Last day of preschool. Pizza party at noon. 3 more days of school for elementary kiddos. Had a ton of things on my list then I turned on the TV and the movie "My Sister's Keeper" called out to me -- I had tears from the beginning credits... I now have perspective (and blood shot eyes), and I realize I have no problems whatsoever!... AND I have not accomplished a thing, except for a lot of cryin' -- maybe that is what I needed to appreciate my blessings this summer! Great flick - so sad....
Happy Summer... It is here, whether we are ready or not
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school. Show all posts
Friday, May 28, 2010
Friday, September 25, 2009
Our Journey to this Life – Part 1
How Did We Get Here?
I am not sure who I am writing this for. This started as my nostalgic focus as my baby boy turns 4 years old and proclaims he is not a baby any more. I digressed into the memory of all of my children as babies… then thoughts of life before babies… then life before we were married. How does life move this fast? I guess I am really writing for myself and my sanity. I was never very good about keeping a journal, and I failed at scrapbooking miserably, though I still have some fantasies of catching up quickly with digital scrapbooking.
Anyway… Our Journey…It seems like we somehow just snapped our fingers and… Poof… we were in this chaos of a family of six. John and I started dating about 20 years ago, and we have never stopped running on the treadmill of life. I have always thought " after this next phase… things will slow down, and we stop and enjoy life". All of the sudden, twenty years later, that first phase seems so slow and peaceful, though at the time we thought we were soooo… busy. What I thought was busy then was not so busy at all, looking back.
I thought I had surely paid my dues when I was all of 26 years old. I thought that the hardest work I would ever do was behind me. Man, how stupid I must have sounded! I remember a cousin of my dad's who is a prominent attorney calling me on it. He is a very successful attorney with his own firm in Houston. He speaks Russian, and has done business internationally. He has 3 kids, including twins, who are grown, and still works very hard. I was newly married, about 5 years out of college, and was working as a restaurant manager at la Madeleine, where I believed I was very important. I naively commented that I had paid my dues (in the first couple of years after college), and he laughed – how stupid this must have sounded to someone who had been working hard for some 40 years! My life was only beginning. I had worked a lot of grueling hours and had done some very hard work, and I thought I was done! This would surely be the toughest part of my life. Ha!
Back to our Journey…John and I…We met in college at a Steve Miller Band concert in Oklahoma City. I was with my girlfriends, and he was with a group of guys that one of the girls I was with knew from high school. It was a very brief meeting, pretty uneventful for both of us. We were invited to meet this group later, but for a reason I cannot recall, we never went to the meeting location. That was it. It was just a blip in a fun summer of parties and fun. As the fall semester started at OSU (Oklahoma State University), somehow it came up in a conversation with my roommate, Amy, that I had met this person John. She knew him from Student Government, which I had no interest in, and that was the end of the conversation. She asked me a few questions about it, and that was it. She was like that… she always asked a lot of questions. She was just a thinker… always thinking…because that is what thinkers do!
I am not sure who I am writing this for. This started as my nostalgic focus as my baby boy turns 4 years old and proclaims he is not a baby any more. I digressed into the memory of all of my children as babies… then thoughts of life before babies… then life before we were married. How does life move this fast? I guess I am really writing for myself and my sanity. I was never very good about keeping a journal, and I failed at scrapbooking miserably, though I still have some fantasies of catching up quickly with digital scrapbooking.
Anyway… Our Journey…It seems like we somehow just snapped our fingers and… Poof… we were in this chaos of a family of six. John and I started dating about 20 years ago, and we have never stopped running on the treadmill of life. I have always thought " after this next phase… things will slow down, and we stop and enjoy life". All of the sudden, twenty years later, that first phase seems so slow and peaceful, though at the time we thought we were soooo… busy. What I thought was busy then was not so busy at all, looking back.
