Sprite's Keeper

Spin Cycle, Spooky Cycle: It's a Hermione Halloween

I've been short on time lately, too short to even comment on my reader, but hopefully things should pick up.

And of course, I had to Spin for Halloween.

The Kindergarten block in Sprite's school held a Storybook Character Parade last Friday and when I asked Sprite what character she wanted to be, her immediate response was "Hermione Granger!"

I sent a note to her teacher since I didn't know if they were limiting the characters to easy readers like Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella, but she gladly gave the go ahead and wouldn't you know it, Sprite was the only Hermione in the entire parade.

The night before, we washed and braided multiple sections of her hair to repeat the frizzy waves her character wore so proudly in "The Sorcerer's Stone".

The other kids asked repeatedly who she was while the teachers and students lining the halls to watch the younger set march past and take notes on the ones they recognized, called out her secret identity as she walked with her wand and book in hand, practicing her "swish and flick".

Careful, or she'll cast a spell on YOU.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Don't forget to check out the other Spooky Spinners over at Second Blooming!

Spin Cycle: And the year's only just begun...

Four weeks into the academic year and already, I'm being schooled.

First of all, let me apologize for the scant posting of late. I have been busy with Sprite, her lessons, and even that pesky thing called a job since I now work longer hours in order to score every other Friday off so I can be available to volunteer at Sprite's elementary schoool.

Yes, I'm one of those moms. I even joined the PTA (I can almost hear the "unfollow" button being pressed on Google Reader now.) which hasn't had its first meeting yet since the school is brand new and still trying to find its pace. I knew from the beginning, that I would be this involved, not necessarily so I can spy on my kid, that part is strictly icing, but to help the teacher when needed, see the kids in action, and even more importantly, reinforce the examples I see the teacher setting.

I'm not going to frost this Spin with how my kid is so smart, bright, intelligent, adjective, adjective, adjective, is she done boasting yet? because I am frustrated.

Let me set the scene for you:

I'm sure every school has its own behavior charts and how the kids are expected to behave. This particular school has three colors; green, yellow, and red that set the standard. Green is good, yellow means at least two warnings had already been issued and the child still decided to sing "Baby Got Back" while in line for lunch, and red means the kid basically held the class hostage for a caseload of twinkies and a thousand dollars in small bills, since a Kindergartener can only count by ones anyway, which is usually accompanied by a call home to Mom or Dad. And to top it all off, the elusive blue, the color that comes with butterflies and unicorns bearing its ethereal weight, a color which can only be earned by going above and beyond, maybe building the teacher a footrest or teaching the class Spanish when you're done with your own work, rounded off with a trip to the treasure chest while everyone else looks on in envy and plots your demise at recess tomorrow. Only one child in her class has earned this blue, and was sadly never heard from again.

Sprite has achieved every color EXCEPT blue.

Now, I can pretty much explain the red. Or John and I think we know the reason. It's only happened once, a Wednesday about two weeks ago, when we woke up a bit on the late side. Rushing to get her out the door and to drop off, we gave her the go ahead to have a school breakfast. (It's free in our county.) I dropped her off on time and set off for work myself.

Around 11:30 in the morning, my cell phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, I should probably admit here that I had programmed Tom Hanks' voiceover of "Houston, we have a problem" for the school's ringtone, but that would just spell out how cheesy I am, so I didn't expect Sprite's teacher to be telling me what a hooligan (my word, not hers) my child had been all morning and how, even after only being with her for two weeks, she could tell that Sprite was not acting like herself. She placed Sprite on the phone, who immediately started crying and seeking forgiveness from both her teacher and myself.

Once the call ended, I couldn't concentrate on my work anymore. I know what Sprite is capable of, I know how far she pushes the limits when she really wants to, but this was completely unlike her. Why had she acted out so brazenly, laughing at the teacher, jumping out of her seat? I remembered that she had had the school breakfast and immediately looked at the county website to see what the menu had set for that morning.

Notables. Do you know what Notables are? If I could write a review, I would give it a bitch slap. These bags of breakfast include cereal, graham crackers or some other sweet snack, and a juice, which accompanied with milk provided by the school, are supposed to round out a complete nutritious breakfast. I looked up the sugar content from what she had decribed to me that evening and had to stop at 40 grams since I couldn't find the nutrition values for the strawberry milk she had so thoughtfully picked to drown her cereal in. 40 grams of sugar. In one meal. This is more sugar than she has in an entire day, if not two since we limit the sugar intake for the most part and banish the processed junk from our house.

