My Heart...My Love

Today, I found myself standing in a beauty shop with tears in my eyes.


About three months ago, Makayla told us that she wanted to cut her hair off. Now, Makayla has hair that comes down past her waist band. So to cut her hair off is a major thing.
"WHY?" asked her father, on the edge of a coronary. "Because, there are kids who are sick and they don't have any hair, they take my hair and give it to them"

Could you just not kiss her?

However, knowing how important her hair has always been to her, she LOVES her long hair. We decided to give this decision some time. Letting her think about it, stew on it. Asking periodically, "do you still want to get your hair cut?" Sometimes she would say no. Sometimes she would say yes. So we kind of let it drop, thinking that it was a passing whim.


We let it drop, until last week. I was making an appointment for today for Cameron, Makayla and myself to get trims. She heard me and asked, "am I going to give away my hair when we go to see Mrs.Tammy?" (the hair dresser) A little shocked, I said, "I thought that you had decided not to get it cut" "NO!" she replied..."I TOLD you I want to give it to kids who are sick and don't have any hair."


To be honest, my heart kind of sank. As much as SHE loves her hair, I love it too. It is kind of her calling card, she is the pretty little girl with all that long hair. We have cultivated it, cared for it and watched her go from a bald little two year old to a nearly 7 year old with this gorgeous mane of hair. I know...I know..it's just hair. But it is more. It marks a growing up of sorts. To her making her first real decision that is "body altering", taking control of a part of her life. Taking a piece away from us. While I am still the parent, and I could have vetoed the whole thing...that was not my place here. This was a giving, selfless, precious decision that she made on her own. No, my place here was to encourage and stand back and let her follow through on this desire of hers, this decision that she made to give a piece of herself, also signifying a growing up and maturing, that I am terrified and ecstatic to watch unfold.

Yes I know she is only 6, and far from making her own decisions, but this is the beginning of this transformation that will take the rest of her life, but...everything has a beginning.....this, I feel, was hers. So those tears that I stood crying? They were sadness at the fall of her gorgeous hair that I love, probably more than she does. They were tears because I was brimming with pride at the amazing heart of such a young child, who gave so freely of herself, with out a pause.


So now on to what you really want to see....


I was watching a friends kids this afternoon, so we had an audience
The peanut gallery

Before the cut

Getting ready for the cut

The cut





With her two 10inch ponytails




The finished product







My love!





Also today on the hair docket, was this little gem from Cameron...he was flexing his hair muscles today too....


hee hee! Daddy was so proud!

A 3 for special....the finale

My final ramble for the evening. I find myself alone now, Dana has gone to bed, and quit talking to me. The person who requested...nay....DEMANDED that I do 3 blogs tonight, has abandoned me.


boo-hisss Dana


:) I kid again Dana


Finally today, Makayla got to swim in a warm BLUE! She was so happy...she came straight home, straight into her swim suit, and flew to the pool, and stopped short. There were bugs in it. MAAAAMAAAA...there are BUGS in the POOL! Come get them out!!!!

So I...the great pool cleaner...rescued them from the icky bugs.



I think I need a pool boy....think MA would be on board for that?



yeah you are probably right.....





Here we have queen bee on the float and Cameron ready to splash her...which he did just after I snapped this pic.




Queen bee de-throned and swimming among the peasants...no really, this kid amazes me. She is swimming under the water now, and doing it well. The change from last summer is amazing...we are really proud of her.



And just to finish with some cuteness....

Your welcome.

A 3 for special...part two

Here we go with the second of the 3-for special this evening.

Today was field day at the kids school. A day I liked ok as a kid, I always got sunburned...much as I did today..yay.

We will begin talking a little bit about the difference in boys and girls.

Here we have the girl. See how she is enjoying field day? See the eager anticipation on her face as she anxiously awaits her turn at the next event. See how she is poised to take her place to compete as she picks flowers and whines about being hot?


Next we have the boy. See how he is bored out of his skull? See how non-competitive he is? See how he could care less about when his turn is and is not counting how many people stand between him and his soccer kick? Sad really that he is so un-involved...really it is.