I thought I had surely paid my dues when I was all of 26 years old. I thought that the hardest work I would ever do was behind me. Man, how stupid I must have sounded! I remember a cousin of my dad's who is a prominent attorney calling me on it. He is a very successful attorney with his own firm in Houston. He speaks Russian, and has done business internationally. He has 3 kids, including twins, who are grown, and still works very hard. I was newly married, about 5 years out of college, and was working as a restaurant manager at la Madeleine, where I believed I was very important. I naively commented that I had paid my dues (in the first couple of years after college), and he laughed – how stupid this must have sounded to someone who had been working hard for some 40 years! My life was only beginning. I had worked a lot of grueling hours and had done some very hard work, and I thought I was done! This would surely be the toughest part of my life. Ha!
Back to our Journey…John and I…We met in college at a Steve Miller Band concert in Oklahoma City. I was with my girlfriends, and he was with a group of guys that one of the girls I was with knew from high school. It was a very brief meeting, pretty uneventful for both of us. We were invited to meet this group later, but for a reason I cannot recall, we never went to the meeting location. That was it. It was just a blip in a fun summer of parties and fun. As the fall semester started at OSU (Oklahoma State University), somehow it came up in a conversation with my roommate, Amy, that I had met this person John. She knew him from Student Government, which I had no interest in, and that was the end of the conversation. She asked me a few questions about it, and that was it. She was like that… she always asked a lot of questions. She was just a thinker… always thinking…because that is what thinkers do!
About Amy (she was a key player in this journey):
My friend Amy was (and still is) a very smart, very motivated individual. She is one of the smartest people I know. She took Chinese classes at OSU (which was very unusual). She speaks Chinese, and went to school in China for a semester in college, just because she is smart and she had this vision of Chinese being an asset in her future. I remember that my goal in life at the time was to major in Hotel and Restaurant Management, with a minor in Spanish, because I thought it would be fun to work in Barcelona at the Olympics. Never mind that the Olympics was only one summer, and that I had no goals beyond that. I am not sure why I chose the Olympics, as I was not even really a big sports fan. I met a girl from my sorority at a school in Kansas (K-State) who was also majoring in Hospitality, and I think we cooked up this goal to go to Barcelona. She got married after college though, and I needed a "real" job, so my dad told me, so the dream of the Olympics went to the wayside. I thought the fact that I had a goal was commendable – it is a little laughable to me now.
Amy came to OSU from University of North Carolina, and had gone to a private girl's school in high school. I had also gone to a private girl's school – though mine was a boarding school - Hockaday, and there were some behavior issues that landed me there, plus, my parents divorced when I was in 8th grade, and I couldn't really find my happy place after that. Boarding school was actually the best thing I ever did. I didn't really acknowledge any of this in college, because the sorority might not have wanted me if they knew I had spent a night in the juvi in Pawhuska for stealing signs with my friends (funny story I will elaborate on later). Anyway, Amy and I connected through this common thread of perceived intellect and prominence of girl's school graduates. We were not quite as peppy as a lot of the girls in our sorority, and we just clicked. The difference was that Amy was really an intellectual, and I was not at all. She was also very interested in politics, and I really had no concept of this. I was in awe of her intelligence.
I think she must have thought I was as smart as she was when we met. Actually, I was reasonably smart, but just not very motivated or mature at the time. She must have been so disappointed when she realized that I was in college for fun, and was not terribly driven as a student. Anyway, Amy tried to motivate me academically, and she also tried to drag me along in her effort to network. I was not mature and didn't really understand networking. I just sort of wandered where the action lead me, with no real plan in mind. You could say I was a follower. I was not a crazy partier at all, but I enjoyed being social, certainly much more than I enjoyed studying.
So how was Amy involved in this journey of mine? Amy was my roommate at the time. We had different circles of friends, but we really clicked for some reason. I don't even remember who I was dating or interested in at the time, but I recall that Amy did not necessarily approve. All of the sudden, Amy started coming home, telling me of this guy in her student government office that was asking about me. She talked about this a lot. In another world – John's world, there was this friend of John's, Chris telling him that I was asking about John a lot. The truth is that our meeting during the summer had been very brief and not that memorable. I remember that he was sunburned, and with a guy named Graydon that I knew through a home town connection, and that is about it. I am sure his memory of me was about the same. We really knew nothing of each other. For some reason though, Amy and Chris decided to become matchmakers, and continued this plot.
