Happy 4th Birthday

Dear Ramsey,
You are now 4! And as you so perfectly put it..."I don't feel 4." I don't feel like you are four either. Where in the heck did time go?

For your 4th birthday we had a Fr0zen themed party because that is your absolute FAVORITE movie...EVER. Sven...pronounced SPEN and Olaf are tops of your list as the greatest characters with Elsa and Anna not far behind. Finding Fr0ze stuff was not an easy thing to do as every other child in the city also loves this movie and items are hard to find in the stores. So, I got creative and made my own.

We held your birthday the Saturday before your actual birthday because this year your birthday fell on Derby Day. You will one day learn that most people around here are doing Derby things and having a birthday party on that day just doesn't work. No slight to you...and secretly I love that you are a Derby baby because it's one of my most favorite times of the year.

Because of the timing of your birthday, it was like birthday week for you. There was lots of celebrating with ice cream and candy and visits with friends and family. I think you really enjoyed yourself. Who doesn't love an entire week dedicated to them?

I am looking forward to what this next year will bring for us. We have grown a lot, you and I, as we navigate through all that comes our way. I think you handle it better than I do pretty much all the time. Your sense of humor is a constant and your smile is contagious. I hope you never lose that silliness because it perfectly captures who you are. I plan to laugh more with you and worry less this year. You deserve that.

I hope you feel the love we have for you because it's almost too much to contain. Wishing you the best, most enjoyable, most fun year ever!

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Love Mommy

Gift

In a week we will be celebrating the 4th Birthday of Miss R. 4 years. Holy Hell. My girls are no longer babies and never will be again. They are silly, mischievous, smart little girls who will definitely give SP and me a run for our money as they grow up. They already do that now which makes us have to think quicker and smarter just to keep up.

We have now been in our house in Louisville for 3 years. The memories of being in Cincinnati are fading a bit as new memories here take their place. It will always be the birthplace of my girls but I really feel like Louisville is home. It's where I feel most rooted and grounded with my family and hope they do too.

I love seeing them interact with each other and all the kids in our cul-de-sac. It reminds me of my childhood and all the close friends and fun times I had growing up. There is definitely something of value in having those early friendships and spending so much time playing outside.  I am glad we're able to have a home that allows them to experience that.

For the moment, I feel our family is calm and content. The girls are healthy. Sp and I are healthy. We are happing and enjoying life.

I am not sure what the future holds for us, but right now I am enjoying the moment. This is not always easy for me to do, so I am working on it. I don't want to look back three years from now and regret one single thing.

What will she become?

C loves to watch the DIY channel. LOVES IT. She prefers to watch that channel over most movies, cartoons and kids programs. Her favorite is Nic*le Curtis. She'll sit for HOURS and watch show after show. Lawn remodeling. Bathroom remodeling. Whole house renovation. Doesn't matter.

For her birthday we got her a tool belt and tool set. A real one. Not one of those rink dinky plastic sets. Sure, it's all pink, but the stuff works. I even used her tools to take apart the dishwasher recently. They do the job.

She's got some random pieces of wood outside and she'll hammer, screw, bang around for as long as we'll let her. I am fascinated by this. I am in awe of her.

Looking around I don't really see many kids with their own tools, a desire to watch the DIY and overcome with sheer joy with the prospect of building me a garden box. It's uniquely beautiful and we are doing all we can to encourage her interest.

Today we were at the hardware store to buy wood for the garden box and they were having one of those kid classes. She has been begging to go, but her slacker parents forget...often. Just our luck that today was the first Saturday of the month and build a bird feeder day.

So, we built bird feeders. C was very into it and almost split SPs thumb hammering. R lost interest in about a second and I ended up building her bird feeder. It was really fun and I hope we can remember to do that more often.

I can only imagine where this interest of C's will take her. Seems like the prospects are wide open and I am going to just sit back and enjoy watching her little mind work. Such a cool little girl.

We aren't that different

This morning R presented herself in the bathroom where I was getting ready full of jazzy confidence. She had dressed herself and was damn proud of it. Her picking out her own outfits has become quite a thing and today was no exception. She had discarded the shorts I picked out last night and opted for a purple pair to go with her blue and pink Minnie Mouse t-shirt. On her feet were socks that did not match and a pair of Nike's that were a size too big. Such a sense of accomplishment was evident on her face, and I just rolled with it.

Together R and I went to find C who was also getting dressed. She had not really deviated from the outfit she selected last night, but she had picked a fetching pair of black knee high boots to go with her shorts and t-shirt. She LOVES those boots. They are hand-me-downs from her friend from school. She wears them whenever she can. But today, heading to Spring Break Camp, she had to leave the boots behind and she was not to happy about it. In the end, she opted for flip flops and that seemed to brighten her mood.

I can remember having my own sense of style from a very young age. To be different was just my way and not because I was "choosing" it necessarily, it was just what I liked. Sure I may have worn black, and nothing else for years. Or had a pair of faux snake skin pants that I rocked with a lime green shirt. Chances are, no one looked like me but everyone looked at me, and that was ok.

