Miss Thing goes to Kinder

Yesterday was kindergarten registration. Bryn was totally excited about the promise that holds for her next year. She just missed the cut off for going to kinder last year, so she'll be one of the oldest in her class. She's tall for her age and has the confidence of a thousand men, so after the few short minutes it took to fill out all the paperwork, all I could think was that there was no way they knew what they were getting into with her.

Some of the papers asked for me to describe her and her interests. What could I possibly say that would communicate her in three lines or less? Bryn is the kind of person you just have to experience.

I was in the middle of filling out the first form (just prior to realizing that the second paper in my stack was in triplicate, so everything I had just written had gone through to that form...argh! who orders the pages that way!?) when Bryn asked me quite earnestly...."Mom, I'm wondering who my friends might be." I, of course, have no better clue than she does about such things, so I suggested she introduce herself to the other little girl (patiently) waiting for her mom to notice that the second form was in triplicate. Without a bit of hesitation, Bryn said, "Do you want to be my friend?"

The girl said, "sure"...and that was that. Bryn did note...aloud..."You'll be my first friend with hair that short." They talked a little bit about the colors they were using to color, the states they'd been to, and such.

When I finished the forms, we were to take them to a table manned by a nurse and a teacher. The nurse checked her immunization record and the teacher looked over all of the other stuff and told us the deal. Just before she handed us a stack of papers, Bryn said, "We were hoping to take a tour of the building while we were here." My jaw dropped. That was, of course, true, but she just said it in such a mature way...I think the teacher was even a little off guard. She proceeded to tell us about kindergarten orientation in August which was a special night that we could tour the school and play on the playground. Bryn's response: "That's disappointing."

Like I said, they just can't know what is in store.

Is it too early to start planning?

I'm guessing that it is probably a little early to start planning a wedding when the bride and groom are only 5. I think their preschool teacher may have mentioned something about her husband one time, and from then on, the entire room was obsessed with pairing up. I heard reports regularly that "Canyon wants to marry me, but I want to marry Dominic." Quite the dilemma before you even start school. I tried to probe for what exactly it was about Dominic that she liked. Her response one time: "I like that he has Bakugans." I guess that's the five-year old version of "he drives a nice car."

Oh, and she wants to marry someone handsome....like Daddy. I'm trying to get her to think more deeply about such things, so one time I added that I'd like her to marry someone who loved God. Her response: "Mom, (incredulously) everyone loves God.....except for bad guys. and I'm NOT going to marry a bad guy."

Tonight's version of the conversation included a detailed accounting for the wedding garb. She's determined that she wants to wear "a sparkly white dress with a crown and the hanging down thing (veil) but just in the back even though Avery said you have to have it in front of your face and then your guy does like this and puts it in the back but I don't want it to do that just in the front." Whew...gotta love a girl who knows what she likes.

TMI Alert: Feeling Womanly

Knowing as I write that this is highly likely a) unnecessary and b) unwelcome information for most readers (assuming there are any to begin with), I feel compelled to share some feelings I've had the past couple of days.

Man, I feel like a woman.

Did I sincereiously just quote Shania Twain?! Ugh, I should go to bed now. (By the way, I mis-spoke this evening and combined sincere and seriously...and kind of liked it. Am going to try to make it an actual word and see if it catches on with others. Beau and I have a deal to try to work it into conversation.)

I am of the ilk who think that breastfeeding is among the highest callings of motherhood. Even working full time, I've made it a priority for both my children. I gladly and successfully pumped for an entire year with Bryn, and continued to nurse her for nearly another year. Colt has been a different story. I don't know the source of the difference, but my milk supply has been very different with him. Work stress has been higher, so that may be part of it, but the bottom line is that we are definitely limping to the one-year mark.

Yesterday, I officially called the pumping bit and didn't even take my pump to work. To punctuate that point, I WORE A NORMAL BRA!!!!

And can I just say, it was uplifting....in every sense of the word.

To the Power of Ew

Usually Bryn is an adventurous eater. She'll try nearly anything, and really loves lots of foods that other kids probably wouldn't touch. But tonight...not so much.

I put some Parmesan crusted basa on her plate with some whole grain rice. Bryn will dive into fish before she'd eat grilled chicken, but that rice. She turned her nose up at that before I even sat down at the table.