On October 10, 1989, the night of my 22nd birthday, just after I returned to the sorority house from going out to dinner with my dad, I received a call from a guy named John. It started a little awkward. We didn't really know each other, and I was not expecting his call. Then, he asked what I was doing and I said it was my birthday, and all of the sudden he felt like he had missed my day, but really we didn't know each other so how would he have known it was my birthday. We talked for a while, and made plans for a date on October 12.
On October 12, we had our first date. There were a few coincidences that were chilling. First, over dinner, I learned that John grew up in Pawnee, Oklahoma, a town only about 40 miles from my home town. Next, John went away to a military school in Indiana for high school. In small town Oklahoma, this is a pretty rare coincidence. We grew up only a few miles from each other, then we both went away to boarding school, then we both end up at a college which is an agriculture school in the middle of Oklahoma, where the population of people who went to boarding school was very small. I never met anyone else in college who had this experience. It was an amazing coincidence – gave me chills! After dinner, we went to a movie at our college town theatre, which at the time likely only had 2 movies playing at the same time. We selected a movie by the name of Dead Poets Society (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Poets_Society) because Robin Williams was in it. I don't think either of us knew much about the movie… then as luck would have it, the movie was about a boarding school. What are the chances of that? Though this was a first date, and we barely knew each other, I felt incredibly connected to this guy -- This unknown guy who I had been set up with, though at the moment, we had not figured out the scheme of Amy and Chris.
John and I started dating at that point, and spending a lot of time together. In fact, this would be the semester in which I made the lowest grades ever. I would watch John Wayne movies or football games with him until late at night at his fraternity house, even though I had no interest in these things and I had a 7:30 am class the next day. I was in lala land for sure. Life was a blur from October until Christmas that year, and when my grades arrived during the Christmas break, I was in so much trouble.
We continued to date through the next couple of years of college, with no clear plans for a future together, but we had a great time, and just took it day by day. Neither of us was into planning at that point. I graduated a semester before him, and he had no clue what his plans were, so to proove that I didn't need a man, I accepted a job which lead me to St. Louis, Missouri, where I would be far away from this man... and I hated it! Subsequently, John graduated and went to graduate school in Houston, Texas. We were now over 20 hours away from each other and it was no fun.
He started sending me the classified ads for jobs in Houston --remember when we had to cut ads from the newspaper, and send our resumes through the mail? I accepted a job in Houston and started to make plans to move less than a year after moving to St. Louis. I still told myself that I was moving because of a fabulous job, and not because of a boy / man! I fooled nobody! While he was attending school, I was working very hard as a manager for a new restaurant group -- la Madeleine. He finished school, started working, and we were engaged a little while after that. By that time we had been dating close to 5 years. We were married in 1994, and I started my graduate school after a year. When I was almost finished, John announced that he was applying to law school. Yeah... we would be paying for college forever!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
School Days - Our 3rd off to Kindergarten
Alexander is off to Kindergarten... Just another day in his life! He is the most even tempered of our children. He is the middle child. He was born when the twins were 3 1/2 and he slept all the time. Our house was a busy one with 3 yr old twins. I would see him start to open his eyes, then he would close them quickly again. To me, he was saying "I don't want to be here right now" and he would drift off for another 2 hours. I would say "I don't blame ya buddy... I wish I could escape sometime too." He was a great sleeper -- I mean really over the top. He would sleep 12 hours at night, take 4 hour naps. He could wake up from a nap at 6pm, and still would go to bed at 8pm like clockwork. He never woke in the night. He was a easy baby. We really didn't even know he was here until he started walking. He was only 18 months old when the twins started Kindergarten, then Ben was born a month later. He was still a baby, but he had to be a big brother, poor guy. He sort of got lost in the chaos. I feel guilty sometimes because I never had that much time for him. He was so loveable. He still wants snuggles, hugs, kisses as much as we can get them in. Hopefully, the benefits of having a lot of siblings will out weigh the disadvantage of getting lost in this crazy mix of ours. He is really a special child. Though he has always been easy going, I have noticed him acting out for attention a bit in the past year. He sort of gets stuck between wanting to be a big kid with the twins, and wanting to get the attention that Ben gets as the baby. He has been pushed around a little by older brother Anthony, and now he starts to do this to Ben. I know he needs attention, and I hope to make his transition to Kindergarten a BIG deal.
