Locks of Love

Yesterday was a big day for Monkey.

  

Last year, Monkey decided she wanted to give her hair to Locks of Love.  Locks of Love is a non-profit organization that provides hair pieces to children suffering from long term medical hair loss.   Her hair was already long, but she wanted to make sure that when she cut her hair, it wouldn't be "super-short,"  so we've been letting it grow on it's own for about 6 months or so.

 

We decided that spring would be the perfect time to cut her hair because then it would be short for summer.  She's been very excited about the whole process and telling people she was going to give her hair away to Locks of Love.  We've even wondered about the child that might get her hair.

 

She has been asking me for weeks starting at the end of February, "When are we going to get my hair cut?"  Soon, just a few weeks away.  Then this week she was ready.  And on April Fool's day, too!  So we went to my hairdresser yesterday afternoon after school.  Luckily, I still had a few minutes from picking her up because I had forgotten my camera.  This was something I had to document for myself and family, so I rushed home, grabbed it,  then went to the salon.

 

 

First, her hair had to be measured.  A minimum of 10" is required to donate and she had just enough.

 

 

 

Then her hair is braided and secured on both ends.

 

 

 

The cutting began.  Yes, this tore at my heart just a little because Monkey had beautiful, long, free-spirit hair and I loved it.  But I'm very proud of her for doing this.

 

 

 

Her pretty braid, ready to be sent to Locks of Love.

 

 

And her final "new 'do!"  No more free-spirit hair, just spunky six-year-old hair, and it totally suits her.

 

Oh, and while I was cleaning the junk out of my car yesterday afternoon (again!), Monkey was practicing on her bike and she started, rode and stopped all on her own, three times, I think.

 

Yes, yesterday was a big day for us.

 

 

Nightmares

Monkey woke me up last night when she had a nightmare.  It was, I dunno, around 2 am.  When I heard her feet shuffling in (and felt the cat scatter away from her sleeping spot) I figured it was Little Man, but no, it was Monkey.  She asked if I'd get into bed with her and since it's been a long time since she'd asked, I said OK.  But just for a little while.  My kidneys tend to get bruised when we actually sleep in the same bed.  I'm still recovering from our week of visiting family.

 

Anyway, it got me to thinking.  What do children have nightmares about?  Not enough cake at the birthday party so they don't get a slice?  A bully at school?  I never ask Monkey what her nightmares are because I don't want them to linger in her mind any more than they already do.  And remembering dreams is so difficult anyway.

 

But, still, I wonder.

 

She's in a stable home, she has loving parents, clothes, food, toys out the wazoo, a pesky brother.  From my perspective, anyway, her life seems pretty good, so what would she have to be afraid of?  I'm not naive enough to think that all children are this lucky.  I'm know that there are children all over this world that have legitimate nightmares and may possibly be living those nightmares out.  That is terrible and a whole other topic.  It's not my intent to travel down that road first thing this morning. 

 

I remember having nightmares as a kid.  I had a recurring one that was, in hindsight more strange than scary, and had to do with being stuck on the furniture because the floor was hot lava with some big monster chasing me and I had to jump from couch to chair to steamer trunk to get away.  Yes, I was a creative child.

 

Monkey is a creative child, too.  So what does her vivid imagination create for her at night that scares her?  I don't know, but I'm glad she still comes to get me.

 

Daddies and daughters

I've mentioned this before, I think, but sometimes I take pictures for our church.  I'm not a great photographer but occasionally, I'll get lucky and snap some really cool shots.  There are still some things I'm trying to learn about my camera and taking pictures; technical things, like adjusting the aperture, shutter speed, exposure.  But it's fun and sometimes, as I said, I get lucky and find that "money" shot.

 

Last night I felt a little like Ashton Kutcher from the wedding Nikon commercial, getting great shots (although I didn't knock over any champagne glasses).  That is, when my head wasn't imploding with frustration trying to get those great shots.  And I really wanted to get those great shots.

 

You see, last night I was a part of something few moms ever get to see.  It made me laugh, smile, grin, giggle and even feel the sting of tears.  I found myself watching my dear friends' husbands and daughters and holding them even more dear than I did before because of what I was seeing.  I was able to observe, somewhat anonymously, daddies and their daughters laughing and playing and being silly.  Last night, our church had their 11th Annual Father Daughter Dance.

