Half Full

Anyone who knows me knows that I always try to be a glass-is-half-full kind of girl. If there's a bright side, I'll find it. And I'll hold on to it as long as possible. It's all about being thankful for what you have. Especially on a day like today, the Thanksgiving holiday.

Like, for example, if it's been 2 weeks since my last post, I'll just tell you that it's because I've been saving up something really good. And that life had been busy with all kinds of great distractions. It's not necessarily because I can't seem to find a half hour to sit at the computer and just idly write away to my heart's content.

It's all about staying optimistic. Noticing how green your own grass is so you stop checking out the nieghbors' yards.

Although yesterday I was certain that the glass was half empty. In fact it was entirely empty if you had asked me. It all started with my husband having what we thought was a bout of food poisoning late Tuesday night. But then yesterday afternoon both my daughters started having upset stomachs.

So I was thankful that on the way home from the movies I didn't stop at a store as I had planned, and I came straight home. Because the second after we walked in the door my oldest ran to the bathroom and lost her popcorn. After I wiped down every surface with Clorox (to hell with the all natural cleaners when there's a stomach bug in the house), I was hoping that would be the end of it.

Then, a couple of short moaning and groaning hours later, my younger daughter lost her popcorn too. All over our bed. Yes, that's our bed, not hers. Pillows, comforter, and all. After that it was hard to be thankful. And even harder to use clorox to clean.

Of course during this time my son had a pee-pee accident, which really seemed more like cleaning up a glass of water after all of those other bodily fluids that I'd been up against. Did I mention that he's now potty trained? We've taken advantage of the strong interest he was showing and over the last couple of weeks we've been putting him in his "big boy undies" more and more. Usually it was just a couple of hours, because that's as long as we were ever home to work on it. Then it was official this week when Monday morning he went off to school in underwear. Only one accident that morning, and the occasional one here and there since. Of course he timed one of them to be in the middle of all the barfing. Way to go, son. In this case, I was thankful I still had the Clorox wipes handy.

But all the wiping and laundry loads didn't end there. Shortly after putting her to bed, my youngest daughter was sick again in her bed. Off went more sheets and pillows to the laundry room.

By this time I was convinced that I was going to be praying to the porcelain god come morning time. I had lost all optimism and had become convinced that Thanksgiving dinner wasn't going to happen. And what's worse, I was convinced that my son would get it too. Which would mean a lot more laundry and carpet cleaning, since he would never be able to control when and where it happened.

We woke up this morning and my husband and I said "let's wait until everyone gets up" before we decide if we were making the turkey that sat waiting a better fate in the refrigerator. But low and behold, everyone got up and everyone was fine. Including me. And our son.

I started making the apple pie and that glass was half full once again. Right then and there I put on a happy face and was thankful.

Thankful that the flu bug was short-lived and the vomiting was kept to a minimum.

Thankful that I escaped it's evil grasp.

Thankful that my kids are healthy enough, on any given day, to be running around our house, making noise, spouting their opinions, and leaving plentiful messes behind. Even if two out of the three didn't eat a bite of the dinner that took me all day to make.

Thankful that we didn't have more company coming over for dinner, and it was just an intimate gathering.

Thankful that my belly, and those of my family, is full. Even if some of them are full of chicken nuggets instead of roast turkey and homemade gravy.

And thankful that my glass - of wine - was always half full tonight.

Girl of 100 Lists

Do you remember that Go-Go's song, "Girl of 100 Lists"? Lately I hear that song in my head quite frequently. It pops into my mind whenever I come across one of my oldest daughter's lists.

She's really into making lists right now.

Considering that I have a shopping list on the fridge, a to-do list on the kitchen counter, not to mention post-its multiplying by the dozens on my desk, I'm not too surprised this trait has popped up recently.

One of the first ones I noticed a few months back was a list she made for her sleepover at her grandmother's house. She numbered everything and even put checkboxes on the list so she knew when the item was packed. It was full of all kinds of essentials like "P.J.'s, underwear, clothes for tommorow, tooth brush, tooth paste, a pair of socks, head band, a book, a pair of flip flops, floser, pic of mom". That last one is one of my favorites. She's taken to keeping me with her at all times by having a photo of me in her backpack that she takes to school, and now I've even made the list for sleepovers. That one makes my heart smile.

On this list she even took it a step farther and had a section for the details of all of those items, so she knew exactly which pajamas and tooth brush and book were coming with her.

Then a few weeks later, she wrote a "To Do List". Apparently one day she felt like she had a lot going on and she needed to keep it straight. Fortunately for her, her To Do list looks much different than mine. In hers, it's all about what she's actually doing that day. I guess that'd be more of a schedule, but she's still fine-tuning her list skills. This one had the following items listed on it:

1. Piano lessons from 4:00-4:30.

2. Do my homwork around 2:55.

3. Jump on the tramp from 3:15-3:40.

4. Bring Bunny for sharing.

5. Friend's mom to pick me up from school.

6. Wear sparkly peace shirt.

Her day was very organized and orderly, even if the actual list was out of order.

