Just Let Mommy Nap On The Balance Beam

Charlotte is taking two classes now. Correction. Charlotte and I are taking two classes. Since Charlotte is only 2 1/2 years old, both her gymnastics class and her first dance class are Mommy and Me classes. I get the whole concept, spot your child, staying close in case of meltdowns, potty breaks, etc. But I am 48 years old! I didn't take gymnastics when I was two, ten or twenty. I am not limber, flexible or dainty in any way. I have not really danced since twenty years ago when I went out with my single friends, and even then it was painful and usually in a circle, terrified you would be thrown into the middle for a solo.

But I do it. I get out there. During warm ups, I am stretching my creaky knees right next to my little girl,  lifting my legs into a "table. I run behind her on the trampoline, hoping we (me) doesn't fall out.  We walk  the balance beam better than a Breathalyzer victim.  I even swung on the rings last week. I can't breathe or walk at the end of this class, and by the time the kids are getting their hand stamped and giving their goodbyes, I need help getting back up. But we do it together. It is worth every minute of momentary pain, because you should see her smiles. Six months ago she wouldn't do a thing in this class, just tears. Now she is amazing. She is  practically running down the beam, doing splits, tumbles, and lifts her legs to her chin on the bars. The whole time just smiling and laughing.  I am so proud and thrilled that she is so happy taking the class.

At dance (Princess Class!)  we march around the room, fly like planes, swivel our hips, and "kiss" our ankles to make first position. We dance with scarves, rolls on mats, learn taking our turns, and of course we spin! Spin until we are dizzy!  I may add I am the only mother out there. I guess that is the advantage of being 48. You don't care how silly you look. But Charlotte for some reason is afraid of the music and will only participate if I am out there. Once I do it with her, she is happy.  So I do it. As spastic as I look, I will keep doing it until she is comfortable. As long as they are not filming these classes, I'm good. They don't film them, do they???

When Charlotte turns three, Mommy is out. Most classes the Mommy can just sit in a chair and watch their three year olds. In fact I think the Mommy just gets in the way. I wonder if Charlotte will know how much I will miss it.

After her first class, sans bow, which lasted 5 seconds. 

Sleeping Beauty

 Sleeping snuggly with her dot blankie and her Snow White Baby, her favorites, with her head always on her ladybug pillowpet. Such a pretty sleeper!

Apples, Pumpkins , & a Hayride

It's that time of year again. We have been taking Connor to the same farm out east for many years, and now Charlotte too. First it is always a hayride to where we pick apples and then to a different farm for pumpkins, mums and a bay of hale. We always try to go early since the apples go fast and Connor wants THE BEST pumpkin. I think we did pretty good.

No one said anything about a lecture

Really! She wanted to hold the bag!

So who is going to pull this thing?

And We're Back

 

Connor is back on the soccer field and Peter this year is the team's coach too. So back to the park Charlotte and I go. We are lucky that most fields have an adjacent park, otherwise a certain little sister would be trying to "play" goalie. They should let her, who would kick a ball past this cutie face!!!!

You Know It's Fall When...

Is it fall when coffee shops have  pumpkin spice muffins ? When mums are for sale at school? When  Yankee candles are  filling the air with an apple cider aroma? Kids falling into piles of crunchy leaves?

No, not for me!

When the new fall collection of Vera Bradley's bags are out. My sister bought me this one as gift last last week. I love it!!

Blue Skies

Many people have noted today that the weather here in NY is absolutely beautiful. The sky is a vivid blue, light breeze, tremendous sunshine. Exactly the weather 11 years ago. You couldn't help but think that, because that day started as beautiful as today.

I was sitting in my office on Long Island when the first plane hit . Thinking like most it was a small plane that somehow was just going to cause minor damage to such a large iconic building. I was speaking to my sister who was home watching TV news when the second plane hit, she hanging up right away to get in touch with my brother in law who thankfully left downtown NYC as soon as the first plane hit, from experience in the '93 bombing. Then our office crowded around a small black and white TV in my bosses office (a beloved man who passed away last year from cancer) as we watched the towers fall. All of us so stunned, shocked, and scared. Thinking of those we knew, those who knew firefighters and first responders heading into the city.

By noon we closed the office and everyone headed home. We had many closings in NYC city that day we cancelled. Real Estate and the economy were so strong then, but no one cared about closings for a while after that.

