Toast 2 Mom

Sunday of Photos

It was a pretty day. We went to the park. We played in the yard. We ran outside. We went to soccer. We enjoyed.

Today was Sydney's last day of winter soccer. We think we've decided to check out the spring session. We'll see.

Here are several photos from our day.

 
   
  
  
  
 

Neurotic Equals Duplicates

I have mentioned before, probably a few times, how I don't like to lose things. It really makes me crazy. My husband will testify this. He's seen my neurotic behavior when we lose something. It ain't pretty.

I'm such a cuckoo bird that I have purchased many duplicates of the girls' more precious toys. I'm so fearful if we were to lose "a lovey" that I have a nice backup system. Now, don't be thinking that I have one of those houses where the closets are full with toys with their tags on them, and that I need to go on an Oprah episode. It's not that extreme. I've probably purchased five or six different duplicate toys for both of the girls, not for each of them. :)

The downside to losing something is, well, I go crazy. The upside is how completely excited I get when I find it - Victory!! Well tonight, Mommy had a big victory.

The girls and I went to the gym. Lately they have been in the habit of "needing" to bring a toy with them for "the ride". "The ride" is when we go anywhere. They like to bring something along. Tonight Syd brought Black Kitty, and Cheekers brought our favorite Ariel ball. This ball sits in the palm of my hand and is squishy. We play with the ball all the time. It's been hidden numerous times around the house but has never left the house before today.

So, cut to the scene where the girls and I are heading home. It's dinner time, they're hungry, restless and angry. In my attempt to get them buckled in fast, I missed where Cheekers launched the ball out of Vanna into the parking lot. When we got home, I noticed the ball was not in her seat. I thought it may have rolled under the seat. It was not until hours later, when I combed Vanna that I learned it was MISSING!

I asked Syd about it, and she informed me that her sister threw it out of Vanna. Oh double drats! Most people would go, "oh darn". Others would say, "maybe we'll drive to the gym tomorrow to see if we can find it." Neurotic Mommy....yeah, she tells Daddio that she's going to drive to the gym tonight to find the ball...tonight! This decision came after I called the gym to see if it was in the lost and found - they said no. This decision came after I got on the Internet to see if I could buy another Ariel ball to replace it. It wasn't likely. So the only solution was to go the scene of the crime and look.

When I got to the gym, the ball was no where to be found. I searched pretty thoroughly where we had parked. I went inside the gym to ask again if it had been turned in. No luck. As I walked out, heading back to Vanna with my head hung low ready to face defeat, I thought I'd check one more spot. The parking lot has a slope, maybe the ball rolled to the corner of the slope where a truck was parked....... YES!!! Victory! I am so awesome!

Ok, maybe no one else can relate to this enthusiasm over the finding of a squishy Ariel the mermaid ball....but it's just one of my little joys in life.

So, new rule for healing Mommy's neurotic side, no more precious items will be coming along for "the ride" anymore!

And now...I will have a peaceful sleep. Good night.

And Yet More Snow Pictures...

Yes, we have a life....and today it involved snow (as this is my third post about the snow). But don't let the pictures deceive you. While it may seem we played outside all day, we didn't survive the cold, snowy conditions for very long. You see, we don't have heavy coats anymore...or appropiate cold weather attire. Well Mommy does, but the girls grow too fast to even think about keeping their closets supplied with snowy clothes.

Despite the blustery air and lack of attire, we hit it anyway and enjoyed it while it lasted. It's pretty much melting as fast as it came down.

 
 
 

First Snowball

Syd was at school as the flakes were flying. The first request when I picked her up, "Mommy, when we get home, can I throw a snowball at you!" Wow, sure...Mommy would love that! :)

 

What's That White Stuff?

My baby was born on an arctic cold day. It was a snowin' and a blowin' the day my snow baby entered the world. The day we packed our boxes, leaving the midwest and heading "south" to our new home, it was snowing and five degrees. But my baby doesn't remember a thing. She was only 11 months, who could blame her for not remembering that heavenly white stuff.

Well today she was introduced to it again. Much to our surprise, we went from wearing shorts and playing in the sunshine just two days ago to this today...

 

Want My Orange?

In high school I was friends with a girl that had four other sisters, five girls in all. I remember being stunned at some of the stunts they used to pull to basically get dibs on things. There were some particularly funny stories when their mom would come home with groceries. The girls would, no joke, open up a bag of chips, spit in the bag and say, "these are my chips". Being an only child, I didn't have to spit in any bag of chips.

Now I don't have five daughters. I just have two. However I think I'm starting to see signs of the "dibs" game starting to play out.

Tonight the girls and I went to the gym. When we got home, they were pretty hungry. So I got them a little bedtime snack before bath and jammies. They each had a kid Clif bar and a clementine orange. Cheekers is particularly fond of the mini oranges. She devours them pretty quickly. Tonight was no exception. She ate hers and then moved into the hunt for some more. Sydney was delicately eating still more than half of her orange. It was easy pray from Cheekers!

We use the term "no swiping" a lot around here. The message is clear, as we see Swiper the fox swiping all the time on Dora. So Cheekers is aware what the term means. As Cheeks approached Syd for the orange I said, "no swiping". Too late. Natty had put the orange in her mouth already. Sydney was not happy with this. The combination of my saying "no swiping" and Sydney yelling, "my ORANGE!" resulted in Cheekers walking back over to the spot where Syd was eating it and spit it back out, still in the same orange wedge shape.

Sydney looked at me, then looked at her sister and said, "um, you can have it back."

Spit victory number one goes to Team Cheekers.

Soccer Sunday

Welp with two more weeks left of soccer, we had another great day. Our girl scored four goals and earned herself another medal! The down part to this story is that she doesn't want to play anymore. Daddio and I have been having discussions lately about when to keep your children involved against their own will and when to let them choose.

With the Olympics going on right now, we've seen a lot of interest from Sydney with ice skating. Wanting to provide opportunities for our children, we found out about an ice skating rink in town. Yesterday Daddio was all positioned to take our big girl out on the rink for an afternoon of fun. Unfortunately he didn't get quite the reaction he hoped. She said she wasn't interested.

We seem to get that a lot from our girl. If it isn't pretend play, there takes a lot of coaxing to get her to go do something. It takes even more coaxing to get her involved while there. To a degree I can relate to this. I don't remember being an overly ambitious child. I don't remember feeling the need to have lots of things going on. Simple play time worked fine for me.

I definitely don't want to be "those" parents that have their children scheduled constantly. But I also want our children to try and experience what they can and determine from there what are their strengths to grow from. So far with what we have seen of Sydney, she could have a lot of potential with soccer. Maybe not for life, but certainly for more than eight weeks. She also seems to really enjoy it when we get there, particularly when those quick feet result in some goal action.

I don't know. We'll have to see how next week goes. I don't want her to do something she's not interested in. I don't want to miss good experiences either.