eight!

Dear Rachel,

Today you are eight!  You're growing up so fast and I'm afraid if I blink, I'm going to miss what's left of your little-girlhood.  Some days you're eight going on five....playing dress up, still enjoying princesses and Disney Jr (you told me the other day though, that you've outgrown Disney princesses, but you really love Sofia the First, so I'm not so sure about that yet!).....other days you're eight going on sixteen, full of emotions and uncertainty about your future.  I can hardly keep up with your ever changing moods, interests, and ideas, but I'm enjoying journeying along with you.

In the last year you've learned to love to read, and I couldn't be more thrilled, as it's one of my favorite past times.  You've also started loving to write, writing stories, newspaper articles, and whatever you can think of to write down.  You also just love to learn.  You check out non fiction books a lot at the library, usually something having to do with social studies.  Maps, Presidents, History, you love it all.  You love watching Wild Kratts all of a sudden, and learning about different animals, too.  You surprise Daddy and me all the time with the facts you've learned.

You love mysteries and just played your first game of Clue at a friend's house a couple of weeks ago.  You've been asking for that game almost every day since.  I know that once you unwrap it today, there will be lots of rounds of, "Professor Plum in the Hall with the wrench...." in our future!  :)

You absolutely love school, something your dad and I are very excited to see.  It's so much easier seeing you get on the bus every day, knowing you're so happy about seeing your friends, your teachers, and learning new things.  We are so proud of you.  You made us extra proud when you came home yesterday beaming with pride at being chosen for "Cougar of the Month" for your class.

You love your little sister, and even though you boss her around and argue with her, you both hate it when we make you play separately because you aren't getting along.  You'd both much rather have each other to play with!  You play well together (when you're not arguing, that is) and she looks up to you so much.

Here are some of your thoughts as you turn eight:

Favorite food: graham crackers

Favorite color: rainbow (you can't decide)

Favorite show: Sofia the First

Favorite book: Ron Roy's books (again, you can't decide which one)

Favorite part of school: art and writing

Favorite thing to do at recess: monkey bars

Favorite thing to do at home: read to Rebecca (this is a new interest, but you've been doing it almost every day lately!)

Favorite place to go: Great Wolf Lodge

What you want to be when you grow up: writer

Happy, happy birthday, dear Rachel.  Eight years ago today was one of the top three best days of my life and I'll never forget the moment you made me a mother. I am so, so happy to be your mom and love watching you grow into your own person.  I love you so much!

Love,

Mom/Mommy  (.....some days I'm still Mommy to you, but more and more often I'm "Mom.")

bangs and bunny teeth

Rachel will be eight in two weeks.  All of a sudden she's caring a lot more about what she looks like.  She's never really cared a whole lot about what she wears (except preferring soft pants over jeans her whole life, and loving dresses), or what her hair looks like (except disliking wearing hair accessories...comfort over fashion), and so forth.  But in the last two weeks or so I've heard her complaining any number of times about how her bangs look bad with her cowlick (which is why we're growing them out), that her dress I chose for church made her look fat (this coming from a little girl who is skinny as a rail and in the 7th percentile for weight??), and that her two front teeth look like bunny teeth.  :(

I guess it's all part of growing up and becoming more self aware, but it makes me sad that she's already having such negative thoughts about herself when she looks in the mirror.  How do I help her to navigate this huge area of self image??  It feels so overwhelming.  I want her to feel good about herself, but not too good about herself.  I want her to be happy with what she sees, but not be overly concerned about it.  I want her to be more concerned about what kind of person she is on the inside, not what she looks like, but how in the world do I do that when everything else in our culture pushes her to care exceedingly about what she looks like? Ahhhhhhh!

The other night I looked up different ways to style hair while growing out bangs.  This is the style she likes the best so far.

There's one style I like better, but I'll have to take a picture of it another day.  But oh, how I love this sweet, beautiful girl who is growing and changing and so much.  I think she looks so much older this way.

I feel like this is a whole new world we're entering with her.  One I'm not ready for!

How do I stop time???

snow whites on a snowy spring break

The girls were playing dress up, both ended up in Snow White dresses, then decided to watch Snow White.

And yes, it's spring break and we just had a half hour of white out conditions.  Will winter NEVER end??

books and buttons and bangs, oh my!

Rachel loves books.  I'm SO happy!  I've always loved to read, and for a long time it didn't look like Rachel was going to share this love.  She always liked being read to, but she was reluctant to read on her own.  This year, something changed, and now she loves to read.  Her reading ability really took off, so I'm sure that has something  to do with it, too.  She knows she's good at it, so she enjoys it.

Just like everything else in her seven plus years, though, she becomes fixated on one type of book.  She's always gone through phases with her various obsessions (Thomas the Train, Care Bears, Disney Princesses, Lalaloopsy, and on and on), and it's no different with books.  First it was Magic Treehouse.  Now it's mysteries, specifically Ron Roy mysteries.  Last week I went to the library and got several different types of mystery series books to try and get her to branch out.  She's found another series she likes, called "Greetings from Somewhere," but so far there are only two books available in this series, she's read them both, and they're very easy for her.  Once she read both of those, she went back to Ron Roy's books.  The next Greetings from Somewhere book isn't coming out until May.  So I'm hoping she'll finish Ron Roy's books soon and move on to something else (she doesn't have all that many Ron Roy books left to read).  She was excited about the new series I brought home, but we'll see if any of them catch her interest.  I'm just happy that she's loving to read.