I still like to wear socks that don't match. Black is still a color of choice in most outfits. I don't care too much about trends or any of that. I just wear what I like and what makes me feel good. I am trying to do that with my girls.

It would be real easy to try and control what they are wearing because it doesn't match or fit someones idea of "normal", but I am not going to. As long as they look appropriate and clean, it doesn't really matter to me. Like those knee high boots...can't really play safely in those shoes so I had to draw a line...but otherwise go for it. I did.

I struggle...

I think someone flipped a switch when C turned 6 and turned her into a big girl. This is not something I am ready for AT ALL.

There are moments where she is still very much a little girl with sensivities and meltdowns and attitude galore. But they are not as frequent as the big girl who was to spread her wings.

I selfishly want to clip her wings, which I imagine pretty much every parent has felt at one time or another. I don't want her to fly. I want her to stay in my lap forever. But that can't, and won't, happen.

So, we encounter new things. We navigate uncharted territory together and sometimes we don't do it very well. I am trying to let her experience some of the freedoms that come with growing up, but my anxiety level is THROUGH THE ROOF.

I struggle with letting her play outside without watching every second, because I am afraid someone in a dark van will drive up asking her if she wants a puppy or some candy and she will vanish. I attribute that entirely to growing up in a time of Ad*m W*lsh when kids faces became plastered on milk cartons. I am afraid. And my fear makes me look out the window more than I should. C doesn't know, to her she is getting her space but I am still freaking out behind the window panes.

I struggle to let her fail because I know how much failure can hurt and I don't want her to suffer. I also know that sometimes you have to fail (and will fail) in life and she is no exception. I can't wrap her in bubble wrap and shelter her from things because that's not doing her any favors, but I want to. And it weighs heavily on my mind with every new experience.

I struggle to let her be somewhere when I am not there. I attribute this to what seems like a surge in craziness in our society that puts kids in very vulnerable positions I never had to experience. What if something happens and I can't get there fast enough? Those damn What If's make me want to never let her leave the house. But I do.

I struggle with play dates and sleep overs and what she watches on TV and what she eats. The list is lengthy as it rolls through my brain. I go to great lengths to keep that list in check because she is a kid who is growing up and deserves to live her life regardless of how fearful I am.

And seriously, when did I become so fearful? Does that happen immediately at the moment of child birth?

A million times

I have sat down a million times it seems in the last week or so to write...and I write a bit and then stall. It's not for lack of things to say, that's never really been a problem for me, but more of a lack of how to say it.

Simply put, my best friend since I was in high school has Stage 2 Breast Cancer. This isn't my first encounter with this nasty disease, and I am sure it won't be my last. But it feels different.

SP asked me why it was different. Why was this time different than when my own Mom experienced BC? What about this is making it so difficult for me that I am crying or lashing out with anger or distracted and walking around in a daze or trying to be postive and hopeful but deeply saddened by the whole thing?

It's not that I love my friend more than I do my own mother or feel more devastated in this moment than I did years ago when my mom was diagnosed. It's really an apples to oranges situation with Breast Cancer at the rotten core.

Looking back I feel very sheltered from my mom's cancer journey. This was most likely her doing to help buffer us a bit, to protect us, if she could, from any more pain than we were already experiencing. It also could have been because I was so self-absorbed and immature I didn't think to ask to be more involved, but honestly I am not sure I could have at the time and she knew that. I am grateful for that buffer and for her wisdom...mom's tend to know the right things to do even when they are sick.

What I am finding now is there is a closeness, a realness, to this experience. I am not sheltered and I am not choosing to be sheltered. I cannot for one second think about backing away from this experience no matter how difficult it is for me, because it's not about me. I have not spent over half my life cultivating a friendship with J to just run. If I up and retreat when things are their most difficult what kind of friend would I be, what kind of person would I be? That's not what we do...we never have and our lives over the last 20+ years have not always been great but we fought the good fight together. We'll do that again now.

Trying to put it into words right now is really tough. I think I will just let my thoughts simmer for a bit more...

Fancy dress

When she walked through the door of the funeral home, she was glowing. I could see her eyes searching the very large crowd for me. As I moved to get her attention, I noticed that she had dressed herself and I loved it.

There stood my beautiful 6 year old girl in the fanciest, sparkliest, velvetiest dress she owns. The top was black with a little rhinestone heart in the middle. The bottom was pink lace and sequins. She had picked grey tights and a pair of hand-me-down white "high heel" dress shoes that were a size too big. Around her next was a Mardi Gras bead necklace, it was Fat Tuesday afterall.

My girl was a beacon of light in an otherwise sad event. The pride on her face having gotten herself dressed up for the funeral made my heart melt. I had  told her to dress nicely though I didn't specify how nice. She took it to the max.

That's the latest change in my little girl. Her newfound interest in dressy clothes and fancy shoes is a shock to SP and I. She's always been our tennis shoes and casual clothing girl. Now she'll have a purse, and fancy shoes and the whole enchilada just to run to the grocery store. DIVA in training.