 

There's just something special about a relationship between a daddy and his daughter.  If you are a parent, you already understand that there are bonds between a daddy and his daughter and a mommy and her son.  There's just no explaining it.  The fact that there were at least two scheduled Daddy Daughter dances last night (our church and one at a hotel downtown) is a simple proof that it's there.  (On a side note, there was also a Monster Truck Jam this weekend, for the Mommies and Sons.)

 

So last night I show up a little before all the other dads and daughters to practice taking pictures with my camera.  As any place decorated for a dance should be, the lighting was low, with some stage lights (we had a DJ) and a few white Christmas lights for decoration.  As people started showing up, I started taking pictures.  It was very frustrating at first - little girls don't tend to stand still - but I started getting the hang of it.  The nicest thing about a digital camera is seeing the shot after it's taken and being able to take hundreds (I took, literally, about 400 pictures last night) and just deleting the ones that were no good.  I think I'll be deleting a lot.

 

As the night wore on, I can't even begin to tell you what it was like.  I almost feel like I'd be betraying some big secret if I talked too much about what happened.  Like it's some secret society and the rituals involved can't be discussed outside it's members.  I can tell you that I saw daddies dancing with their daughters without any hesitation about how they thought they looked.  No one seemed self-conscious about it at all.  They all looked like they were having a great time with their daughters.  Trey tried to get Monkey to dance some early on, but she was feeling a little bit shy.  It took her a while to get warmed up to dancing and, naturally, it was a Hannah Montana song that got them out on the dance floor.

 

The ages of the daughters ranged from about one year old and still figuring out that their legs can do more than just walk, to a mom dancing with her daddy, but I'd say the majority of the girls' ages fell between 4 and 14.  The girls were all dressed up in their fancy valentine dresses and the daddies were in suits, tuxedos that matched their daughters' dresses and I did see one in an Air Force uniform.  There's just something about a man in uniform!

 

I'm so glad that I was there last night.  It was something special and wonderful and I won't soon forget it.  I can't wait to start culling the pictures I took and I hope I find those "money" shots of all those daddies and daughters.

 

Monkey's photos

I'm finally feeling human again and since the kids are out of school AGAIN today, I thought I'd park them in front of the cartoons and update my blog.  Great parenting, I know, but it's only 7:00 in the morning.  I have all day to get them moving.

 

As I said before, Tara, over at Sticky Fingers, photo tagged me.  The rules are go to the folders you keep your digital pictures in, find the fourth folder, look at the fourth picture and tell about it then link back to who tagged you and tag four more people.  I've done this before, a while back, but I wasn't organized enough to do it right, so I just picked a random picture.  We use a Mac and all our pics are in iPhoto and we don't normally create separate albums - I know we should, but we don't.  A few months ago, we created albums for Disney, Christmas and pictures that Monkey had taken with her camera.  That was my fourth album.  I hadn't gone any further than that.

  

So, the fourth picture in the folder was this one:

 

 

She went around the day Trey gave her his old digital camera and took pictures of EVERYTHING.  She staged her toys, followed the cat around, took goofy pictures of me and Trey, photographed photographs, went outside and took pictures of flowers and weeds and plants.  I think she took 50 pictures that day.  In the space of about 30 minutes. 

 

Here is a small selection of her portfolio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, I realized when I opened up Photoshop, to add my watermark to her pictures, that in Photoshop, everything is in folders already.  So I was able to go through and (sorta) follow the instructions.  I say "sorta" because there are some pictures of family and friends that I won't post because I don't have their permission and so forth, so I had to fudge it a little.  This picture is actually from the third folder, the fourth folder in that folder and the fourth picture of that folder. 

 

It's an old one and I'm not really surprised I landed on it.  First, it's a good example why Monkey is called Monkey (she was a year old when this picture was taken) and it was taken at my Great Aunt's farm in Pennsylvania.  She just passed week ago yesterday.  My daddy's side of the family has a reunion in Pa. every year.  We try to go every year, but haven't been in the last three years for a variety of reasons, so she never got to meet Little Man, but she enjoyed Monkey.  She still maintained a small vegetable garden and she had a wildly crazy boarder collie that would chase balls all. day. long.  She was a spunky ol' farm girl with a clear head and a kind heart.  She will be missed.