By the time she came home, she was so tired, both emotionally and physically, even into the next day. So, yes, I am blaming the red on the fact that she basically overdosed on Malt-o-Meal Marshmallow Mateys.

But then there's the yellow and the bruxt of my conundrum. (Finally, gah, I can be so long winded!) The yellows have been just as often as the greens. The yellows usually mean talking when the teacher's teaching, yelling out when you should be using indoor voices, and trying to break into the teacher's lounge during music class. Sprite is mostly guilty of the first two. (I found the school's blueprints pretty quickly and destroyed them so I think she's too lazy to draw up another set..)

When Sprite comes home with a yellow, she loses dessert or television. She also writes a letter of apology to the teacher she's wronged, today she got to write TWO. I'm happy to say my child knows how to spell the word "sorry" even though that won't be a sight word for a good year or so, but I'm a big believer in owning up to her actions when she does them and I think letters are a good way to reinforce that.

I know she's a kid, five at that, and that I should anticipate a yellow now and then, but a yellow two days in a row like yesterday and today starts a trend which concerns John and me. So, I'm asking you veteran moms and dads out there. Are we expecting too much out of her? Is this behavior, even if she consciously spews out the correct answers when we quiz her on how she should behave, just par for the course in Kindergarten?

(Now's where I get to boast. Interim grades are in for the first quarter and my kid is acing reading and math. If she excels in grammar, I may have her start proofreading my blog!)

You know the rest. Please visit Gretchen and the other Spinners over at Second Blooming and even draw up your own Spin about education!

What, you thought the topic was about behavior? Now who's getting schooled?

 

 

Spin Cycle: iLove..

iPhones!

Thanks to my iPhone, I am able to join this week's Spin Cycle which is "Things I love".

Since time is short for me lately, not loving that, let's start with the obvious:

Yeah, what's NOT to love about these two? Just read the preceding thousand plus posts on this blog to cement that fact.

Tonight, we dance! (I wish I could remember what movie that line is from. It drives me crazy every time I quote it, which is often considering the kid loves her some dance class.) Sprite has been enjoying dance class for two years now, happy to be there, even if she's not the best in the class. And I've been enjoying dance class for the fact that I would get to spend the hour wait with two other moms, one of them my awesome friend Rachel. Now that we're in summer break, I am very bummed that my Friday evenings have nothing to look forward to now, but Sprite has more than made up for the fact that dance class is on break with DANCE CAMP! Yes, folks, this is the only camp in the country that makes you flash the jazz hands every time you sign in your camper. We're rounding out the first week and Sprite is still thrilled every morning with spending her entire day in a place where they encourage you to dance your heart out. Debugging her before school starts may prove difficult, but I'm choosing to let it lie for now.

We spent Memorial Day weekend with my mom and dad at Disney World, using the last dates of our season passes and giving Sprite some honest to goodness vacation before cashing in our hermit cards for the rest of the summer. Everyone knows we love Disney World and everyone knows Sprite loves Disney World, just the fact that she is known as the resident Disney expert everywhere she roams is evidence enough. Not only did we get to see our favorite Orlando family, the Katz's, we finally got to give Sprite something she's been asking for for years. A Princess breakfast. Oh, how she loved it. And how we loved her expression every time a royal would pass by our table. (Not too lovey dovey with the bill, these things are EXPENSIVE with a capital "I can barely afford to even spell it", but this is a post about things we love, so ignore this parentheses.)

I just love this picture. That's enough. (By the by, it should be noted that I captured this shot while standing on the merry go round, going backwards. Folks, I cannot handle any rides that go around and around. I get queasy looking at a circle sometimes, the backwards thing is as close as I'll ever get to EXTREME stunts, but I will always forget any negative when seeing the happiness in my child's eyes.) (Until I read that last parentheses later on and remember, oh, yeah, that was the night that dinner almost wasn't..)

