"Sugar Me Up"

Peanut and I will be going to Mimi and Paw Paw's house for Trick-or-Treating this year. It's supposed to be her dad's year to have her for Trick-or-Treating, but we're already making great strides with this "co-parenting" stuff and he's invited me to come along...actually, it's quite possible his parents did the inviting, but what really matters is that Peanut gets both parents for Halloween. So...I was telling Peanut about our plans for Wednesday night and she said "Yeah, Mimi and Paw Paw are going to sugar me up on Halloween"...I think she's plenty sweet without the candy. Speaking of candy, she keeps asking to go to the "spooky store". We went to Party City to find my witch costume and they had candy bracelets. I got her one, and now she wants to go to the store all the time. She's definitely my daughter. I would do almost anything for candy/sweets when I was her age (still will! wink). Story goes that I used to ask everyone for cookies wherever we went. My mom told me that I wasn't allowed to do this...so we were visiting a friend and I said "It would be okay if you want to give me a cookie"...SEE! I didn't ask for it outright...kind of like asking to go to the spooky store.

One step closer

I am one step closer to my divorce being final
I am one step closer to understanding & accepting my part in this failure...& forgiving myself
I am one step closer to understanding his part in this failure...& letting go
I am one step closer to freedom it took losing to appreciate
I am one step closer to freely showing my new found love how much I love him
I am one step closer to linking my past with my present & learning from it
I am one step closer to myself

Last day of Soccer Tots - It was about the journey

Yesterday was the last Soccer Tots session for Peanut. She and Maddie were the only two girls in the class this time. I will never forget her face as the kids ran from one end of the field to the other...she'd skip and then look at me and smile and then skip some more. I decided for her it was not about the race...it was about the journey. I wonder if she'll get her dad's athletic ability...doesn't seem to be there just yet, but I hope so...much more athletic than I am. Whether she's good at sports or not, I just want to see her trying and having fun. Too many times I was told I wasn't good at sports as a kid and it kept me from trying. Very easy to say "I'm not going to be good at it, so why bother..." I think the best thing you can do for your kids is to expose them to sports and the arts, etc and just sit back and see what takes. No expectations. Now, should she decide to become an Ice Princess, I will be the happiest skating mom on the planet!...but no pressure. Would only want her to do that if it were her dream too.

Alphabet Surprise

It amazes me how differently children learn with their parents and with their teachers. I've been working on the letters of the alphabet with Peanut lately. Every time I ask her what a letter is I get "I don't know"...every now and then she'll throw me a bone, but not usually. Yesterday I picked Peanut up from school. She had her handwriting work that she had done in her folder. When we were in the car I told her what a great job she was doing with writing her letters. She asked for the paper so I gave it to her...then she starts rattling off all of the letters of her name. She got them all right except the "q" and the "t's" which she said were "g's" and "f's". Not bad considering her last name is 12 letters long! Told her she was a "stinker" for not coming clean about knowing her letters sooner...she thought that was pretty funny. What a fun surprise for me!

They really do listen

Sunday when we were at the pumpkin patch I had a quiet moment with Peanut. Thought it would be a good idea to talk with her about strangers since the place was pretty crowded. I've never really talked with her about that, so I told her what a stranger was and what she should do if she got lost or if a stranger tried to talk to her, etc. She was very quiet while I'll explained it, so I wasn't quite sure if she got it. Then this morning out of the blue (I'm lovin' these out of the blue comments) she said, "I'm not allowed to talk to strangers or leave with them..." Yes!!!!!! She does listen. Also found out that she's been learning the same thing in school. Very reassuring.

More photos from The Patch

Pumpkin Patch Gang

Took Peanut to the Pumpkin Patch in Flower Mound yesterday. It is becoming a tradition to go with Cecilie and Madeleine and this year we had "baby" Grey with us too! The girls had a lot of fun and it felt good to just let them run around barefoot and have a good time. Peanut especially enjoyed the cotton candy this year proving that she takes after me. We split a bag for the girls and she gobbled hers up in minutes...then she kept asking Maddie to "share" hers...thank goodness Maddie is good at sharing and not a huge fan of cotton candy (lucky Cecilie). One photo is of the girls playing in a wooden house. Peanut told me I had to be the wolf. I would knock and say "Little girls, little girls, please let me in" and Peanut would say, "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin". The second time I did that Peanut said, "This house is made of straw so you only have to 'foof' it" which is what I do when I blow on food that is too hot for her to eat. She cracks me up! We had the best time and she fell asleep in the car almost instantly on the way home. Think we were both tired out.