 

 

 

 

Now, for the tagging.  Hmmm.... I'm trying to think of who I haven't tagged in the past so here goes.  Tammy, Kathryn, Betsy and Ryan.  I don't know if any of you have done this photo tag before or not.  I tried going back several posts and didn't see anything, so if this is a repeat from the past for you, my apologies.

 

 

Oh, bring it ON!

photo by Stephen Cummings 

 

  Girl Scout cookie sales start tonight at midnight.

 

This is my first year involved with the Girl Scouts - I'm a cookie sales virgin!  Ok, that just sounded wrong on so many levels, I should delete that.  Here's the deal.  This is like no other fund raiser I've ever done.  We had our troop meeting this week and everything was explained to us about how this would all go down.

 

Do not sell cookies before 12:01 am, January 16th.  Do not sell cookies BEFORE 12:01 am on January 16th.  Do NOT sell cookies before midnight on Thursday night.  Yes, this really was emphasized several times.  I'm thinking to myself - how would they know?  And another mom asked the question before I did.  This started the ball rolling of stories from bygone days of selling cookies.

 

Apparently this is a major competition.  And I don't mean between the girls.  Some of the stories floating around were, first-off, always from someone else's troop.  So-and-so would see someone selling cookies before the start date and would ask, oh-so-innocently, "oh, what troop are you in?" and then go report that troop for selling cookies early.

 

At another troop, one person trumped another's "regular sales" of 500 boxes at a particular business, again before the official start date.  (During all this, I'm visualizing times from childhood of moms bumrushing stores to buy Cabbage Patch dolls, only they're waving Girl Scout order forms instead.)  The girls get penalized for early sales, by the way.

 

Really?  This really happens?  I'm all up for a bit of healthy competition, but this is ridiculous.

 

Then she passes out a form for us to sign and they want my SS# or DL#.  Huh?  This is for the purpose of their Collections department for money that is owed them.  HUH???  People are skipping out on what they order?  Taking the cookies and running and I'm held responsible for it??  Who are these people?!?

   

Then she goes over the delivery dates.  Again, it is emphasized DO NOT deliver the cookies before February 27th (even though we'll be getting our cookies on the 24th, or somewhere around then).  I think we moms were all too stunned to react by this point because I don't remember any horror delivery stories being passed around.  From other troops, of course.

 

Now, I like Girl Scout cookies.  The thin mints are the bomb, especially when they're cold, but I will NOT be held responsible for someone else's bad financial decisions.  So if I come to you (or better yet, my sweet little Monkey with those big puppy dog eyes comes to you) and ask oh-so-sweetly "would you like to order some Girl Scout cookies?" know that we won't ask before midnight tonight, they for sure won't be delivered to you until February 27th (even though they'll be taking up space in my house for a few days beforehand) and when they are delivered, you better pay for what you ordered with cash, a money order or a check made out to me (which I will promptly go cash).  

 

But you better buy a lot of cookies.  Monkey wants to win an ipod.

 

 

The Homeschool Debate

I'm back on the homeschooling idea.  Monkey's teacher, who came up with an accelerated program for Monkey and two other advanced readers in her class, had to move back to where she had moved here from.  I don't know the whole story, but it had to do with a job for her husband.  

 

Anyway, so Monkey has a new teacher.  She's also getting bored in school.  She likes learning and she's doing very well, but that's just it.  She'll finish her math before the other kids and quietly draw on her paper.  She got in trouble for it.  Twice.  Unfortunately, I never got a chance to talk to the teacher to get her story before she left, so I don't know both sides.  I only know that Monkey had finished her work, correctly, and was trying to occupy her own time while waiting on the other students to catch up.  At least that's what she told me.

 

So, now I'm looking again at homeschooling for next year.  Can I just tell you there is way. too. much. information out there about homeschooling.  I have never felt so overwhelmed about one "simple" topic in my life.  Except for maybe statistics.  That was pretty overwhelming.  Thankfully, I have friends who homeschool and are enjoying it, so it's not like I would be out there all on my own.

