October

Time is just flying away.  Mike is home with the girls today on their Fall Break while I'm at work so he might feel differently, ha!  I had Maria's conference and she's doing just fine, she has her lowest grade of 93 in Science, which I think is mostly a talking problem.  She is super bright and she is really doing better this year with the talking thing, so things are good.  She is still driving us crazy at home.  On Saturday, she and Veronica got this idea that they wanted to have their friends over for a Sleepunder, where they don't sleep over but they hang out and play and do everything they would do at a sleepover.  But I didn't want them to have anyone over, I had to work two shifts on Sunday, Maria was going to go to Mass with Mike early on Sunday, I had to go to Mass Saturday night, I was tired and I have shingles and - I just wanted to have a night where no one came over! I feel entitled to this! So Maria kept ignoring me, just making her invitation and when I finally said LOOK! We are not having anyone over tonight, sorry!, they both were crying and sobbing like they were being sent to their death and I am not exaggerating.  What would they ever do if they had real problems?  It ended up to be fun, we rearranged the furniture in their room and we had root beer floats, it was fine.  It always ends up fine.  I saw a thing this week about teenage girls, post its to remind the mom that "her emotions are not your emotions" and "I should be the calm in the storm" and I thought, yeah! That is all true! It's hard to remember though, when you are tired and sick and stressed out, which I always am!  Anyway, here's some cute pictures.

Third Grade

Maria is doing very well in third grade.  She is playing kickball and while they have NEVER won a game, and in fact sometimes have the crap pounded out of them and have to rely on the mercy rule of scoring, she herself is pretty good and she seems to be having fun.  She loves to make musically videos and she loves to sing and do gymnastics.  She is the most persistent, dogged person I have ever met.  She is unbelievably dramatic and she literally cannot stop once she is on a roll, screaming about the unfairness of LIFE! We are working on it.  She is good at math and that's her favorite subject this year, so far.

I don't know, because she is our oldest neuro-typical child, I don't know what kind of 8 year old she is, comparatively.  Sometimes people on facebook say like, that their child is so caring and giving, kind and sweet, a real St. Mother Teresa! And I think, really?  Really they are kind and good and so selfless and so ADULT, at eight?  Maybe it's true but not for me.  I try not to feel bad about it.  I do think she is mostly perfect, I wish she would be better in church, take Communion more seriously but what can I do but keep taking her?  My sister Laura said she saw Maria and Mike in church last night - I had to work during the day so I went early and they went late.  She said Maria was good and never went to the bathroom once.  Is it just me?  Are they just super bad with me?  Because that makes me kind of mad!  Whatever, I should be grateful she does so well and be patient with the rest.  Here are some cute pictures.

Camp

Sunday afternoon I took Maria and Veronica to camp, today I'm going to pick them up at 2:00, so that's not very long, is it?  Since Anthony and Felicity are here too, it doesn't seem too strange, Felicity has been whipped into some kind of Incredibly Needy mode, so I don't feel like I have any more freedom or anything.  But it's been nice, they were both very good when I dropped them off.

One of the things I find with all things school-related and now camp-related is that when you are new, when it is your first year, you are on your own in a way that I never imagined I would be.  There are all those people around who have done it before! It seems like there would be a HUMAN understanding that you'd want to help people who may not know what they are doing.  It has been disappointing to me to find that when you need the most guidance is when people seem to be the least willing to give it.  We signed up the girls and made requests in our registration for them to be with friends from school and they ended up in a cabin together, but with no other girls that they knew.  All the other girls from their school who requested to be together WERE together and they were with a bunch of girls who all seemed to know each other! Why do it that way?  Why leave just my girls, who are seven and eight years old, the youngest you can be and go to this camp, alone and put all these other girls together, including ones who were FOUR years older?  I don't understand it.  I feel this will make us stronger and will make me be nicer to people who are in the same boat as I am.  Anyway.

I have missed them and yesterday I was making myself sick, every time my phone rang with a strange number I was worried it was the camp, saying something horrible.  I'll be glad to pick them up today and I'm sure, I'll be super sick of them by tomorrow this time, and that's parenthood for you, ha!

Here's Maria, the way I left her on her bunk, writing in her journal.  She's probably writing, Dear Diary, my mother said she'd hook me up with friends from school but she has left me completely on my own! Ha!

First Holy Communion

Here are some pictures from Maria's first communion.  I WISH she hadn't run around like a lunatic before her actual communion because her hair is messy but whatever, I'm not worried about it, really.  She really is a good girl and was a good first communicant.

Eight years, four months

I just noticed the ticker at the top of the page said she is 8 years, 4 months old.  How funny that we used to count days and then weeks and months and now she is 8, is all I ever think.  She is doing just fine, she is driving me crazy but less often.  I mean, she is as relentless as ever for bugging me about things but she also has good qualities which are becoming more obvious.  She has been a real help to me lately, which I appreciate.  She is a great swimmer, I don't have to worry about her at all at the pool.  They still freak out every time I tell them to do anything, like clean their room or the living/toy room but it's less and less.  We are onward and upward, as usual.

Friday Update

Maria is doing just great.  She got her ears pierced the day before her birthday and counted down six weeks until she could switch earrings.  She has now worn two different pair and I told her she should stay in them for a while.

She is getting ready to make her first communion in April.  This weekend she has to go to church early to make a blessing cup, which, whatever.  She also has to decorate a banner, so, the Religion teacher said, we can decorate the church and it looks nice.  If you want it to look nice, I want to say, don't have a bunch of eight year olds make banners, ha!  Also, I think the church already looks pretty nice, because of the presence of GOD and all, but whatever, I am not in charge.

She is doing very well in school, she is still kind of freaking out about every damned thing but I think maybe she is getting better about that.  We are reading Harry Potter (the first one) to her and Veronica before bed and that's been really fun.  We are flying right along in it, and I can tell they like it.  It's nice how they fall asleep with me reading to them, well, Maria sometimes pretends to fall asleep but it does make her really sleepy, unlike those damned electronics, which just jack her up.

Here's some cute pictures.

Eight plus

Now Maria has turned eight but that doesn't stop her from dropping to the floor and crying and yelling if her shoe fits funny and guess what?  Her shoe always fits funny!  She is doing well in school, so great in math, she is a girl scout, she started gymnastics after a long break this past Saturday.  She wants to have a friend over or sleep over their house or have them sleep over our house or in some way do something else besides what she is doing all the time.  Oh and she got her ears pierced!  It's going really well.

Almost Eight

It's hard/easy to believe that Maria is almost eight.  She is doing just fine, we are having what is turning into a big party this weekend, on Saturday.  What can I do, she wants to invite a few friends from school, then we have friends from our neighborhood and some of those friends have siblings who we are friends with too and then poof! we have over 20 kids there for the party.  It really is a more the merrier situation, though, because it's just for two hours and Maria really loves having a lot of people around.  Anyway, we are getting her ears pierced for her birthday.  I personally had to be ten years old to get my ears pierced, but that was almost FORTY years ago, good Lord, so I think she'll be okay.  I told her it's going to hurt and everything but she doesn't care.

Here are some pictures, I took the three girls downtown one night last week.  I used frequent flier miles to book a hotel right downtown and we went to the mall, to the movies, met my sister Laura for dinner, went to Monument Circle to see the lights on the 'tree' and then went to the pool at the hotel the next morning.  It was a very good trip, they had a lot of fun.  Maria is at a good age for stuff like that, she has some level of appreciation of it and she won't, like, run into the street.