Flashback Friday: The Friday Edition

Your first thought is probably that that is a little redundant, right?  But no, I've never done a Flashback Friday on a Friday before.  For reals.

I was headed to the gym the other morning, (but not too early, it's rare that I leave my house before 9:40AM)  flipping through those annoying morning radio shows trying to find an actual song, when a Ryan Seacrest type person started talking about the horror that was Kate Middleton recycling a dress that she had worn years before.  Ummm...ok?  There are real tragedies in the world, but you're right, children starving to death in Somalia is a little too depressing for a pre-zumba toning class.

Here's where I insert a random picture from high school that has nothing to do with this story:

So it reminded me of high school.  I was sitting in physics class, when the girl in front of me turned around and said, "Oh my gosh.  Do you see Carly over there?  She wore that outfit on the first day of school!"  And I was  all, "Are you kidding me?"  And I think she thought I was encouraging her or something.  In reality, I was thinking, "It's January.  Why the heck do you care that she's wearing the same thing and how the heck do you remember what she wore 5 months ago?"  And no, I never swore in my internal dialogue in high school.  Thank you John Bytheway.

So she goes on to tell me that she had a worksheet with all of her shirts listed on one side and her pants/skirts  listed above.  She could then x out an outfit; she allowed herself to wear a shirt more than once, but would never pair it with the same thing twice.  That way she could wear a different outfit every day of the school year.

So you know what I do, right?  I started wearing the exact same outfit every Monday until she stopped talking to me.

And it worked.  The girl has like 1300 facebook friends and I'm not one of them.  Probably because I recycled profile pictures or something ridiculous like that.

Five-year-old Heartache

Tonight Ashlyn came downstairs at 10:00 and started sobbing for "mommy".  

I went upstairs and laid down with her, stroking her hair and trying to figure out why she was so sad.  I asked her about school, and about her friends.  She didn't really answer.  While she laid on my lap crying, I had visions of having to beat up every single five-year-old in her class.  I don't like that she's gone for three hours every day, for the first time in her life I don't know what she does every single second.  Did I teach her well enough?  Does she know she's not supposed to pick her nose and not talk about poop?  I let her wear a crazy outfit today and paint a different color on every single finger nail and toe nail.  Did some mean kid tease her?   

But she loves school.

So is it the new baby then?  We went shopping tonight and we looked at little baby tutus, is she jealous?  She sobbed harder.  I figured we needed some good one-on-one time, so I proposed a date tomorrow night.  Just me and her and I asked her what she wanted to do...ICE CREAM.  She cried it and then started full body sobbing.

That's why she was sad.  We promised her ice cream tonight if she finished all of her dinner (6 cheesy noodles and 1 piece of broccoli).  She didn't.  So she didn't get ice cream, and she was heartbroken about it.

I'll admit that I was so relieved.  She fell asleep with a smile on her face after talking about all the toppings she'll put on her ice cream tomorrow night after she finishes all of her dinner.

Tonight I am grateful that my daughter is only five, and that I can still magically fix her problems.  And that her biggest hurt in life is rooted in ice cream, and I'm grateful that she'll still let me rock her to sleep.  That won't always be the case, I know it, so tonight I cherished every minute of it.

First Day of Kindergarten

Today was Ashlyn's first day of Kindergarten.  I didn't cry.

No wait.  I did cry.  After about three hours of Austin tugging on me telling me how bored he was and how much he missed Ashlyn.  He eventually fell asleep, with the same big frown he had on his face the entire time Ash was at school.

Ash loved it.  She especially loves art even though they haven't done any yet.  She sits between two boys and "didn't talk to anyone today."

Twenty-one days until preschool starts and then 4 blissful months of having 6 hours a week to myself...

Confession Time: Pregnancy Edition

I can still button my pants.

I'm pretty sure at this point with my other pregnancies, I was wearing maternity clothes.

I'm guessing it's not because I'm any smaller this time around, it's probably more because my regular clothes are just bigger.