She's also been making lists of all the birthday parties she's invited to, so she can keep track of all the good times headed her way.

Then there is the "favorite songs" list, which has gotten quite long lately.

And of course she's been making a list of who she will be inviting to her upcoming birthday party.

One of my favorites was her shopping list that she wrote out for me last week, on my actual list that was on the fridge. It went a little something like this.

Tootsi rolls

Gummi bears

Jelli bellis

Fruit by the foot

Pears

Bananas

Donuts

She wrote it out and then came over and told me she put down 2 healthy things for me to buy at the store. After my "good job!", she gave me a sly smile and said she might have put some other things on there too.

She also left my husband a note on his pillow around that same time. It said "Buy Milke way Mid-night Carmel Fudge". That's it. No please. No title.

I guess that one was really more of a command. But a cute one. And one motivated by her recent Halloween loot I imagine.

Can't you just hear that song going over and over in my head as I collect these lists that she leaves lying around the house?

"I am the girl of 100 lists
From what shall I wear
To who I have kissed
Check items off
Let nothing be missed
Sing I to myself and my 100 lists"

But there better not be any kisses on her lists.

Or we'll be coming up with a whole other list of things to be talking about.

Shut Up Already

By the title of this post you might think I'm being rather insensitive to my children. But that's not so. I'm talking to myself.

I just got back from watching my first soccer game for my daughter's team. And that sentiment is what I was telling myself the entire time. Just shut up already Jessica. But I couldn't. From the second that whistle blew, there was a force that swept over my brain and wrapped around my vocal chords. It took complete control over my thoughts until I was screaming things I never thought I even cared about.

It has finally come.

I'm a soccer mom.

Now you might be looking at the calendar and thinking to yourself "isn't soccer season almost over?". And you'd be correct. Because of my new career venture, my weekends have been pretty busy and I've managed to miss every other game up until this point, with the exception of the first half of one game a few weeks ago. So here we are three games from the end of the season and I'm finally getting to watch. It's really been heart-breaking to get the text message updates throughout the games as my husband keeps me up to date while he has watched the entire season up to this point. Especially last week when my daughter scored her first goal. Man did I wish I was there when I got that text. Tears even came to my eyes. In fact I'm getting a bit choked up just writing about it.

Now I was so excited that I finally get to go to the last 3 games of the season, and I couldn't wait to watch her play. Except that last night when she went to bed she wasn't feeling well. I think she had a very slight fever, which was probably from a long day of Halloween festivities and being run down, but nonetheless, I had a feeling she might not be playing today. Sure enough, she woke up with a big headache, although no fever, and a bit of a tummy ache. She ate her breakfast, but she just wasn't herself.

Of course this would also be the one day that we were in charge of snacks for the team. So I was up this morning baking Halloween cookies and cutting up watermelon. Before you know it I had to leave, and she was a trooper and put on her team shirt with her sweats and said she wanted to come with me.

So there we are on a wet field, watching the girls run up and down playing their game. I'm keeping my daughter warm and feeling a bit guilty that she's there. Either way you think about it I wasn't on the right side of the equation. I was either dragging my sick child out to a soccer game in the wet and cold morning (who makes those schedules and thinks that 9am is a good time for a Saturday morning soccer game, anyway?) or I was bringing out my somewhat healthy almost perfectly fine child to her team game without any equipment and letting her just sit and watch her teammates work hard for a win. But that's neither here nor there I guess.

As we watched her team fight hard on the defense through most of the first half, I was overcome from the first kick. "Get up there in front of the goal girls!" "Forwards get open!" "Kick it out of there!" "Pass it to the middle!!"

You name it, I was yelling about it. I seriously didn't know I had it in me. Since I've never been to a game and I am part of a carpool for practice, I don't know all the girls on the team. So I'm asking my daughter "who's the one with the ribbon in her hair?" and "what's the name of the girl with the pink shirt on underneath?". Then I'm yelling their names telling them where to go to get the ball and what to do with it.

Seriously. I started laughing at myself. At one point I told myself to just shut up for a while. I'd be quiet for about a minute and then it would just start coming out again.

As I was being possessed, I realized why it might be happening. I'm so used to knowing what to do myself, and watching games where players know what they are doing, that I couldn't help but feel a bit frustrated watching half the team just stand there and wait for the ball to come right to them before they even moved. And even then they sometimes didn't move. To the credit of all the girls, they all did the best they could. It's just that some of them get it and some of them don't. Or they don't care.

