then, yesterday she couldn’t talk yet.

I still can’t believe that I just finished writing her name on what seems like 15,000 different back to school items, carefully putting them all in her backpack in preparation for tomorrow when it was just yesterday we were trying to decide what her name would be.

Tomorrow she starts kindergarten. Tomorrow she starts her school career. Tomorrow I will cry. Tomorrow I will smile and be proud of my daughter. Tomorrow will be the start of another chapter. But yesterday, she was my baby.

Fishing Stories

Well, once again I seem to have dropped the ball when it comes to blogging. Darnit. I’m sorry. This raising kids thing takes up more time than I thought it would when I decided to dip my foot in the childbearing pool. Please forgive me, and try to understand… (Facebook doesn’t help either…that takes a lot of time to update as well.)

July is almost upon us, and we now have 3 camping weekends under our belts for the summer. We’ve managed to get the camper out at least once a month since April and finally feel like we have the set up and tear down orchestrated into a fine tuned and efficient performance.

On the latest trip R1 was allowed to use live bait on her fishing pole for the first time. Last year we practiced casting with only a weight on the end of her line. This year was a different story altogether.

Ryan, Dad, Len and R1 all went down to the lake to fish. R1 was borrowing a Barbie Princess fishing pole from Ryan’s “collection” of fishing poles. They baited her hook and she cast out her line. Not 2 minutes go by and she ends up with the catch of the day. Her first Bass.

Since we weren’t sure of the limits on size, we put the fish back, just to be safe, but she will forever remember her first fish!

With her imagination and luck, she’ll be telling fishing stories with the best of them very soon. Keep checking the blog for updates!

-A

Rodents and Roatan

Wow. Sorry. It’s been awhile since the last post. I always promise to do better, and then life gets in the way. Let’s see…what have we been up to that I can sum up in one neat little package called a blog post?

Today, being Groundhog Day, the media has been obsessed with discussing the mental state and hallucinations of some silly rodent in Philadelphia. So what if it saw a shadow because today, after almost forgetting what the thing is called because it hasn’t been visible for 8 weeks, the silly sun decides to shine. So we’ll base our spirits on the news that the overgrown rat saw its shadow, which somehow scientifically affects the weather and will make it cold and snowy for at least 8 more weeks. We’ve already had one of the snowiest winters on record, so what’s 8 more weeks of the depressing white cover that quickly turns into disgusting sludge along the side of the roads and under the car? (and inevitably ends up as splatter on the back of my pants when I'm trying my best to tiptoe through it in the parking lots...grrr)

My mind is taking me back to the first week of December. I was in a much happier place then. See folks, our family decided to head south. (and I’m not talking within the U.S.) When we go south, we really go south. We went on a cruise (again) to the Caribbean. The weather was WARM (what’s that like) and while Omaha was getting slammed with the first 12” of snow for they year, we were on a beautiful sunny beach in Roatan. My biggest complaint of that day was I forgot to reapply sun block after my massage on the beach. Oh what I’d give to go back there again now.

R1 is now officially a seasoned cruiser. She thinks any vacation begins once you set foot on a boat. Deuce travelled very well also. He enjoyed the sunshine and played some in the water. His favorite part was watching the ocean go by while sitting on mom’s lap on the balcony of our room. It’s in those moments that all was right with the world. (for both of us)





(Or maybe it was this moment, when he napped on the beach after his beach massage...)



We travelled with both sets of our parents as well as some friends. All together (counting the kids) there were 14 of us in our group. We danced, dined and dove the week away. It was beautiful and fantastic. We made memories that will last a lifetime. It was one of the best Christmas gifts we could have possibly given each other. Who knows, it may become a tradition. Let me know when you want me to start planning for next year! It’s only 10 months away!!