Fell off the soda wagon

Just had to have a little bit of soda, but still french fry free! I'm a junk food junkie. :(

9 Days Soda/ French Fry Free

I made the decision last week to cut out sodas and french fries from my diet. I was to a point where I wanted to drink a Coke with every meal and there was not a french fry in town that I would turn down. Goal is to cut the sodas and fries out and eventually ween myself off of fast food altogether...cravings are actually not so bad this time around...but oh how I wanted a coke this morning with a bagel...this also means that I'll probably give up pizza b/c I can't have a slice of pizza without a coke...they just go together...like S.D. and B.H. :)

Moth-erflies

Tomorrow would have been my grandma Ann's Birthday (my dad's mother). Perfect day to share the stories of how "moth-erflies" came to be. So my grandma leaves me this message on my answering machine in early 2000..."hello, Stephanie, this is grandma(r) Ann. I have a story to tell you that's real cute. Don't call me, I'll call you at about 8 o'clock, so it will be 9 here..." I like to write that out because I can still hear her voice from this message. I saved it for the longest time and even had it after she passed away. Unfortunately I accidentally erased it in 2002. So here is the story of the "moth-erflies". I talked with my grandma that night...she was so excited about these butterflies that were hanging out on the screen on her window. She kept saying how they were always there and that they reminder her of her parents. They made her day. She called me back a few days later. As it turned out, her eyesight was starting to go and she didn't realize they were moths! Not only were they moths, they were dead. She told me this and in the cutest voice (laughing while she said it), she told me "you got a stupid grandma". Of course I told her she wasn't. The best part of this...Papa Sam is very resourceful. He got the two moths and mounted them on a butterfly frame made of wood and hung them up on the wall. So sweet the love that grew between the two of them! And the moth-erflies are now safe and sound with me. Not so pretty to look at, but the story makes them beautiful. I posted in an earlier post how I saw a butterfly during my grandma Norma's funeral recently...now when I see them I like to think that it's grandma Ann coming to visit. They always appear at the most opportune times too...coincidence? Probably, but I like to think otherwise.

Traffic Jam

We have way too many Cars Movie cars. Peanut created this traffic jam the other night. This falls under the category of "I'm doing 'work', mommy"...which affords me time to do some "work" of my own. Some traffic jams are not so bad after all.

Another Quote...this one's is an instant classic

Peanut and I were playing in the den yesterday morning. Out of the blue she said "When you're tushy itches it means you have a broken heart"...hee hee...have no clue where that one came from...

Great quotes

"What lies behind and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

This is so simple, yet also easy to lose sight of...note to self, An oreo behind me and an oreo in front of me is never as good as an oreo in my belly! :)

"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation"

Rainer Maria Rilke

Thank you, BH, for this one and and and

Aaaahhhchooooo!

Let me just say for the record that this has been the worst allergy season I've ever experienced. I am sneezing non-stop. Ragweed is not my friend. Grrrrrr. I had a 3 hour sneeze-fest last night...not a pretty site! Cecilie and I took our kids to a new Mexican Restaurant in Carrollton (Nico's?) that has an outside play area for kids. This place was great. Maddie and Peanut had the best time. I did too, just in-between the sneezing. Thanks, Cecilie for always finding fun stuff for us to do with the kids.

You can put a three-horn in a dress...

Peanut wanted to be Esmeralda from the movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I found a costume on eBay (I love eBay!) and showed it to her and she just had to be that...really...no pressure. We've been watching the movie quite a bit. It came with a lot of other VHS' that I got from eBay. I've had them for about a year and Peanut just picked it out of the pile one day and said she wanted to watch it. She was instantly mesmerized by Esmeralda and the music is amazing...so I bid on the soundtrack from eBay (told you, I love eBay!) and that's our car music now.

Kind of like that the girlie side in her is finally coming out...of course, she's going to be an off-the-beaten-path "princess"...no mainstream princess costumes for my little three-horn. hee hee....so the costume arrives and I'll admit, I was a bit nervous...in the past I haven't been able to get costumes on her! Not this time. She wanted to spend the whole day in her dress dancing like a gypsy...and attacking sharp tooths! You can put a three-horn in a dress, but you can't take the dinosaur out of her!

Hug Hug Kiss Kiss

Hi there, it's been a couple of weeks since I last made a post. My Grandma Norma passed away on September 20th. She was a very important person in my life and I have so many memories I could fill up a book! I've attached the only photo I have on-hand at the moment. It's of my grandma giving me a bath in her apartment on Wedgewood Drive. I loved that place and when I think of the times I spent with my grandma I always picture us there. I will post one that shows how beautiful my grandma was when I have a chance to upload more photos.

I met my Mom and my sister, Marci in Philly for the funeral. Tough few days. Emotions were running very high and it was easy to lose perspective and forget why we were all there...to honor and grieve the loss of Norma Miller. The eulogy delivered by the rabbi was beautiful. My Aunt Rita wrote most of it, I believe, and she painted such a picture of who my grandma was and how she touched the lives of so many. I sat there trying to take it all in, softness in my mother's hands, the taste of tears, the birds chirping, a lawnmower in the background, cars and trucks passing by, the smell of fresh ground (which was surprisingly comforting), a butterfly passing by (hello Grandma Ann!...more on that another time)...and the kind and softspoken words of a rabbi who only knew my grandma for a short time, if at all, and spoke as if he knew her forever. She was surrounded by family and friends. My grandma has 4 siblings, Olga, Esther, Billy and Gershon. They were all there, some with their spouses (Shirley and Jean, my Great Aunts) and children. So we sat, and listened, and cried and said our good-bye's. . .Hug, hug, kiss, kiss Grandma Norma. I'm going to miss saying that.