everything nicole

The Results

Gracie was the only child in her class with crazy hair.
Dun-dun-dun.
But she is so awesome, that she didn't care! She doesn't hate me!!! Yay! There were kids in other classes who participated, just no one in her apathetic class. She is such an independent confident kid, that she rocked her rocker hair with class. I'm so proud of that crazy kid. Xoxo

Crazy in the Head

Today at GracieGirl's school was Crazy Hair Day.  Or so I was told.  It was mentioned at a PTO meeting and then I overheard someone talking about it at Girl Scouts.  So I immediately began scouring Pinterest for ideas.  We finally settled on a pink Rhianna-esque fauxhawk with pink, purple and blue stripes.  She looked fantastic when we left for school this morning.  On the way to school Gracie did ask me, "Mama, are you sure it's Crazy Hair Day?  (She has read the book)."  "Yes honey, I'm sure."  Pretty sure.  Although when I thought about it, I can't remember seeing anything on paper.  

We drove up to the playground and really had a hard time seeing any crazy hair.  I think there were a total of 7 kids in the entire school with crazy hair, and only three as crazy as my rock star daughter.  

As she walked into school, I could tell she was looking around just as frantically for more crazy haired kids as I was.  There weren't many.  As a result, I have been worrying all day.  She is going to hate me forever, if she's the only one in her class with beautiful rock-star hair.   And really could I blame her?  Randy says he would have rocked a mohawk every day of elementary school, if he could have.  I'm in total limbo right now.  In ten minutes I'll go pick her up and learn my fate.  Either way, she looks damn cute!  I'll  give an update and post a better pic soon, if she still loves me.  xoxo

Lullabies

Although I do not have much of a singing voice, a favorite part of bedtime around here is singing a song for each girl.  At least one if it's late and I'm tired, more if bedtime went smoothly.  I love this ritual because it's something my parents and grandparents did for me when I was little.  Songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Rock-a-Bye Baby, and You are my Sunshine are directly linked to my parents.  And Bye Bye Blackbird, Gonna Dance with the Dolly, and Mares Eat Oats contain some of my favorite memories of sleepovers at my Grandma's house.  

Like their stuffed animals, GracieGirl has her favorite song, while Bridgie chooses whichever suits her for the evening. Gracie usually requests Love You Forever and Lullaby.   In the past, I think I've done any combination of the above for Bridgie, but in the last 5 months she has narrowed it down to twofavorites: You are my Sunshine (because she is my sunshine) and Silent Night.  I guess I have never thought of Silent Night as a lullaby, but it is fitting!  xoxo 

 

Bridgie Pastrana?

We're sitting here watching the Super X Women's Finals at the X Games on tv. Each time that I mention that the competitors must hate their mamas for putting their lives in such danger, Bridgie tells me that she "wanna do that." I'm sure it karma for those times I had a glass (or two) of wine while nursing. MOTY Xoxo

Science Fail

It turns out my kid is smart.  GracieGirl is kind of rocking this whole kindergarten thing.  She can read or sound out most simple words and is loving math.  So when word of the Science Fair came around school, she wanted to do it.  And how could I do anything BUT encourage my budding little genius?  Apparently, Mama is the one who has a lot to learn about this whole kindergarten business.  We got the Science Fair Project Guidelines three weeks before it was due. It was three pages long single spaced.  (Don't believe me?  I even took pictures).  It even included a two-sided "Research Paper Form" for the student (who is SIX) to fill out.  Since it took about an hour for my super-genius kindergartner to fill out the title with a pencil, I decided to have her type the research paper.  I wasn't sure how much she would learn from a project requiring 3 full pages of instructions, so I decided some computer skills would be a good lesson. 

One of the girls' Christmas presents was a Butterfly kit, and I thought, "Cool, I can order the caterpillars for the project." The website even had ideas on how to use your caterpillars for a Science project. We decided to find out how sunlight affects a caterpillar’s growth.  We were shipped two jars of caterpillars and put one in a windowsill and one in a shady spot in Gracie's room.  Then every day for a week I would draw a line as long as one of the caterpillars & Gracie would measure it.  (Learning about measurement = another thing learned!)

As a former teacher I really wanted GracieGirl to do her own work.  I'm pretty sure I could do a pretty bitchen elementry school Science Fair Project, but I want her to l.e.a.r.n.  So tonight we painstackenly put together my girl's project.  After way too much time spent on schoolwork, I was asking her questions about the project.  I could ask her any question about the chart that she had filled in or which caterpilars grew bigger & she knew the answer.  I was pretty proud of my girl.  Then I asked her to summarize (I didn't want there to be any question as to who did this elaborate project.  This was HER work),

"Do caterpillars grow better in the shade or dark?" 

"In the dark," she answered, which was the exact opposite of the heavily padded information we'd collected.  

You could see gaskets blowing outta my ears.  It was getting late (almost 6:30pm). I was tired.  She was done.  And yet I pressed on, "Are you sure?  Which ones grew bigger?"

That's when she pulled the whole, "Well, I thought this was my project, not yours." 

Oh no she di-n't.  

