Growth

For the last few days my husband has been all upset over the fact that my daughter's jacket is always in a ball on the floor of her bedroom. He keeps telling her she better hang it up.

I told him, "I've given up on that battle. In a heap on the floor is where she keeps it. At least she knows where it is. Every time we leave the house, she has her jacket on. That's huge progress!"

So I was thinking...

In first grade...

I'd ask my daughter, "Where's your jacket?"

And she'd look at me and ask, "What jacket?"

In second grade...

I'd ask my daughter, "Where's your jacket?"

And she'd start crying.

In third grade...

I'd ask my daughter, "Where's your jacket?"

And she'd look at me, start crying and wail, "I don't know!"

In fourth grade...

I ask my daughter, "Where's your jacket?"

And she looks at me, starts crying and says, "I left it at school."

I choose to look at it as progress.

The Mom Song

This was sent to me via a friend via his mom who was a military wife.

I thought it was pretty cute, but I rarely say any of those things myself.

No, I have my own particular brand of crazy, constantly asking my kids, "Really?" and "Seriously?" Oh, and I may say, much more than I like, "You look like a crazy person."

Spring Break! Woo Hoo!

I'm finally going to Hawaii. For Spring Break. Woo hoo!

My husband travels domestically all the time with his new job. A while ago he mentioned the possibility of me joining him in Vegas. But then he found out that he will be going to Hawaii in March and thought that sounded even better.

As it turns out, the kids will be on Spring Break that same week. But my mom offered to come take them for the week. In fact, she's going to fly in and fly them back to Boston with her. She's even mentioned taking them skiing.

Sounds good to me.

The only problem is that my husband doesn't have his plane tickets yet and won't get them for a while. But I can't wait that long to get mine. So I am now the proud owner of tickets to Hawaii and faith that I won't be going alone. I have a compact car reserved, but no place to stay yet.

Considering how many times my husband's travel plans get changed I'm pretty convinced that I'll be cancelling all these plans. But he insists that if that does happen, I should go to Hawaii on my own.

Sure. That will be fun. Hawaii all by myself. That's not depressing at all.

Of course, I've never actually been on a trip for Spring Break before. I spent all my college Spring Breaks at softball spring training. So if you have connections for a place to stay in Hawaii, be on call.

You might just be spending Spring Break (woo hoo!) with me.

All I Really Want

My husband and I were watching that really annoying DirecTV commercial that mimics Desperate Housewives. You know, the one where one woman says she's bringing "Chicken a la Beth" and the other woman says she's bringing "brownies a la supermarket" to their friend's house.

In a moment of vulnerability and conscience sharing I said, "I wish I had friends who just came by."

"No, you don't," my husband replied. "You'd feel like the house had to be spotless all the time."

"No, I do." I insisted. "I want friends who are close enough that they won't care if they have to push laundry off the furniture to sit down."

I don't think I've ever had friends like that. I mean, there are a couple of people in my life who could be those kind of friends, but they live far away and I never call them. And I suppose my college friends were like that. But you never have friends again like the ones you had in the dorm. Real life just doesn't work that way.

My life is so full. I've got the best of everything that is important. I hit the life jackpot.

I just wish I had some friends who I could share my jackpot with. All I really want out of life is a husband who loves me as much as I love him, kids who know they are loved, and friends to gossip with over blueberry bagels and Diet Coke.

Is that too much to ask?

The Sky is Falling

It's a snow day!

School was canceled today for the forecast of "light" snow.

And we thought we had moved out of the South.

I was going to watch the inauguration with a couple of cups of coffee. Now I'll be watching it with a couple of crazy kids who are just waiting for the first flakes to fall.

My Kingdom for Some Influence

Today I will spend all my time preparing for the kids to go on a school visit tomorrow.

They are spending tomorrow at the school I would kill for them to attend next year. Seriously. I'm considering spiking the lunchroom meat with peanuts.

They will go through the entire day in their current grade level, being observed. So I am freaking out today to make them observant-worthy. This means I need to do laundry, pack clean backpacks, get the kids haircuts, brief them on manners and *NOT* crying. And preparing the world's greatest pep talk for the morning.

I can't help but wonder if the Obamas jumped through all these hoops to get Malia and Sasha into Sidwell Friends School. I mean, the schools here told us "no mid-year admissions" but the Obamas didn't seem to have a problem.

Why oh why did I marry a lowly military guy? I should have nabbed me a senator.

200 Days

Last year, back in Shreveport, the kids and I went to a Mardi Gras violin workshop at the Centenary Suzuki School. My daughter had an excellent teacher, Gabriel Bolkosky, or Mr. Gabe as she called him.

During a group class, Mr. Gabe challenged the kids to practice for 100 days in a row.

I have to admit, I think most of us parents thought that sounded pretty impossible. Our days just get so crazy and when you figure in illness and holidays and days when you're just so tired that you feel like you're going to explode...well.

100 days is a lot.

But in May at the kids' solo recital rehearsal, we found out that one pair of brothers in our program were just about to complete their 100 day challenge.

I was amazed and impressed, but still thought it sounded pretty impossible for us.

And then we moved. And we got far away from good practice habits. And we were starting with a new teacher. And I was stressing.

So I decided to do it. I decided that we would practice for 100 days in a row, no matter what. And it changed our lives.

Not only have the kids evolved tremendously as violin players, but we've developed a purpose, discipline and a deep belief in ourselves that we can do anything we set our minds too. All thanks to Mr. Gabe.

Yesterday we hit 200 days of practice in a row.

Our new goal is to hit 365 days. Back when we were on about day 3 and it still felt like 100 days would be impossible, my husband flippantly threw out there that if we hit 365 days in a row, he'd take us on a trip.

With only 165 days left to go, we're making plans.

And the kids take on completing 200 days of practice in a row? They say it was easy.

Mom disagrees.