I love the fact that my child adores coloring. Lately, it's been the kick in our house. When Sprite gets home from school, camp, or just back from the bathroom, she loves to sit down and color. Her souvenir of choice during our vacation was a coloring book which she is meticulously filling out, page by page. Our fridge isn't visible anymore behind the "Pin this one up!" artwork. To be completely transparent, she's not showing any signs of genius in her scribblings, but I can at least recognize that she knows how to draw a house, a dog, and Mommy's belly. (Thanks for that, kid. I put that one in my special drawer.) She just loves to pick up a crayon or marker and go to town, and as long as it stays on paper and off my furniture, I love getting to sit down for a few minutes to pick up a book.

Oh, how I love DIY! Three dining stools now sit in front of this backsplash tile covered counter wall which frankly spoil the gorgeous view. Yes, my best friend and I did this on our own, surprisingly easy, and I still love it. I just wish I had the money to do the actual backsplash now, but I would probably go with different tiles...

I love looking through the photo gallery on my phone and finding photos I didn't expect. Obviously, Sprite was having some fun with Blue that day and Blue was fine with it, as long as she didn't have to leave her pillow. But our bedroom does get some strong sun in the mornings, so SPF Sprite to the rescue.

And finally, we're loving up on Gretchen and the Spin Cycle, who used this week's topic to remind us of the things in life that made us smile. So click the link and start compiling your liat of loves!

Spin Cycle: Confessions of a Mother

Would you believe that one of the first thoughts that registered with me about my baby daughter was:

"Gah, she blinks like an alien."

I lose my Mommy mug now, don't I?

I will completely admit it. I'm not a fan of newborns. Oh, sure, I love their smallness, the scrunchy way their body conforms to you, like trying to cocoon into your shoulder blade while you fold your own arms ten times around their body in an effort to keep them stable, warm, and non-wriggly. I love the little feet, the tiny fingers, the way they instintively close around your pinky, like a Venus Fly Trap who's missing teeth. I love the little mewling cries and even the attitude laced "get your nipple over here before I eat my blanket, woman!" yowls that accompany weeks old infants throughout their first days.

Sigh.

It's the head.

Sorry, folks.

Most babies, born naturally or via help, have a face only a.... well, let's not go there.

Sprite came out by C-section and didn't have to put her features through the ringer that is vaginal birth, so she was spared the brunt of the "Wow, she looks just like your uncle Jerry!" comments. (And everyone who knew Uncle Jerry, knew that the giver of this compliment was just being polite.)

So Sprite looked, in all essence, like a Gerber baby.

Until she blinked. Which creeped me out.

Granted, the first few days, she snoozed through a majority of everything, didn't even stay up late enough to catch an episode of Friends, so getting eye contact was a rare experience. She was also suffering from Jaundice, so the incubator they kept her in when we had to check her back into the hospital on her fourth day was not helping the bonding moments either. One evening, while I was reaching through the holes in the hard plastic box to touch whatever part of her I could get to, she turned her head toward me and opened her eyes.

Eye contact! "Hi, Sprite! You're so beautiful, you're ador-"

Her lids snapped closed like a camera shutter, then opened again, and I stood there, transfixed, as I thought I saw a film of something, like second eyelids retracting just after, so her very large inky pupils could fixate on me.

She was planning my destruction right then and there, wasn't she?

I sheepishly admitted my observations to John, who immediately blamed it on the hormones, don't worry, you can't even see the scars anymore, and Sprite did outgrow the alien blinking thing, becoming my favorite age in the whole world, four months.

I love four month olds! Everything is funny. Everything gets a smile, Their eyes crinkle in the corners with the chubbiness of baby fat, content to just sit in your arms and watch the world around them. There is no such thing as an ugly four month old.

And the whole second eyelid thing has completely resolved itself by then too.

Okay, now that I've lost you, go find some better reasons to love being a mom over at Second Blooming! We're celebrating Mother's Day!

 

Spin Cycle: It's Not the Words Getting in The Way

Yikes, Thursday evening is staring me in the face...along with the promise I made to the lovely Gretchen... "I will spin this week! Promise!"