He started kindergarten this year, and he was so ready. He was not anxious one bit. He also wasn't super excited. It was just like another day for him. He walked right into his class and never looked back. He seems to really love school. He is learning to read, and spell color names. He comes home singing songs about colors, teaching Ben (almost 4 yrs old) what he has learned. The other day, I heard them playing upstairs, and he was trying to teach Ben the "SH" sound. Though he sometimes struggles to wake up in the morning, he is happy in school. Then... there is little brother, Ben -- 4th child, totally spoiled, and master charmer
Ben will be four in late September. Ben is very big (almost the same size as Alexander), and Ben really doesn't have a bad day. He is busy busy, but always happy, from morning to night. He is a charmer deluxe.
I feel like I could put Ben on the school bus too. He is only in the 3 year old preschool class, so we still have 2 more years before Kindergarten. He is ready though. He can't wait to ride the bus!He comes into my bed in the morning and says "Mommy, do you need snuggles?"... Then he tells us how many snuggles we get for that day -- it could be 2, 5, 100... but he really always wants "snuggles". This summer, he said to Papa, "Do you want snuggles?" Papa asked "What are snuggles?" Ben had to explain that it is a BIG hug and sometimes kisses, and everyone wants them. Of course, Papa was wrapped around his finger -- and that isn't easy to do.
John and I have said over the last year, "Ben, can you just stay little?" and he of course agrees. One day we were talking about his feet (he has enormous feet- same size as Alexander). He asked if his feet would get bigger like Daddy's. I said that when he gets big like Daddy, his feet would likely be big too. He said "Wait... I am not supposed to get bigger!" I then replied that as much as we would love to keep you little, god has a plan to make you get bigger and that is just out of our control. Ben then said "Well... my daddy is just going to have to get God because I am not going to get bigger". Ben thinks his daddy can do anything -- just like most boys. I then had to dig ourselves out of this hole that we created with the desire to keep him little so that Ben would not wish for Daddy to beat up God. I hope he doesn't bring these conversations to sunday school, or they might ask us to join a different church. I can see the teacher's face as Ben tells the class that his daddy is going to beat up God! Oh Mercy!
Ben started a new preschool this year too. He goes 3 days per week, from 8 to 3, and he loves it. They serve him a hot lunch, and my little eater tells me of his meal when he first gets into the car. He feels like he is a big boy too... and he is. I guess the 4th child in any family grow up a little quicker.
And Mommy... well, this is the first time EVER that I have had days at home with only one child, and I am in HEAVEN! We started with twins, and the past 9 years has been crazy. Finally, we have 3 in school, and it is just Ben and I. I teach college part time, so the days he is in school are a little busy. I try to be productive on those days so that I can enjoy the days with Ben. We go for a walk or bike ride, pick up the house, do a few chores, and sometime errands, then we head for our SNUGGLES! I have never known the day with one child, and I love it. I am not as productive as I might otherwise be, but he is the best medicine for this over stretched mommy right now.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
School's Out, School's Out... What to do with all of this time?
Today was the last day of school. I love the end of school (I think). I love the thought of no schedule and the dream of a slower pace and peace on earth. Oh wait… we are the Thomas’s – as in… close relatives to the Grizwolds. We always over commit and over schedule. We think we are super human or something, and we are NEVER peaceful... but one can always dream. We don’t believe in down time. Well, I believe in down time, but I just somehow only dream of it. At least we have tomorrow unscheduled.
Here is the plan, Lordie Lordie... help us!
Week 1 – June 8-14 – Anthony has Gifted & Talented testing on June 9-10 mornings, and we have swim team practice every morning, and a swim meet on Saturday, but horseback riding is over for the summer (some concellation), and no school or camps this week.