"I don't like that, Mommy." Again, before I even sat down.

"Have you tried it yet, Bryn?"

"No, because it smells ew."

"I'd really like you to try it before you decide, please." (We're big on trying, but not on forcing a person to eat something they find to be "ew.")

Kindly, she takes a bite of the rice. I kid you not...she started to shiver and shake her head. We asked if it was too hot, but she was already in the process of spitting it back onto her plate saying, "That is not very good, Mommy."

"Okay, sweetheart. You don't have to eat it if you don't like it. Thanks for trying it."

"But, Mommy, what am I going to do with this rice?"

"Honey, you can just leave it on your plate and eat the other stuff. It will be okay."

She went on to eat all of her fish, and her roll, and her salad. However, halfway through dinner, I look over, and she's quietly holding her nose and eating. Poor thing...suffering in silence.

We gave in and scraped it all into the trash so that she could enjoy her dinner in aroma-peace.

PS: for the record, I also thought the rice was pretty ew.

Where is the mommy radar when you need it?

Just when I was thinking I had a handle on the whole mom thing... Colt has been a little under the weather all week--a low-grade fever, fussy, etc. Since his fever was never very high, and he was never really that upset, we had dismissed it all as teething or growing spurt or just still battling the cold from a week ago.

Ah, rookie mistake.

So, Saturday, while visiting my in-laws for Beau's mom's birthday, imagine my surprise when I look down and see fluid draining out of his little, precious ear! I freaked out, and took him to an urgent care place only to hear that his little eardrum had ruptured. EEK! even writing the words hurts me for him.

So we're running two different types of antibiotics, trying to keep it from crusting over, and otherwise trying to comfort the little bugger while constantly apologizing for ignoring the subtle signs of an ear infection. Now that he can sit up by himself and say "da-da-da-da-da-da" we need to teach him to pull on his ear when it hurts. Mommy promises not to miss that kind of sign.

I guess we all knew the day would come...

The other night, Beau was out of town on business, so bedtime for Bryn was less fun than usual. I was balancing Colt while reading the books and then couldn't sit and sing to her like I usually do. It was pretty lame by most accounts, but--you know what--it was the best I could do under the circumstances.

After the feeble attempt at the bedtime routine, I had barely gotten downstairs with Colt before Bryn was up and out of bed, calling me to come back up for a do-over. I ran back up stairs sans Colt to see what was the matter (and more importantly, what I could say or do to make it stop.)

Amid the "I want my Daddy"s, Bryn busted out with a first (of probably many) "I wish Colt would just go back into your tummy." I tried to explain why that was unlikely to happen, but she was pretty insistent on wishing it to be so. She really wanted him to be bigger than he is. I assured her that he was growing, but she correctly countered, "no, he's not, Mom. He's staying that size all DAY!"

I realized that my powerful analogy about how quickly hair grows was probably no match for her frustration level. So, the best I could do was just say good night and love you one more time.

After a good night's sleep, all was well again...and Bryn adores her brother as much as ever.

The Art of the Papercut

Bryn manages to inject a great deal of drama into literally every aspect of her life. From who gets their shoes on first to which cup she drinks from to injuries...she has an amazing flair for making it a bigger deal than necessary. I love her for it...I'm sure there's a future for her in theater (or therapy, depending on whether or not we get a handle on it early.)

Last night, we were sitting together, with Colt, reading some of the books she got for Christmas. Several of them weren't exactly heirloom quality literature, so we were reading paperbacks. Alas, the key word there is PAPER.

Since I was holding Colt, Bryn was in charge of holding the book and turning pages. Usually, she's great about such responsibility, but yesterday, she managed to get a papercut on the skin between her thumb and pointer finger.

For the record, papercuts do hurt. And a papercut right there, downright, stinks. I get it.

Bryn's reaction, however, was to go berserk. Beau came running into the living room wild-eyed for all of the racket. I calmly let him know that she'd gotten a papercut, because he was getting nothing from her except, "I NEED a bandaid. Owie, owie, it hurts, it HURTS!" over and over.

This is typical interaction for minor cuts and scrapes, but my favorite part of the whole event was, while Beau was fetching the bandaid, Bryn wailed, "SOME-BODY HELP ME! PLEASE, SOME-BOD-EE-EE-EE!"

The bandaid shaped like a yellow crayon seemed to do the trick.