Multitudes of ideas still sit in my head, in fact, the weight of those words alone are probably what's contributing to the frequent headaches I've been suffering through lately, updates to our lives from the last month or so, a little weekend excursion to the zoo that ended in us completely skipping the zoo altogether and STILL seeing nature at its most exposed finest. Our complete revamp of fiscal life as we know it, pulling the belt straps a bit tighter again after loosening them for the last year, re-thinking our budget, re-thinking our strategies, re-thinking the organization in our kitchen cabinets. (Yeah, I'm that kind of person. I will try to upgrade everything in my way, even if it has nothing to do with the problem at hand. Multi-strategizer, yo.)

The words of these posts, yet to even be composed, (as evidenced by the Compose button in Typepad snarkily groaning in ecstacy when I clicked on it for the first time in weeks) pictures yet to be uploaded, they're all trapped in the ether that exists between my ears.

I told myself I would find a weekend this month and just exile myself to a Barnes and Noble or our guest room, even the bathroom if it's unoccupied, and just slam out a bunch of half-finished posts, a way to unload the ideas, even if terrible, and then come back when my thought process is more tangible and less tangent-y, to polish them. Free my mind of the clutter, for while the house is getting attacked, you can't multi-task mental organization. I've tried this before and John usually ends up getting dis-jointed commands to switch out the dogs and walk the laundry.

Sure, it's funny when it happens. And funny later too, I suppose..

But, alas, this month's calendar has filled up with recitals, VPK graduation, the start of summer camp, and a scrapped, yet salvaged plan to take Sprite to Disney World for one last hurrah before becoming an honest to goodness school kid, complete with homework!

So, with this, I will leave you with a promise, that I will post, just don't plan any life or death decisions on my posting schedule, for I'm afraid the ICU will pull the plug before I even get around to the time Sprite almost drowned on our cruise.

Oh, you wanted that story? Would you believe it's been six months since the cruise and according to my blog, we've only just gotten on the boat?

Sorry.

I'll try harder.

And here's some pictures to end this Spin on a better note than Sorry:

Am I back on your good side? Wonderful! Now go get on Gretchen's good side. Click here!

Spin Cycle: "Where's the Break in Spring Break?"

..so shout all the working moms and dads who send their underagers to preschool.

I admit, I am excited for next year's Spring Break when I actually have an excuse to take a week off of work since Sprite will be forced to stay home from school. (The empty classrooms and cavernous halls may spook her a bit..) Or maybe I'll send her to her grandparents' (fine, we'll drive her, but walking is an acceptable form of exercise) for a week since both maternal and paternal side has a retiree among them, someone who can spoil her rotten while John and I keep hitting the time clock since I will also have to take off all the other school system approved holidays like Christmas and New Year's and Teacher's In Service Days and Furlough Days and What the hell, it's Thursday, go ahead and take off, your parents' bosses won't mind! days.

Luckily, her summer is already planned. (And yet I will still have to take off a few days since our school year starts in the middle of the week and summer camps don't do half weeks because they're SMART. But you know what? I'm actually okay with that. I'm going to take her swimming, to the park, maybe even to the zoo, and summer her brains out right before I deposit my exhausted child on the doorstep of higher education.)

So, what has Spring Break meant to us this year? Well, added tuition for one. Since Spring Break means no VPK, a free program in Florida, the preschool bumped up the weekly fee to their typical daycare haul. And of course, to add insult to time off injury, our county decided to have their Spring Break in the middle of March. What about Easter, you say? It's covered, with a day off the Friday before and a day off the Monday after. Two more days of parental woe as they watch their precious minutes get taken away from necessary time banks reserved for the freak vomiting episodes, fevers of unknown origin, and whatever other disease someone spread at school.

Okay, I'm done complaining.

Actually, we did have a lovely Passover and Easter this year, which coincides with so many other states' Spring Break schedules. Friday night found us battling the ever tenacious crowds of idiots revelers to get to a Passover Seder in the middle of Aventura, FL. It may not be difficult for some to imagine a van of seven people, six of which (yes, including my 12 year old nephew) have an opinion about where to go when you're ultimately lost since the GPS wants to just hand you your FAIL card before you've even left the exit ramp and every other car on the road is trying to hit you

Yes, they were trying to hit me. It's Miami, or a small part of it. Cutting someone off or turning a single lane exit into a three lane "it's my turn because I look more pissed off than you and I'm moving anyway I don't care if you were first and here's a lovely parting shot of my middle finger to keep your emotional stoves burning while you stare at my tail lights" event is a rite of passage in Dade County.

