The school project....

Logan's school project is to celebrate 100 days. He has to put 99 of one object on a board and 1 of something opposite. Of course the example was "cats and dogs" and he said he was going to do "cats and dogs." Hilarious. I was able to persuade him into doing something he likes and we decided on 99 Lego Guys and 1 Lego. He actually came up with the idea of taking photos of his guys and gluing the photos to the board. So it's a few days after we began the assignment and here's how it's gone......

Thursday morning- Grand discussion on what the plan was to get all this acccomplished.

Thursday afternoon- trying to wrangle Logan into focusing on what he wanted to photograph, and the three of us rounding up 100 guys. Me hovering over a table taking lots o' photos. Sylvie wanted in on the action and she has a pile of her own lego people to photograph as well.

Thursday night- upload photos. Try to upload photos. Safari won't allow me on Walgreens photo website so I never make it. Ugh. Okay, CVS also does photos. Upload photos.

Friday morning after school dropoff- bring Sylvie into CVS where she falls in love with some cute kissing stuffed animals that need to come home with us. And if you buy the animals, you need to buy a Valentine's Day card to go with them, so I set out to pick one for my sweetheart.

Oh and there are 3 other things I needed to get of course. Plus posterboards and glue sticks and sticky letters....

Friday afternoon- open the photos and I'm super disappointed. For $24 worth of photos, they are pretty bad quality and there are 30 extra photos that are enlargements of faces. Lego faces. What the frick? Late Friday, I call CVS to see what's up and check what I had uploaded. My 50 photos turned into 65 and then I ordered duplicates! Headquarters had no idea. And when I opened my original photos I realized my photo quality was much better than the results, so on principal, since they said they always accept returns if you're not satisfied, I returned them. WITH Sylvie in tow, who was livid that we were going yet again out to the same darn store (and to pick up Logan).

Friday evening- haul Logan and Sylvie into Walgreens where we use the machine to upload photos. Twice. And hope for the best. And what do you know, there is a whole aisle of stuffed animals that only cost $1.99 and 2 kids pleading for one. So we buy those as well. Plus some wine for me, because I am reminded that this is a darn school project, the first of millions, and whatever the photos look like, however Logan chooses to lay them out, it'll be okay. A-Okay. :)

Saturday morning- the photos will need to be picked up but I'm going to wait til Jorge is home because I am NOT dragging 2 kids into a stuffed-animal infested Walgreens one more time to collect photos! I can just hear it.... "Mom, they're webkinz and my unicorn needs a friend!"

Temper Tantrums

We have had a big streak of tantrums most days! Here are some of the situations:

-Sylvie comes in from Abuelita's babysitting hours and freaks out about missing Abuelita, cannot handle her emotions and sits crying for a good long time and then begging "don't be mad at me!" Oh gosh this is hard to deal with and by the time it's over, I'm spent!

-One morning I was dropping Sylvie off and she showed me that she had a little digital camera in her pocket. I told her she couldn't bring that into school and she went ballistic! She had a total meltdown and even bringing her out of the room into the bathroom, I wasn't sure I'd be able to drop her off. She was sad about the camera and it turned into "I'll miss you mommy, don't go."

-The other day the windchill was 19 degrees below zero. Obviously it was frigid outside, and too cold to hang out for any length of time. We knew it was going to be cold, so we talked about how we were going to wait in the car between picking her up and getting Logan instead of waiting outside. Sure enough, she went crazy when I tried to get her in the car and was totally out of control. I got her in the passenger side and she was standing on the seat acting like a fool! Her friends were in the car next to us and even that didn't pursuade her that this was okay. She wouldn't calm down until I happened to find her library book and suddenly she was a different person and settled down. Once I tried to get her to wait in the car and brought a snack and drink and she still went nuts. She waits in the car for grandparents. I don't know what the deal is, but it sure isn't fun being the mom with the screaming child dragging her into the car instead of getting a hug or a kiss.

-We have lots of tantrums over clothing- she wants to wear a fancy dress every day and if she gets a fancy dress she flips out if it can't be worn to school, even if she knows it's not for school. Getting dressed can be a very long, drawn-out ordeal somedays. And other days, not a problem.

It's been a really hard few months of tantrums on and off and I'm not really sure what spurs them, but it's getting old fast. I'm trying to not let her walk all over me, hold firm but gentle and kind, and it doesn't seem to matter, she can't control her own emotions.Someday maybe I'll understand it all. Where is my own personal child psychologist/ psychic? There are nights where instead of sleeping she's standing upstairs next to me screaming at the top of her lungs instead. And then other nights it's not a problem. She can be so LOUD and drag things out fora a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time !!!!! It can be hard to handle.

Sylvie turns 5

My sweet princess is turning 5. I love the saying "The days are long, the years are short." It is so true. If I think of all the days I had a 4 year old, it seems like ages, but if I reminisce back to my 2 year old or even my newborn, it feels like just yesterday.

Sylvie is a spunky little girl and she brings light to our lives every day. She commands attention and demands her way. She wants what she wants when she wants it. Which is usually immediately.

And yet she can pick up my mom's little dog Jackson in the crook of her arm and carry him around longer than he wants, and he's a snuggler. She misses us ferociously, the minute someone leaves, school ends, we leave an adventure, she already misses it. She must have some sweet sappy nature inside her already:)

She still gives us trouble with night-time sleep and still hates waking up in the mornings. She was inducted into the American Girl club this weekend with a trip to pick out her very first doll and it was such a joy to see her coming into a big girl. While the rest of us reverted to our childhood memories of wanting and loving dolls we had seen.

There is a special bond between mother and daughter, she's my little girl and I understand what she goes through and all that is to come. It's raising a future mother, a future best friend, a future sister to her brother Logan when he needs advice or someone to pull together Thanksgiving dinner. A future career. Future talents. And yet, we still get to enjoy all that is today, all that she is, and all that we are to her.

Happy Birthday my darling Sylvie. You are the fire in my life and you make me smile and you make me laugh and you make me hug you. Thanks for being YOU!!!!!

2011

In no particular order, the things on my mind to accomplish this year are:

*Mommy- we talked about a list of places to go this year- Museum of Science and Industry, Navy Pier during some live music in the summer, plus some big trips including Disney, maybe even for a wedding!!!!

*Baby- yep, it might actually happen this year! Time will tell. But #3 would be an amazing person to add to our life. I might never stop smiling.

*Wife- with a year of heavy travel keeping us apart, we need some patch and repair work during this 14th year of marriage. Date night is on the agenda to light the spark.

*Architect- please tell me a new job is on the horizon for this year, before I go insane. Resumes are time consuming but essential. And I have some additional projects related that need working and attention. Also, exams for licensure and learning Revit are on the radar. Revit learning has been happening, and I'm really proud of what I have accomplished. Plus, going to Greenbuild Chicago was amazing.

*Biking- love that darn bike, and it's all set up in the basement as a stationary version for the winter. Hopefully biking brings with it weight loss.

Seems like the recession may be ending and these goals are already in progress. I'm hopeful to not feel so much anxiety about everyone else's problems, and when things don't go my way, and enjoy every moment.

And as always I love to be inspired, creative, loved, and in love, and really just enjoy life as it goes by. I hope to jump in with 2 feet and live this life to its fullest.