Next some action shots. Now don't leave me nasty remarks because there are no action shots of the boy. He is in pre-school, so they only stayed on the field about 20 minutes, until their team was ready to go in and watch Veggie Tales and take a nap.

Can I go back to pre-school?

Makayla, preparing to throw the foot ball...*giggle giggle*. I find this funny because up until this moment, I'm not sure she has ever held a foot ball, much less thrown a "spiral" as the boy in the red shirt kept telling her to do.

She winds up......

and she pitches...

no wait wrong sport.......she tosses? throws??? Whatever.......she flung that thing about 8 feet...I was pleased.

The results? Funny thing...for the girl who was SOOOO enthused about field day above...she was not too happy about the red second place ribbon she holds. See how "HAPPY" she is here?

Funny thing...this is the THIRD year in a row she has been on the second place team. She told me later to please make sure that next year she gets on the first place team.

Ok baby...I will work on that.

A 3 for special.....part one

Tonight, I asked a friend of mine to choose what I would ramble about. She chose all three, lets just say she has problems with commitment.

Actually she is just nosey and wants to know all the sorted details of our very mundane life. Which sadly means that her life is even more mundane.

hahahaha...I kid Dana.

So we will start with my favorite topic of the night. I would like you all to meet...Bippo the Hippo



Cute huh?

This is Bippo hanging out on the bed of the little dimple dumpling who carts him everywhere she goes. His name at first was just "Hippo" but for some reason, Olivia has started calling him "Bippo" we think it is so cute, and she OBVIOUSLY intentionally named him that, it is not that she is just mis-pronouncing "hippo". NO...she NAMED him Bippo, I know it. I know this because she is a genius.

Anyway, I put her to bed this evening and came back in a few minutes later and found Bippo hanging like this on the bed. Olivia...being a genius, obviously put him there to stand guard over her for the night. Because, you know. Bippo's will do anything to protect little dimple dumplings.

Existing

See, this is a night when I find myself wondering why I let Makayla talk me into a blog. We really didn't do anything of note worthiness today, we just existed.

We did go and spend an amazing amount of money at Wal-Mart. On what? Well, some chicken, drinks, deodorant, chips, TP, diapers....not much to be honest. I think we had 10 bags...seriously, we are going to be eating pinto beans and corn bread before long, groceries are so ridiculously expensive...except that a bag of pinto beans is roughly $17.85, so I don't know about that either. Does anybody know how grass and dirt pies taste?

Oh well, so this morning alarm-clock-hiney obviously hit the snooze button, and we didn't roll out of bed until 7:45. Problem? The kids have to be at school at 8:15. Yeah...it was fun trying to get three kids, up, dressed and fed and out the door in 20 minutes. It was so much fun, that it took me 30 minutes, and they were late. oops. Alarm-Clock-Hiney started hitting the snooze a few days too early. I'll have her work on that for the future.

Tomorrow is field day for Makayla and Cameron, they are excited, Makayla is on the yellow team, and Cameron is on the blue team. They are already betting who will win I just hope it's a tie so I don't have to listen to them battle all tomorrow night.

It was too cold to get in BLUE. Makayla was not too happy about that. She will survive. Why is it cold at the end of May by the way? It is supposed to be warm now...can somebody let the "powers that be" know that...I have some other things to do, so if you can stick that on your to-do list, I would appreciate it.

So there you go, our very normal life...I try to make it interesting I really do. Go get a warm glass of milk, have you ever drank warm milk? Does it make you sleepy? It sounds kind of gross to me. Anyway, go get your warm milk or warm tea or sweet tea or your sleeping pill, and read it again. I feel pretty certain you will be ready for bed when you are done!

Awards night

As summer vacation quickly approaches, we find ourselves busy with end of the year activies, tonight was awards night. So lets review in pictures;



This was before we left..... take notice of what Cameron is wearing in this pic.



Isn't this sweet?



Makayla talking to a friend

Now...notice what he has on in this picture...

why the change you ask? he is a boy, that is all I know to explain it. It involved dirt mysteriously appearing from nowhere.

His class...the teacher said to wave

still waving

and yet more waving

getting his diploma

which he then used as a sword




Hi baby!