I remember driving home to my apartment in Northport, which was on the water in a harbor town, everything looked so pretty, but felt so wrong. The radio  reporting the events going on 50 miles away, it was surreal.

Months before,  a friend of my sisters had a corporate apartment in Battery Park City which was around the corner from the Twin Towers. I stayed there with my parents a few times and by myself with my dog Annabelle. We loved taking her for walks around the edge of the water, going to the Barnes and Noble and Century 21 at the Twin Towers and visiting the shops below. Going to bed you could see the Towers from the window, all lit up. It was exciting staying there. I just couldn't believe months later it was all just gone.

The TV never went off that day and night. Peter came over for dinner and we watched TV and spoke to family by phone all day, just to hear every one's voice.

Later in the week I would find out that brothers of friends of mine, a church Eucharistic minister, a college basketball star I knew and the brother of a co worker all died when the towers fell. No one I knew that well, but upon hearing and reading accounts of all the victims, it felt very close. So many Long Islanders, all with similar backgrounds, families, my age, just going to work one day and not coming home.

I can't believe it has been 11 years since that day. I have married, bought a house, two kids, and life just goes on. So much has happened since, and that is what I keep thinking about today. The people who perished that day, in NY, PA, at the Pentagon and those who are still sick and dying from Ground Zero, were just going to work, just one morning like today. So much taken away from them, so much more living they had to do. That is why when I see and hear, "Never Forget, 9/11", I don't.

Trash Talk

With the start of the new school season, most all parents get a deluge of notes from teacher/school administrators/PTA, etc. in the back pack home. I pride myself in trying to be organized. Set up folders for the keepers, write down future dates right away, and toss anything unnecessary right then and there. I am a Parents Magazine dream. Or so I thought. Today we got the Box Top note, reminding us to collect those tops on the side of cereal boxes and earn our school money.

I love fundraising as much as the next Mom and Dad, ( not so much) bake sales, car washes, teacher dunks booths, I am there. But this summer Box Tops did me in. Why can't the company just donate the money without the tops. Don't they know how many boxes are sold, can't they be tallied at the register locally and just emailed into said company and money then sent to schools. What do they do with all these box tops, the waste!

Don't get me started on what I see now as a Box Top takeover. It used to be just cereal boxes. It was fun. Now they are on frozen vegetable boxes, yogurt, toilet paper, and grape jelly bottles. Some are tiny, you might miss them, they are hard to peel and cut off, but they are there. I cannot simply just throw away my trash anymore without an inspection. WAIT!!!!!!, does that hot dog come with a Box Top!!!
Don't cut through it!!!, they won't accept it!!! I don't even enjoy the product I am using with the Box Top  anymore. All I think about is what if I forget to cut that top out. I'll never remember...I should just do it now. We have a lot of boxes with holes in them until the item is ready to be tossed in the trash, inspected again of course.   I am certain that a big part of my summer has been devoted to Box Top collecting, cutting, caring for, storage, etc, without me even be aware of this addiction.

Some items  even have DOUBLE Box Tops, which sort of makes me giddy, then feeling insane as I put them in the canister on the kitchen table. Oh, wait, have they expired?? Gotta check! Most of the expiration's aren't for 3 years, so if I just bought yogurt, I think I am good, but seriously, an expiration date? How does a Box Top go bad? What difference does it make to said company if they are donating the money.

Not that I will stop. I have to. There is no way I can in good conscience throw away a perfectly good Box Top and be able to sleep peacefully.  Not happening in my house.  My son actually might win a pizza for his classroom for the most Box Tops. We just can't be beat!!!!

He's The Big Kid Now

I remember when Connor boarded the bus for kindergarten, he looked big to me, my toddler no more and officially a boy. Then when I saw the third grade boys on the bus, I thought they would eat him alive. They were huge.

My son is now that third grader. He's the big kid now. Our school system is set up that this will be his last year of elementary school and he is off to an intermediate school next September. I told him being the oldest in the school comes with pride and responsibility. He must have listened to me because yesterday he told me at a somewhat chaotic first day dismissal yesterday, one of the teachers asked him to console a sad kindergartner. He sat with him and asked him about his day and if he liked school. He is my big kid now!!

Just about out the door...

HURRY, the bus is going to COME!!!

A little too happy

Let me just add.....get on the bus....

Don't want to let go of my baby!

Dad and I play cool

Bye, bye summer