I may have stomped off with the project.  I may have said something about fine, if it's mine, then I'm keeping it.  I may have apologized profusely later.  I may have gone in her room just now to pet & kiss her pretty sleeping head. 

But, damn, how did she know my biggest fear?  And what am I going to do when she's a teenager and discovers my biggest fears of her repeating all of the same mistakes I made?  Hopefully I'll handle it with a little more grace than I did tonight.  And if those times turn out half as good as her science project did, then it's all gonna be okay. 

xoxo

Perfect Logic

GracieGirl:  I don't wanna take a bath.  Why do I have to take a bath?

N:  Because if you don't wash your body it will rot off of you. 

MOTYxoxo

Bathroom Humor

I've been looking forward to tonight's dinner ever since my dad brought me some of the salmon that he'd caught in Oregon.  Since I'm selfish & wanted to keep the salmon where it would be appreciated (my stomach), I decided to make just enough for myself and Randy.  Chicken nuggets were on the girls' menu & they couldn't be happier. 

As I was getting dinner ready, Randy mentioned that, "Wouldn't it be easier to feed the girls now & then eat the yummy [he might not have said yummy] salmon after they went to bed?"  They do sometimes interrupt dinner just a bit.  But oh, no.  I insisted that we need to eat together as a family and blah blah blah it's good for our children, or something. 

True to form, the little darlings finished dinner before we were half way through savoring our meal.  We sent them into the bathroom to wash their hands & hoped we could buy ourselves a few more minutes of peace with the ever-lovin' boob tube.  Which is when Bridgie came back to tell us that she'd peed her pants (oh yeah, we're potty training - F.U.N.).  Randy got up and put our sweet baby girl in the tub & told GracieGirl to hop in.  As he came back in I enjoyed a few more bites of my dinner.  Which is when the crying started (oh, it gets worse.  much worse).  Since crying is relatively old news around here, I waited until Gracie came in shouting to see the drama.  Without listening to her, I barked to "get in the tub," and ran into the bathroom. 

The sight of my sweet angel baby daughter sitting there in the bath is forever burned into my brain.  I came into the bathroom to be greeted by Bridgie crying and holding what can only be described as two very large logs. 

This is a first for me as a mama.  I even remember when Grace was a baby, talking to another mom and thinking smugly that that was something my kid would never do.  Yeah.  Karma's a b!*ch. 

I am so thankful that Randy was home, because while I bleached the tub, he took the girls into our bathroom to clean them up. 

Aannnnddd. . .it happened again in our tub.  Oh yeah.  Because once is not enough. 
Now the bathrooms might have needed cleaning, but really?  She could have just used a few of those words that she's so recently discovered to tell me so. 

The best part?  When B asked about the root beer float for desert that had been discussed very early in the evening, Randy responded, "Uh, no.  You've had a floater already."  xoxo

Most Good Trips Start Out Bad

We left this morning for Yosemite.  We'll be staying in the trailer & thought it would be "fun" to bring the cat with us.  Probably not our best moment. 
Gracie starts kindergarten in the Fall, and I've been empty-nesting a little bit.  Since we won't be having any more babies, BonnieTheCat has kind of become the baby of the family.  She's also the only reason we haven't added a dog to the family (that, AND that we don't have a fence).  So that's my best excuse for thinking that a cat would be a fun thing to bring on a camping trip. 
We made it 7 minutes down the road before the cat pooped in the car.  The first time she shat, it was mildly funny because it was on the vinyl and fairly easy to clean up.  The second time was not nearly as funny.  She sat down and pooped right in between the center console and the seat, where it dripped down into the seat track.  This would've been a truly devastating event if it weren't for comments such as, "Mommy, what's shitting?" (This is funny because mama really rarely cusses, but this kind of called for it - "Oh crap, she's shitting again.")
We're currently taking a pit stop at my mom's to drop off the cat and clean out the car.  I'm sure this trip will be nothing but smooth sailing from here! 
Here's a picture of better times, when she was a kitten and would constantly bite Grace. 
xoxo

Shameless

I think this would make a great Mother's Day gift for someone who takes endless pictures of her children, don't you?  Too bad Randy's birthday is May 11.  Maybe I'll get it for him (I have mentioned the weed-wacker birthday gift, haven't I?).  xoxo

All Banged Up

GracieGirl has been begging me for "hair straight across like Demi Lovato" ever since she saw Disney's Camp Rock.  Yes, it's my fault entirely for letting her watch the movie, but I was just excited to be able to watch a movie with her that didn't include rapping puppies. 
Last night during dinner Bridgie's hair was falling in her face & driving her crazy, so I grabbed my sizzors while Grace wasn't looking and cut some wispy bangs.  It took Gracie until this afternoon to notice that "Ohmygosh!  Bridgie has bangs!"  I needed to fix the quick cut I did the night before, so I agreed to give GracieGirl the much-adored bangs.  So, snip snip snip and. . .
. . .Too short.  I cut them too short.  But they should be pretty cute in a week or two.  Or three. 

xoxo
ps - cowlicks are a bitch.