Rebecca chooses the same books over and over.  She mostly chooses books about characters she  recognizes from TV or movies, so I have to choose other ones and force them on her to get her interested in something else.  Then she'll want them read to her over and over for days on end.  For awhile it was Apple Farmer Annie.  She's had that book out from the library multiple times.  Sometimes it will be one of the classics--The Three Little Pigs, or The Three Bears, or Hansel and Gretel, or  something like that.  Rachel used to love Curious George.  Rebecca doesn't seem interested in him at all.  Right now she has the Essential Guide to the movie, Frozen, and the Essential Guide from the movie The Incredibles, and she wants a page or two read from one of those all the time.  

Buttons....Rebecca has this thing against buttons.  I don't know how or why or when it started, exactly, but a few months ago she started complaining about her PJs with buttons.  Every time we'd put a pair on her that buttoned, she'd get all bent out of shape.  Finally, rather than arguing about it every time, I just quietly n packed all of the button PJs away (she was outgrowing them, anyway) and when I got out  the next size, I didn't take out the buttoned PJs.  But then, she branched out from complaining about PJs, to talking about Daddy's work shirts.  Daddy wears a blue button down collar shirt to work every day, and every day she'd complain, "Why do you always have to wear buttons?"  When I wear a buttoned shirt, she makes it  known that she doesn't like it (most of my PJs have buttons, too, so unless I have my robe on over them in the morning, she doesn't want to sit on my lap.  If I'm wearing my robe, then it's okay).  She has a pair of pants with button details at the ankle, and every time I put them on her, she complains.  I don't know why she dislikes them so much--she doesn't have a reason when you ask her.  Just a random quirk of my funny girl.  Kind of like how Rachel's always hated jeans and asks for "soft pants" every time I tell her to wear jeans (she will wear jeans, now though, as opposed to a couple of years ago, when she would put up a huge fuss about them.)

Rachel's decided (again) that she wants to let her bangs grow out.  She decided the same thing about a year ago, we started letting them grow, had to start pinning them back once they were in her eyes, and she then decided she wanted bangs again.  She hates wearing clips or headbands in her hair, so she decided she'd rather have bangs than wear something in her hair while they grew out.  Well, now she's sick of her cowlick, which is only getting more pronounced as she gets older, and wants to grow out the bangs again.  So we'll see how long she lasts.  I've told her it means she'll have to wear clips and headbands again, so we'll see.  It'll probably take all summer, at the very least.

kiss her, she's Irish!

I'm not Irish, but she is, sort of (actually, I  think my husband's ancestors were Scottish, but we have an Irish name....)

She chose green socks, too, because she wanted to  make sure she didn't get pinched.

Rebecca wanted to wear green, too, and wanted her picture taken, too.

So there are my Irish (Scottish?) cuties (ignore the un-brushed hair...l hadn't gotten to that part, yet!)!

update

I know it's been awhile....the biggest reason I haven't written is because we've all been sick--AGAIN.  This winter has just been the worst.

But in other news, today was very spring-like.  Rebecca said, "It's a beautiful day.  The sun is shining, and there's nothing in the sky but blue!  There is no snow drip dropping down."  So funny, that silly girl.

When she got home from school Rachel wanted to go outside and play.  Usually I make her do her homework right away, but since I knew by the time that got done, it would be dinner, and by the time dinner got done, it wouldn't be so bright and warm out, I went ahead and let her go out until dinner, telling her she'd have to get it done after dinner.  So the girls went out (and got filthy in all of the mud....but I guess I'd rather deal with mud than snow!). 

She tried her first try on the monkey bars since the infamous elbow break in October.  She got up there to start, and was too scared.  I watched from the window and could tell that she was afraid.  Eventually she got down and didn't attempt it.  A little while later I went out and asked if she had tried it.  She said she was too scared.  I told her to just try hanging and dropping to start.  That sounded okay to her.  Well, not only did she hang, she did three monkey bars.  She was so proud of herself.  And I was thrilled that she pushed through her fear and tried.  I'm sure she'll work back up to doing the whole thing in no time.  I'm just glad she was willing to try it, even though she was afraid.  She doesn't have a good track record at doing things that scare her.  Way to go, Rachel!

Yesterday she had to get impressions of her teeth taken at the dentist for a retainer.  That was another thing she was really scared about, and she did a great job and didn't put up a fuss.  This is another case where I was thrilled with her bravery--she really doesn't have a good track record when it comes to being brave during medical procedures.  So proud of her when she pushes through the hard stuff.

She has a molar that is growing in sideways, which is why she needs the retainer.  It will be cemented in her mouth for 1-3 months, they said.  We'll see how that goes, and how it affects her eating, speaking, etc. 

I'm on "spring break" from my teaching for a couple of weeks.  I'm really hoping we can all get well in the next two weeks and not have to deal with any more sickness for the rest of the year.  It's causing all kinds of problems with my getting to work (either I'm sick, one of the kids are sick, or my friend Emily's kids are sick (Emily watches my girls for me before school and watches Rebecca after preschool is done on the days I teach), practically every week lately!  It's been a huge stressor, trying to juggle child care and work and my own sicknesses.  I don't know how moms who work full time do it.  Ahhhhh!!!)

I recently wrote that I found my first grey hair.  Well, last night I got my hair cut, and the woman cutting my hair said, "Did you know you have all kinds of really curly hair back here in the back?"  I haven't had a curly hair on my head in my life--not even the few times I got a perm, desperately wanting curly hair--they never took well in my stick straight hair.  So I couldn't believe it.  She cut one of them to show me.  Not only was it super kinky-curly, it was also grey.  She cut another couple to show me.  They were all grey.  So apparently, I have a bounty of curly grey hair growing in the back of my head, underneath my top layer of hair, so they're not visible.  So strange.  And gosh, am I getting old.... 

Speaking of getting old, I only have one more week in my 30s.  Then I'll REALLY be old.

And that's the update in our world.