Makayla...she kind of likes that boy there on her left....



*sniff* she is growing up

getting her certificate and honor roll medal

she looks scared??

There you have it...I could have told you about MA and I and our first dip into BLUE (the pool) but I will spare you. Instead I will leave you with this bit of sweetness.

Frigid waters

This morning alarm-clock-hiney, aka Olivia, woke up again, with out fail at 6:45. Yay. I pulled her into bed with us and coaxed her to lay down with mommy and daddy for another hour. When I say 'coax', I of course mean, I threatened her with going back in her bed. That worked until Makayla came down here from her room and started playing on webkinz.

ooohhh...webkinz..that is a whole 'nother blog! We are drowning webkinz fluff.

So when M started on Webkinz, O was done with the bed. No amount of coaxing was going to keep her there. Cameron and MA were also waking up, so my sleeping was over. I dutifully got up and went to begin breakfast, pancakes and sausage, just like I make every morning...**this would be a good time to stop for a PSA...not everything I say is completely complete....for instance, when I say "every morning" I mean once every moon cycle, or less. While I do make supper 6 nights out of 7, breakfast is usually what I can throw at the kids as we back down the driveway late for school** Ok, now that is out of the way.

As we finished breakfast, the kids were clamoring to go and get in the new BLUE pool. I told them that the water is just slightly above freezing, they didn't care. After getting on bathing suits, they flew out the door and across the yard to the BLUE pool. Again, as a dutiful mother, I reminded them that the water is cold. No pauses. Straight into the water. Those little boogers swam for over an hour in that frigid water! **If any one of you tell my grandmother that I allowed them to swim in that pool this morning, I will call you a liar and curse your name.**



Once the two ice cubes, I mean Makayla and Cameron, emerged from the water, I came in and started a warm shower to thaw them..aren't I a good mother...see I have redeeming qualities. They re-dressed and went out to spend the afternoon playing...that is until the rain started. Darn rain.

Debut

Today at lunch, Makayla said, "mom we need to start our own website so everybody can read about us". I replied, "do you think people really want to read about what we do?" Her answer was an adamant "YES" so, here we are.



I don't really know why anyone would want to read about our unassuming life, but my vivacious 6 year old daughter is determined that everybody in the universe wants to know all about what we do daily, and all of her mommies "yummy recipes" ;)



So we begin. I am a 28 year old mom to 3 amazing kids. Ages 6, 4 and 21 months. pink, blue, pink. Are we done having kids? Most likely. My husband and I have been married for 10 years...for those who aren't mathmatically inclined, that means I married at 18. My husband just turned 30...and is OOOOOOLLLLDDDD!!! haha.



Today we woke up way too early, mostly because O (our 21m old) has an alarm clock in her hiney that does not let her sleep past 6:30, and with summer vacation only a week away, we are going to have to fix that...either through nature or benadryl (only kidding...maybe) We lounged in bed trying to coax our daughter back to sleep, but we failed. We got up too early and began getting ready for church. Now, since we are used to getting ready in a whirl wind of lateness, we found ourselves ready to walk out the door 20 minutes before we needed to leave. This allowed time to do small tasks that rarely get done, like breakfast, lipstick application in the bathroom as opposed to the car...you know..small tasks.



Church was very good, because our sunday school leaders are amazing. Lunch was yummy...we ate at a local Mexican restaurant...we have decided they put crack in the food, and that is why we crave it so badly. Of course chowing on some mexican was not enough, so we took a detour to Dairy Queen on the way home....yummmyyyy.....have you ever had their chocolate covered strawberry waffle bowl??? NO!!! Stop reading and go get one NOW! Come back and finish reading, but be careful to not drip ice-cream goodness on the keyboard.

are you back?? good

We spent the rest of the day trying to set up our new pretty BLUE pool! Yes, that is right, we are now the proud owners of one of those blue easy-to-assemble, break-your-back, say-cuss-words pools! The kids are elated, MA (husband) and I are not so much...well, today atleast. Maybe when the water is slightly above freezing, and we can enjoy it a little, we will be more joyous.

Well, that will be all for today, I know you will wait with much anticipation for our next installment.