(Let's not mention the fact that we had to call the hosts of the event to find the place, even though we did go to the same place last year, yes, I drove then too, but in Aventura, the only place of reference is the mall. And EVERYONE is trying to get to the mall.)

(A note to my relatives: Next year, let's have Seder at the mall. With the food court, you're guaranteed at least five plagues to be actually present anyways, but we'll be there ON TIME. And that's what counts.)

Once we found the condo we were looking for, (I love my dad's directions, "Okay, Jen, make a left and then make an extreme right since it will be as soon as you enter the street. See it? Extreme right NOW!" Never mind that I'm already halfway into the turn and imagining this extreme right requires a fierce look of determination in order to bring out the essence of EXTREME.) and deposited the keys into the valet's hands, we lost ourselves again on the way to the Seder since no one remembered to ask which floor it was on. Which meant stepping off the elevator to locate some bars on a cell phone and make the required, yet always embarrassing call of "where exactly are you?" even though you've already had your free "I don't knew where I am" turn.

Who says holidays aren't fun?

I did take a ton of pictures while we were there, none of which have magically leaped off the SD card and into our computer, why won't it ever do that?, some included Sprite and the other kids participating in the 30 minute Haggadah (Finger puppets and action figures included!) (Okay, maybe Sprite wasn't too keen on her Pharoah figure. Even at five, she knew he was a bad guy by the fierce look on his semi painted face and the lack of rainbows on his cape.) and others included assorted pictures of John in a plague mask posing for the camera.

Yeah, that one's gold. I'm not sure you'll ever get to see it..

And yes, as my Facebook status said, my aunt, who was leading the service, did actually announce, "Due to fire safety reasons, we will not be doing page 5."

I love Passover.

And now that we're over 1 thousand words in, let me tell you about Easter.

Before this year, we've never given Sprite an Easter basket. She was okay with this, mostly because her lawyers didn't tell her this was mandatory, and by lawyers, I mean the thirty something other children in her class who were all so excited about what the Easter bunny would be bringing them. So, this year, now that she has a memory, and legal counsel, we acquiesed and got her a small basket of little toys, coloring books, and 1 egg full of m&m's. We even set up a little Easter egg hunt in my mom and dad's home which Sprite finished in less than two minutes, finding all 12 eggs and the organic jelly beans they contained. The Easter egg hunt was a success, she loved it, but getting that Easter basket? Her squeal of delight just cemented a yearly return engagement of baskets until she's in college.

Easter lunch was held at my in-laws, normally a boisterous occasion with all the brothers, their wives, and assorted children there. But being early meant Sprite had Nana all to herself and an opportunity to scope out all the hiding spots of the Easter eggs my mother-in-law had hidden for her younger cousins to also look for. This meant suspiciously spaced calls of "look what I found!" when the other cousins finally came in and began the hunt proper. I had to resort to handing off some of her haul to my sisters-in-law to make the rations look more fair.)

Add to that a visit with my sister, and a close friend I haven't seen in one hundred and sixty-odd trimesters, I have to measure in trimesters considering she went and had herself another baby who's already fourteen months now, and you have yourself a very busy holiday weekend.

And no, I didn't get a break.

I'm still looking for it though.

And now here's your chance to make a break for it! Over to Gretchen's site for some more Spin Cycle!

 (Sorry, Gretchen, having issues with posting the badge... User error, I'm sure.) (Stop agreeing with that, John..)

Spin Cycle: Tress Distress

I have written here before about Sprite's hair:

No one in their right mind would want to get within two feet of it while it's in motion unless armed with detangler and the 1-800 emergency number to Pantene.

I've written here about the pitfalls of taking care of that same hair, which usually starts out like this:

and the always requested ponytail:

but usually ends up like this:

her hair baubles no longer in sight and her brush hidden in fear of what lies beneath the first layer of combing.

I've even written of the bangs when I tried to grow them out:

and even got them to a point where they looked pretty nice with a hairclip:

Oh, and we can't forget the time John decided to take matters into his own hands and trust the scissors in the hands of another:

Yeah, that day was fun.

