Only Child

Chloe is at her first slumber party tonight. She has gone to sleep over before but never a slumber party. There will be about five girls all "sleeping" in a tent in her friend Sami's backyard. I am under no expectations that she will be sleeping. I was under strict orders not to embarrass her at the drop off. I was allowed to take one photo prior to leaving and none when we got there.

A lot of rules. Alexa is very sad about not having Chloe home. She didn't want o do anything too special because then Chloe would miss it. So we settled on a movie night. We did pick our first lemon cucumber for dinner. Not having ever had or grown one before I wasn't completely sure when they were ready to be picked. It seemed ready though...

and it tasted yummy.

Today's Play

I offered to watch two of the girl's friends today as their mom had a meeting attend. While it was likely to be another warm day (although only 80's today) I wasn't sure I was ready to take four kids to the beach. Setting aside the size of my car for such purposes. So we set up the backyard to allow for some water play to cool off. They invented a fun game called run and jump into the pool.

Then there was fit all four girls into the pool.

They also decided to play a dress up game.

There was a dolphin, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell's fairy friend, and a bumble bee named bumbles.

Tinkerbell was not thrilled with his role in the activities.

Tea Party

Alexa had a friend over today. She couldn't wait for her to get here.

They had a tea party inside the club house.

As you can see dressing up was involved.

A Thought and a Story

I have two things to share today and they are in no way related. One is about this quote I have been carrying around with me for about two weeks. I was in the waiting area a few weeks ago at Alexa's dance class. I usually spend my hour grading papers as there is always a  never ending supply of those. For some reason on this day I had finished or had all I could take of illegible handwriting and bad grammar I don't remember which. I picked up a copy of O magazine off the chair next to me. Now I have never read this magazine before, but I started flipping through the pages. I came across an article about holiday giving. More specifically giving to excess. What really drew me into the article was that a portion of it was written by Elizabeth Gilbert. She is one of my favorite authors. Mostly because I feel our lives have run so many parallels. I reread her books often as if they are some type of manual that will tell me what to do next to get through life. At any rate I was reading the article when I came across a piece of advice she had been given. It said, "never give anyone more than they are emotionally capable of receiving, or they will have no choice but to hate you for it." Now I could go into a rather long explanation of why this little piece of advice jumped out to me, however even for me (a person who has been know to share some personal items in writing) it would be too much to share. Lets just say that I read it, and several parts of my brain clicked ah ha at once. So much so that I dug through my purse to find a scrap of paper that I could copy it down on. I have been looking at that piece of paper sitting on my computer table for weeks now. I guess I just wanted to write it down and remember it. It just made that much sense to me.
The other thing I have on my mind is a story. I guess it is actually moderately related to the previous sharing in that it is a Holiday theme as well. In the car yesterday the radio station played the song "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer". Now Alexa has been getting really excited that they occasionally play Christmas songs on the radio, so I turned it up for her. She was bouncing away back there listening to the song. Suddenly she said, "Mommy, I would play with Rudolph. I don't see why it is such a big deal. It is just a nose. Who cares what color it is." Now see... that is my Lexa all heart.

Lonely Lexa

Chloe has her first sleep over tonight at a friend's house. She has had lots of playdates up until this point, but I felt she was a little young for a sleep over. I would probably still be saying that if the calendar and kind people hadn't intervened. I have to go back to work tomorrow, but Chloe's school is scheduled for an inservice day (teachers go but not kids). It is a pain when these things happen, and it is one of the times that I wish I lived closer to family. Nothing says daycare in a pinch like being able to drop your kids for the day with their grandmother or aunt. I was down to thinking that Chloe would have to go to work with me tomorrow. A plan that she was pretty excited about, but I was not sure it would work too well. As fate would have it I talked to a fellow working mom last week. The parent of one of Chloe's friends who also happens to have a child in preschool with Alexa. We have gotten to know one another fairly well over the years at birthday parties, girl scouts, open houses, and concerts. She offered to let Chloe come play on Tuesday while I was at work. I thought this sounded great to me and called her this weekend to make sure it would still work. She is a teacher as well (although her district is still off tomorrow). I wanted to be sure that she was OK with the early hour that I would need to drop Chloe off. It was at this point that she said they were wondering if Chloe would like to have a sleepover and that way she wouldn't have to get up early. I ran it by Chloe and she was over joyed at the idea. She was packing her bag, pillow, and sleeping bag first thing this morning.

Alexa on the other hand was less excited. There was the initial grumpiness about Chloe going to play while she was at preschool. Then she moved on to sadness about not wanting Chloe to leave. We tried to make the best of it. After dropping Chloe off this evening we stopped by City Market. I told her that she could pick out whatever she wanted for dinner. She created quite a feast.

We of course made sure to have dessert. Her favorite strawberry ice cream, topped off with a chocolate chip cookie, and chocolate ball on top.

She got a nice long bubble bath before bed.

Cabbie tried to fill in as a playmate.

She was still sad about missing Chloe as she went off to sleep, but too tired to complain for very long.

Friends

I love this picture of Alexa. It isn't recent. It was taken over a year ago in February 2009 at my sister Andrea's wedding. I didn't even take the picture. Their friend Jeff, doubling as wedding photographer, did. She is surrounded by my mom (white shoes) and sister Cherie (red shoes) and someone else I can't identify by the shoes. The picture is a little fuzzy, but I still love it. Look at her, she looks a little lost doesn't she? Standing in the middle of all these grown ups. Some she doesn't even know, and everyone is just so tall. She looks so bewildered like, how did I get here and who are these people?

Alexa and I were driving home yesterday and we had a little conversation that went a little something like this:

"Mommy would like to live by the beach?"

"You know, Alexa, I have always wanted to live next to the beach. It would be great wouldn't it?"

"Let's do it Mommy. Let's move our house there. I would help carry it."

"Oh, Lex it doesn't work like that houses are to big to move that far. You sell your house and pack all your things in boxes. Then you buy a new house and move all your things to the new house."

"But Mommy I like our house. We could do it. We could move it. I know we have some friends that would help us lift it."

I love that she knows that. That friends will help you especially if you are feeling a little lost and bewildered. I have had some amazing people step forward this week for me. I am very grateful to you all. I thank Marti for books on meditation (I am becoming so balanced you will all be so proud), Robin for an amazing scrap book that still has me laughing (I think we should head out on another adventure. We need fresher pictures... and God knows we need better outfits!), and Renae for just dumping the whole bag of chocolate on my desk after that meeting and then standing with me while we just ate. Life really does just hand you everything you need to get through. Now, who wants to help Alexa carry a house?