Which is totally fine. And I wasn't at all mad about it. I just wanted them all to do better and work hard for their team. So I couldn't help myself from yelling at them. For the record, mostly I just screamed out the obvious and I never pointed anyone out specifically unless they did something great and I told them so.

At the half time, the coach said he would try something new and he told everyone to just go play whatever they wanted and he wasn't going to assign any positions. My inner voice said "WHAT!?" and I panicked and started to tell the girls "someone needs to be on defense!" and shouting other instructions. Seriously, who did I think I was, the coach? I had to shut myself up again.

My daughter toughed it out through the whole game (we had a couple moments where we thought we'd leave) and by the end she was feeling better. And she was right there with me on the sideline yelling for her teammates to get a goal.

It was really rather fun. A bit of an adrenaline rush. Or perhaps that was just the coffee that I was sipping throughout the game.

Before today I had told myself that I would work with my daughter to see if she could play at least 2 or 3 years of soccer so she can get the feel of what it means to be on a team. Between that and softball, she should get some great life lessons. There's responsibility, teamwork, discipline, just to name a few. All wonderful qualities that most athletes possess, and ones that I'm glad she will be exposed to during these few years.

Just over the past week or two I was wondering if I should stick to that philosophy. I certainly don't want to force her to play something she doesn't like. I think I just really want her to like it.

And now after today, I want her to like it even more. I want to be her biggest fan on the sideline screaming like crazy when she gets a goal.

I want to be her soccer mom.

To Play or Not To Play

I've run into a new dilemma lately. So get ready to put on your thinking caps and offer any suggestions that might come to mind.

Recently I got an email requesting a play date with my oldest daughter. It was from the mother of a child in her class. My first reaction was "how nice!". And I of course politely accepted and we started working on dates and times.

While the plans were flying through the virtual world, I mentioned this impending play date to my daughter. And the funny thing is, it didn't occur to me until just that moment that my daughter is too old for me to be setting up her play dates for her. These days she comes to me herself and asks for the play date. More specifically she says "mom, can I go over to so-and-so's house tomorrow after school?" and then we talk about whether this has been cleared through the friends' parents and all that. And then I work with the parents to make sure it's okay, clarify timing, etc.

There have even been times lately when a friend of hers calls the house and they talk about a play date over the phone and arrange it. This is like a bad game of "telephone" with me on the second-hand conversation side with my daughter and the other mom on the second-hand conversation side with my daughter's friend on the other end of the phone. It's like 3 conversations all happening at once.

But I think these are sort of the bridging years for my daughter. She's able to make those calls, or receive them, and then just clear it all through me. In fact, there are times when she goes riding her bike around the neighborhood with the "older" girl next door, and I never even talk to that mom directly. I just assume that mom knows what they are doing, that she's getting the same request as me, and that if she's cleared it with her daughter then it's okay by me.

At some point we are just going to hit the "mom, I'm going outside to play!" point [editor's note: we have actually hit that point, I'm just refusing to remember or admit it] and pretty soon I'm going to have to start sneaking around the neighborhood spying on what she's doing if I want to know exactly who she's with and where they are.

And I don't even want to think about the next stage after that when it involves the opposite gender.

So back to the play date scheduling. I mention it to my daughter and she sort of makes a funny face. We talk about it and as it turns out, she doesn't really know this girl very well and it's not one of the girls she "runs around with" at school. She tells me she's a perfectly nice girl, it's just that it seemed sort of strange to her that they would set up a play date since they are pretty different personalities. I think I may have put a nicer spin on that than my daughter, but you get the idea.

Fast forward and the day arrives. The girl comes over and makes herself at home. I tell my daughter to show her around the house, which she does, and then they pick out a game to play. They spend an hour or so, which is all the time we had, playing politely together. I can of course immediately see the difference between this play date and her usual ones. Much less energy and excitement. Much less drama. And I'm thinking a little less fun for my child.

And that's when I realized that I was put in a tough spot and I did the best I could.

And so did my daughter. I coached her about being nice and open minded, and she did an absolutely wonderful job with it all. Which quite frankly surprised me a bit, since she can be a lot like a 13 year old at times with the attitude.

So we got through it all with flying colors, and when it was over I asked my daughter what she thought of it. She said "it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be".

While not a gold-star response, I'll take it. I told her I was proud of her for being open minded and a polite host.

And then it happened.

Another request. Almost immediately.

Now I'm really in a tough spot. I had no choice but to be "breezy" and say how lovely it all was and that our scheduling is really crazy right now, so "I'll be in touch".

I can't help but feel like one of the "mean girls". But honestly, my children can pick their own friends; that's not part of my job.

So I guess what is part of my job is being politely "breezy" on their behalf so as not to hurt too many feelings.

I hope it worked.