No, really, now I mean it

I can feel the time slipping away and I know I'm going to wake up tomorrow and the girls will be in college (or out getting their first tattoo....or both) and I'll think, My God, where did the time go, and why didn't I document more of it? I guess the real answer is, because I'm busy living it. But still, I do want to embrace these moments as much as I can as often as I can. My "not so New Years, seeing as it's February" resolution is to update once a week. More if I can make it happen, but at least that will be something.

So, let's see...to catch up on the last year...sigh....

We'll start with Hayden:

We started worrying about some speech issues about a year ago when she still called herself "Aiden" (not all that great since 'Aiden' just so happens to be the most common Boys' name in the country right now). her best friend was "Ria" (rather than "Maria") and there were words we couldn't make any sense of at all, sometimes whole sentences. It all came to a head when she was trying to tell her daycare friends a story about having a popsicle for dinner and she kept calling it an 'opsicle. The kids were making fun of her and she cried about it on the way home. So, I called the Elementary school to make an appointment for her to see a specialist. As it turns out, One, she LOVES going to school to take tests and work with teachers (let's hope that sticks) and two, all it really took was taking her to talk to a teacher to make her want to work on pronunciation herself. Now she works on words all the time and she's getting MUCH better. Tonight's big accomplishment was "refrigerator". She's just a little rock star.

To that end, we're trying to decide whether to put her in half day or full day Kindergarten. Everyone says full day is the way to go, but she just seems so little (Well, not little exactly, she's practically 5 feet tall already) and the idea of having her there all day just seems so "big kid" for my little girl. She's just growing up so fast!

What Hayden is into:

"A Very Young Everything" - I gave her my old copy of "A Very Young Dancer" and she's been an addict ever since. We read that book all. the. time. That was a gateway drug to "A Very Young Rider" and then I got her "A Very Young Skater" for Christmas. I just went online and ordered "A Very Young Gymnast" and "A Very Young Circus Flier" to complete her collection. I love that she loves those books. They're black and white, kind of grainy, quite verbose, and yet she loves them. Just like I did when I was her age. It's so neat to see the parts of her that are so much like me.

She's also into coloring my students' quizzes. They take vocab quizzes every Friday and to kill time they draw pictures on the back. If she chooses their pictures to color they get extra credit. So, of course the kids all angle to see what she's into so they can hedge their bets. Lately? "Tangled" "Disney On Ice" and anything related to ducks, specifically mallards. I know, right?

Disney On Ice comes from the fact that we took her there a few weeks ago (my mom and I) to see 100 Years Of Magic. She was enthralled. Mouth gaping open every time a princess hit the ice, just in awe. The one tragic mommy mistake of the night? I didn't get her a program. She didn't have anything to show her daddy and little sister who didn't go. One night I felt so guilty I couldn't sleep (I know, what does this say about my future as a parent?). At 1am I was online trying to find a program to buy. No luck finding a program, but I did find a link to Disney on Ice Dare to Dream a princess centered show in Boston. So, in the middle of the night, rather than ordering a program, I ended up getting tickets to a whole new show. That will teach me to pony up the $20 for a program.

What else is my little monkey into right now?
Her bicycle (with training wheels) and her scooter
Her blue Bunny (always and forever)
Stripping down as soon as she gets home and putting on costumes (sometimes for ice shows, sometimes for ballet recitals), always with the comment, "Mommy, you sit there. You have to be Nutcracker quiet." Nutcracker quiet is the highest level of devoted silence. It comes from the annual trip to see The Nutcracker, where Hayden sits stone still for an hour and a half, completely engrossed in the Nutcracker. Same thing watching the Seattle Ballet version (stage and costumes by Maurice Sendak) on the tv. She'll watch the whole thing start to finish, completely enthralled.
Dancing. What she lacks in natural gifts perhaps (like her mother) she makes up for in sheer love (like her mother).
Skating. She took lessons for four months. 20 minutes into the first lesson she was on her feet with no aids, and by the end she could go backward and forward with relative ease. So amazing to see. Her favorite part? Playing on the stands after class. Seriously, we could have saved $200 by just taking her there and letting her run up and down the bleachers. But, now she can skate too as an added bonus. Highlight of the skating season? The class where I managed to put her skates on the wrong feet, have her helmet on too loose so every time she looked down it fell into her eyes and dress her in tights that gave her a weggie. Poor kid kept looking down to check her odd feeling skates only to have her helmet slip down over her eyes, to be left blinded picking at a weggie on the ice. These are the moments you just can't capture on video.

What else is my girl into these days?
Bagels with cream cheese and peanut butter (at the same time. Ick). Yogurt and cherrios (there is no other breakfast) and mommy's "fuzzy water" (seltzer). But only in a big girl cup. Oh, and only big girl forks for her. Gone are the days of anything that seems babyish. At all. Oh, and broccoli. Always a hit.

I know there's so much more....but at least I've captured something of a snapshot. Now, onto Kaya Doodle.