 

So, as I see it, here are a few of the perks:  The "school day" is shorter.  The state where we live only requires four hours of study for it to count as a full day.  This would allow for more free time with Monkey to do things like sports/dance/girl scouts without having to rush, rush, rush after school and before dinner and/or bed time.  I wouldn't have to get up quite so early every morning, since we'd be on our own schedule (selfish, I know, but it's true).  I could teach to her skills.  She's reading on a 3rd or 4th grade level (she's only 6, remember) and she does really well with math.  She's even started doing simple multiplication in her head.  In her HEAD!  Another perk is that in this area, there are lots of homeschool groups and enrichment programs, so she'd still get that classroom feeling with other students two or three times a week.  She's a very social girl, so I know that would be important.  We'd be able to take field trips to museums and such and I'd be able to teach through involvement.  She'd also get to stay in her current Girl Scout troop, so she wouldn't lose that connection with her current friends.  And if it doesn't work out after a year, she can go back to school for third grade.

 

Naturally, just as there are some upsides, there are downsides as well.  I would lose a good bit of my own free time.  I know, that sounds horribly selfish, but anyone with children will agree (even if they don't want to) that downtime away from one's children is very important to one's sanity.  One way to "fix" this would be to make sure Monkey is in one of those enrichment programs (which I would do, anyway).  The trick will be getting it to coincide with preschool with Little Man so that when Monkey is at school, Little Man would be, too.  That would give me a couple days a week to have my "mommy time" without both children.  The idea of coming up with a curriculum is daunting, at best.  There is really so much out there - how would I know what to choose?  Also, I'm not a very organized person.  I know one doesn't HAVE to be organized to teach, but it certainly helps.  And will Monkey and I be able to slide into the student/teacher roles?  Will I be able to be the teacher without being the mommy?  Will she be able to accept and respect me as the teacher when it's time to learn?

 

All these questions and doubts are floating around.  There's a reason I never wanted to homeschool - I just don't know if I "have it."  But, if this is something that Monkey needs to succeed, I'll do it.  I can't screw her up that bad in a year, can I?

 

What do you think?  Any words of wisdom out there? 

  

Hannah has come home

 

Well, it has finally happened.  Hannah Montana has come home.  She is officially my little Monkey's new favorite thing.  OK, maybe it's not so new.  It's been brewing for quite a while.  We'll watch Hannah Montana at night, sometimes, during the last half-hour before bed.  

 

What's funny is that even our son is singing (at the top of his lungs in Wally World, mind you) "It's the BEST of both worlds!"  Yeah, that's my boy!

 

I was shopping for school supplies this weekend and Monkey wanted a Hannah Montana backpack.  I tried to explain to her that her current Disney Princess backpack is just fine, it'll get her through one more grade and I'll get her a new one for 2nd grade.  Or, she could use her own allowance to buy her bag.

 

That worked.  Not only did she buy herself a backpack, she bought an old-style tin Hannah Montana lunch box and a Hannah Montana wallet for her money.  Assuming I can get Blogger to work with me, I'll upload the picture I took of her purchase.  No, it's not really a big thing, but it's cute knowing that Monkey is out buying her own stuff.  No, wait, that means she's growing up.  No, that can't happen.  Not yet.

 

Did I mention she lost another tooth?

Monkey has a solo

Yes, I am one of "those" moms.  Those moms that brag about their children.  

Monkey has been practicing in choir over the summer and working on a program for the fall kick-off of our church's Wed night fellowship.  She auditioned for speaking and singing roles and while I hoped she would get something, we tried to help her understand that she might not. 

Of course, she is the one who said she was "born to sing" in the same matter-of-fact tone that she uses to say she was "born with blue eyes."  American Idol, here we come.

She did not get a speaking role, but she did get a solo.  She's very excited and sings well along with the cd in the car.  I'm wondering how she'll do in front of a crowd.  Last summer, during VBS, she jumped up on the stage to sing and dance with a bunch of other kids, then froze when she saw the crowd.  I'm hoping that won't happen again this year.

For those parental units out there, we're going to try and dust off that camcorder and get it on tape.