Week 2 – June 15-21 – Anthony has cub scout camp in mornings, and Maggie has Music Art Drama camp in mornings, and swim team practice every morning, and a swim meet on Saturday (last swim meet)… then Father’s Day on Sunday.
Week 3 – June 22-28 – Twins go away Monday morn to Friday afternoon to Camp Good News with our church. Alexander and Ben have WOW science camp at the church in the mornings.
Week 4 – June 29-July 4 – Nothing scheduled. This is our week to get ready for “ranch camp” which we will depart for right after the 4th. Also, we just learned that our cousins from Kentucky will arrive June 28 to July 8 and will rotate their time between the 3 Houston area family households. We hope they stay with us a lot… Thomas and Anna are a blast – Aunt Tamm is pretty fun too. They like the beach and water, so that keeps us busy, but we like that too, so we get along well!
After July 4 – to July 28 -Depart for “Ranch Camp” in Pawhuska.
July 28-August 12 – M & A go to Kamp Kanakuk in Branson Missouri for 2 weeks! This seems like a long time for them to be away, but I remind myself that I was at Camp Lake Hubert for a month starting at their age. The littles and I will rush home after delivering them to camp to attend Vacation Bible School, then some of that rare down time before picking them up on Aug 12.
The Cowboy House:
This is our 2nd year to spend a month on the ranch in our cowboy house that we made claim to last year. At first it seemed that we were being sent away from my dad’s house when it was suggested that we try the cowboy house, and I took offense. Now… I will fight for the cowboy house… Oh will I fight for it! And… I will win, because, try as they might, none of my siblings, step siblings, second step siblings, or inlaws, or outlaws will ever rival the chaos that we bring to the ranch, so it is just better for everyone for us to have our own space. I used to take offense to this fact too, but I have come to accept that this is just “us”. How could I have 4 kids in 5 years and expect anything else. It is getting better, but our noise level is still shocking to most people. I usually notice that look on people’s faces when it is time for us to move on. My dad only really needs to see us about an hour a day, but I am realizing that this hour a day is more and more precious. My dad has had at least 4 heart attacks in his 60+ year life, and since I live far enough away to make the visit tough with all of my crew, I am getting a little emotional about missing my family in Oklahoma. It doesn’t seem fair that everyone else can see everyone as often as they want. I would love to just be able to get in the car and be at my mom’s or dad’s in an hour or so. We are now down to Thanksgiving and a summer visit. This is why the cowboy house is so perfect for us. We can have our own space, and not feel like we wear out our welcome.
Last summer, the twins were able to work cattle with my brother, Thatcher about 5 days a week at 5:30am. It was a great experience for them to get comfortable riding a horse, and to see what a true day’s work is all about. They also made friends with several cousins and cowboy’s kids, which expanded their horizon from this life in the suburbs with pools and activities galore, that is their norm.
We have a lot of great memories of our first “Ranch Camp”, and are hoping for more this year. The littles are getting older, but probably still not ready to ride on their own yet… at least we won’t saddle Uncle Thatcher with that responsibility. Alexander is absolutely old enough, but the twins are a handful, and since I can’t be much help with a 3 yr old, I will just keep both littles with me. Since last summer, Uncle Thatcher has gotten married, and is expecting a baby, and I hear he is moving to town (vs. his ranch house only about 200 yds from our cowboy house. We still hope to see a lot of him, and also cousin Forest and other cousins on the ranch. It is much more laid back at “ranch camp”. Our cowboy house is smaller than our house and thus easier to clean. We don’t have all of our stuff with us, and thus less clutter, which is nice. We will miss our pool, because it is still darned hot at the ranch in the summer. As I recall, we actually have more days over 100 degrees than we do in Houston, but that humidity in Houston is killer.
Well… that is our summer. I can picture it over already before we even start this first day out of school. I guess we will try next year for that low key summer… yeah right! Happy Summer Vacation anyway…this is just who we are!
Here is the plan, Lordie Lordie... help us!
