Just Call Me Twilight

Summer is here!!!  We are beginning our second week of freedom and I have to admit, my favorite part (so far) is the sleeping in!!  True disclosure - I am not a morning person.  I detest waking to an alarm and I abhor happy, cheerful people in the morning.  My Littles have learned that morning hugs are about all I can handle for the first hour, or until I have had my first cup of hot tea.  Now that we are slowly falling into our summertime rhythm, I have been able to find the time to catch you up on our end-of-school year activities. Oldest Daughter started out the final month of school by participating in a school production of 'Going Buggy'.  The play was performed for the parents with each of the 2nd grade classes singing songs about, well, different types of buggies.  I regret to inform you that the video we took of Oldest Daughter dancing and singing was too big to include here, but I will share with ...

Guess who's back?  Wait - what? No. Guess again.  Yep, that's right.  Me!!  I have missed doing this blog post and communicating with y'all.  I have missed purposely tapping into this messed up brain of mine weekly.  I have missed sharing my innermost thoughts with you and receiving your feedback (even if your feedback is that my innermost thoughts are totally messed up).  I have heard from so many people over the past few months that they miss my ramblings and wish I would just get back to it already.  So, to feed a small part of my creative soul, I am resuming this blog.  Enjoy! _________________________________________________________________ Hello, my name is Twila and I have control issues. I may not attend a 12-step program, but my daily struggles with needing to control all things around me are oh-so-real.  To complete the package of me, I am also s tubborn, strong-willed,...

A week and a half ago, Oldest Daughter started the Second Grade.  As excited as I was for her and the new adventures waiting for her right around the corner, I will admit that I also harbored a bit of sadness.  Sadness that my firstborn was growing up before my eyes; sadness that there wasn't a darn thing I could do to stop it.   So today, my mixed bag of emotions greeted me with the alarm.  Youngest Daughter was starting Preschool.   As we started the Preschool countdown by marking off each day on the calendar, equal parts enthusiasm and dread settled in my heart.  Every passing day saw these two emotions growing just a tiny bit bigger .  But I knew this little girl has been ready to start school (so that she could be just like her big sister) for at least the past year.  For this reason alone, I swallowed the dread and decided to only be excited for her. As we marked off the days counting down to the start of Preschoo...

I have learned to love my little people on a whole new level.  A level that can only be reached through promotion of fear.  A level that no parent strives to achieve. Oldest Daughter recently attended the birthday party of her closest friend.  I dropped her off at birthday girls house, giddy with anticipation.  At the conclusion of the party, birthday girl's mom would escort the birthday girl and four guests to a park across the street, where the parents knew to retrieve the girls at a particular time.  Sometime prior to birthday party pick-up time, my phone rings and I see that it is birthday mom calling.  Answering it, I am greeted with screaming in the background and birthday mom yelling my daughters name before the line goes dead.  I promptly call the number back, her phone sending the call straight to voicemail.  Over and over again I frantically call birthday mom's number, just to be...

When I was pregnant, never having been a mother before, I had expectations of what it would be like when my little one arrived.  These expectations were fed mostly by the media.  Commercials depicting pretty babies cooing at their mothers, giggling toddlers toddling about, cuteness when baby covers themselves in pureed food - you know, the normal happy scenes we should all expect as parents.  What I failed to notice were the fuzzy edges, the dead give-away that these social driven episodes were in no way rooted in reality. Don't get me wrong.  I, now a mother of two, have had plenty of pretty moments.  Every time I receive a hug or kiss from one of my girls, pride when Youngest Daughter tells anyone within hearing distance that she is mommy's little duckie, excitement from Oldest Daughter when I teach in her classroom, when either of the girls tell me they love me.  All precious moments that continue to ma...

When Oldest Daughter was about to turn three years old, we chose to celebrate this momentous birthday by visiting Disneyland (and yes, I do realise that turning three is not really momentous, but under three means that Disneyland lets you in for free.  If you have seen the Disneyland ticket prices lately, free truly IS momentous!). As Youngest Daughter is a month away from turning three herself, we thought it only fair to make the trek to California to celebrate it in the same fashion.  So that is exactly what we did.  We rented a mini-van, loaded myself, Handy Hubby and my parents (Grandma K and Grandpa P) into it and off we went! Ok, let me kibbitz a bit about the mini-van.  I never, ever thought I would say this, but mini-vans rock!!!  I totally want one now! The ease of getting children in and out of the vehicle, the storage, the extra seating - I get it now in a way I never did before. Anyways...

Today I am proud of Oldest Daughter.  Scratch that.  I am proud of Oldest Daughter every day.  But today, my chest swells with the proudness that only a mama (or daddy) can feel.  Today, Oldest Daughter was celebrated as October's First Grade Student of the Month. Oldest Daughter was being recognized due to her displaying the outstanding quality of being respectful.  She had been witnessed being respectful of herself, her fellow classmates, her teachers, others and the environment.  They found her to be confident, proud, capable, assured, appreciative and self-reliant in her classroom and on campus.  As many of you know, Oldest Daughter struggles with Anxiety Disorder.  Simply explained, all things stress her the heck out.  Since adding a puppy to our family, the small anxiety attacks have ceased.  But big anxieties, such as getting an award and having to accept it onstage in front of the school ...

My baby is growing up.  How do I know this?  Today she started first grade. 

Oldest Daughter will be starting school in just a few days, so for us anyways, summer is coming to a close.  It has been an enjoyable one, full of visits with great-great aunts and uncles, trips to the circus, trips to the library, Vacation Bible School and ArtCamp, days spent with grandparents.  It has been a time of sister-bonding, sleeping late, playing with friends and watching too many cartoons.  I am sad to lose this time with Oldest Daughter but quite excited about her new adventures in First Grade.  Here are a few highlights of the girls' summer.  JCMT SUMMER WAS Bubbles     Backyard Wading Pools       Local Kids Club Fun       Swim Lessons       Visiting Bass Pro Shops       Celebrating Fathers' Day         Meeting Great-Grandparents         Me...

  Yesterday was a big day for Oldest Daughter.  No, she didn't perform in a dance onstage or attend any celebrations.  It isn't her birthday, nor is there a holiday within a stones' throw.  Yesterday, Oldest Daughter l earnt a life lesson.  This lesson learned was one that I, as a mother, hoped would not come for many more years.  But as we all know, life does not happen as we hope and pray that it would.  I will not tell you the story that precipitated her life lesson.  That story should be significant only to her.  Suffice it to say, Oldest Daughter chose to end an important friendship yesterday.  She chose to end it because this friend continually hurt her feelings, chose another over her even when told it was hurting Oldest Daughters' feelings and in general made her too sad to want to give her a fifth or sixth chance. As her mother, my heart aches for her.  I want to take away h...

Today, Oldest Daughter graduated from Kindergarten. Now, before I became a parent, I had heard of other people going to a Kindergarten graduation and thought it was ridiculous that a six-year-old would be graduating from anything.  But now that I am the parent of a six-year-old, I get it.     This graduation isn't for me, the mother, or for Handy Hubby, the father.  It's not even for the teacher, as she sends her pupils off to summer vacation on a happy note.         No, it's for Oldest Daughter.  And all of her classmates.  They are leaving their first tastes of learning and are about to enter a legitimate school grade.  They are being told that they are no longer the youngest at the school, but are about to become true contributing members.  They are no longer the babies on campus, but are now big kids.  I don't envy these six-year-olds the many years of schooling they h...