Week 1 – June 8-14 – Anthony has Gifted & Talented testing on June 9-10 mornings, and we have swim team practice every morning, and a swim meet on Saturday, but horseback riding is over for the summer (some concellation), and no school or camps this week.
Week 2 – June 15-21 – Anthony has cub scout camp in mornings, and Maggie has Music Art Drama camp in mornings, and swim team practice every morning, and a swim meet on Saturday (last swim meet)… then Father’s Day on Sunday.
Week 3 – June 22-28 – Twins go away Monday morn to Friday afternoon to Camp Good News with our church. Alexander and Ben have WOW science camp at the church in the mornings.
Week 4 – June 29-July 4 – Nothing scheduled. This is our week to get ready for “ranch camp” which we will depart for right after the 4th. Also, we just learned that our cousins from Kentucky will arrive June 28 to July 8 and will rotate their time between the 3 Houston area family households. We hope they stay with us a lot… Thomas and Anna are a blast – Aunt Tamm is pretty fun too. They like the beach and water, so that keeps us busy, but we like that too, so we get along well!
After July 4 – to July 28 -Depart for “Ranch Camp” in Pawhuska.
July 28-August 12 – M & A go to Kamp Kanakuk in Branson Missouri for 2 weeks! This seems like a long time for them to be away, but I remind myself that I was at Camp Lake Hubert for a month starting at their age. The littles and I will rush home after delivering them to camp to attend Vacation Bible School, then some of that rare down time before picking them up on Aug 12.
The Cowboy House:
This is our 2nd year to spend a month on the ranch in our cowboy house that we made claim to last year. At first it seemed that we were being sent away from my dad’s house when it was suggested that we try the cowboy house, and I took offense. Now… I will fight for the cowboy house… Oh will I fight for it! And… I will win, because, try as they might, none of my siblings, step siblings, second step siblings, or inlaws, or outlaws will ever rival the chaos that we bring to the ranch, so it is just better for everyone for us to have our own space. I used to take offense to this fact too, but I have come to accept that this is just “us”. How could I have 4 kids in 5 years and expect anything else. It is getting better, but our noise level is still shocking to most people. I usually notice that look on people’s faces when it is time for us to move on. My dad only really needs to see us about an hour a day, but I am realizing that this hour a day is more and more precious. My dad has had at least 4 heart attacks in his 60+ year life, and since I live far enough away to make the visit tough with all of my crew, I am getting a little emotional about missing my family in Oklahoma. It doesn’t seem fair that everyone else can see everyone as often as they want. I would love to just be able to get in the car and be at my mom’s or dad’s in an hour or so. We are now down to Thanksgiving and a summer visit. This is why the cowboy house is so perfect for us. We can have our own space, and not feel like we wear out our welcome.
Last summer, the twins were able to work cattle with my brother, Thatcher about 5 days a week at 5:30am. It was a great experience for them to get comfortable riding a horse, and to see what a true day’s work is all about. They also made friends with several cousins and cowboy’s kids, which expanded their horizon from this life in the suburbs with pools and activities galore, that is their norm.
We have a lot of great memories of our first “Ranch Camp”, and are hoping for more this year. The littles are getting older, but probably still not ready to ride on their own yet… at least we won’t saddle Uncle Thatcher with that responsibility. Alexander is absolutely old enough, but the twins are a handful, and since I can’t be much help with a 3 yr old, I will just keep both littles with me. Since last summer, Uncle Thatcher has gotten married, and is expecting a baby, and I hear he is moving to town (vs. his ranch house only about 200 yds from our cowboy house. We still hope to see a lot of him, and also cousin Forest and other cousins on the ranch. It is much more laid back at “ranch camp”. Our cowboy house is smaller than our house and thus easier to clean. We don’t have all of our stuff with us, and thus less clutter, which is nice. We will miss our pool, because it is still darned hot at the ranch in the summer. As I recall, we actually have more days over 100 degrees than we do in Houston, but that humidity in Houston is killer.
Well… that is our summer. I can picture it over already before we even start this first day out of school. I guess we will try next year for that low key summer… yeah right! Happy Summer Vacation anyway…this is just who we are!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