But every time, I tend to forget that Sprite's hair is everything I've ever loved and loathed about my own:

It's only when I remember this fact that I actually look forward to the next brushing (and screaming and protests of Sanctuary from my handling) and relish the thought that every day for the rest of her life, when it comes to her hair, she will get as good as she gives.

Go ahead. Spin.

Spin Cycle: "Wingardium Leviosa!"

 

Only the true Potter fans will call out any blatant mispellings in my title.

It's Spin Cycle time and Gretchen is taking us all to the movies! Popcorn on her. Just email her your ticket stub and she'll do the rest. (Disclosure: sending your ticket stubs and/or receipts may not result in any refunds of any kind as the author of this note did not check with Gretchen first, but is in fact playing off of Gretchen's known generosity. This disclosure may also be the author's last.)

Since the Oscars are on Sunday, and yes, I am definitely tuning in because I love Billy Crystal  because I want to see Leo get snubbed again because it's on the only station I currently receive thanks to an ongoing battle with Dish Network, but our movies in the house tend to be the recently to video kind (the last time we were out to the movies was to see Crazy Stupid Love which we crazy stupid loved) and whatever Sprite wants to watch (I am still looking for a good way to get rid of Thumbelina without being obvious since the kid knows we hate that movie). And thanks to our weekday commutes bringing us home after sunset, we're usually up for a video or two on any given evening.

Lately, her movie of choice has been "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". While this thrilled me to no end since I am a huge Potter fan, I was hoping for her to read through the books first, but the round of children in her classroom who have watched the movie has already risen beyond one, and one is all it takes to get the fire brewing in the other thirty-five.

So, I explained to her all about the make believe and the battle of good and evil she would see, and then sat down with her and a bowl of popcorn (Organic, Jan!) on Halloween night to introduce her to the boy who lived.

Immediately, she became enthralled with Harry and his scar, Hermione and her precocious need to be right, "It's leviosAH, not leviosAR", and Ron and his foolish attempts to turn Scabbers yellow while on the Hogwarts Express.

I was a little concerned about the scenes showing Lily being struck down by the faceless Voldemort and the end scene where Voldemort makes his face known in the most obscure of places (talk about being two-faced, right?), but she watched intently, not flinching, and when it was over, asked to see it again the next day.

I thought I had a tough kid.

John thinks I'm nuts.

Recently, she requested the movie again, her wish to be Hermione for Halloween 2012 already on the roster. John agreed to watch with her and came out of the room two hours later, telling me she is not to watch the movie for a few years. At least.

"Why not?"

"She's afraid of it!"

"She's been watching it enough to start memorizing some of the lines, I don't think she's afraid of it."

"She told me not to fall asleep. Kept telling me to keep the closet light on. Don't you think she's afraid?"

"All right. I'll take the movie out of rotation."

She didn't mention it for a week and then asked for the movie again last night.

"Sorry, kid. Daddy said the movie was making you afraid."

"I'm not afraid of Harry Potter. I'm afraid of the DARK."

"You're not afraid of the movie? Or Voldemort?"

"No, Mommy. That's pretend. I know it's not real. They're just PLAYING."

"So, why are you afraid of the dark?"

"Monsters."

Um, yeah.. Let me know when they do a live version of "Monsters, Inc", okay"?

Spin Cycle: Want the perfect job? Inquire WITHIN.

Ooh, that title is so deep.

People kvetch about their work all the time. Hate what they do. Wish about what they want. Cultivate the green grass growing on the other side of the fence while their own real patch of lawn shrivels and dies from lack of care. I am not one of those people. I like what I do. I like who I am.

I really do have the dream jobs. Yes, I meant to make that word plural.

I am an interior designer, contractor, decorator, thrifter. Anything going on, building related, in our home is done by John and me. Mostly me as of late since John is so busy with his evening job. Want the room painted? I'm your girl. Pictures to be hung? Sure. Tile backsplash to plan out and install? I'm almost done with the research and nearly ready for the execution. Most of the time, there is no money in the budget to decorate, so I look to what we already have and displace items on a regular basis. Yes, my job has challenges and I love that. Want a weekend warrior? I'll show you my battle scars.

I am a planner. Lists, lists, lists, I love to check items off, even if it's in the grocery store. Sigh, happy little strike throughs to make my day fly by and make me feel productive.

I am a herder. I've always wanted to work on a ranch, even just for one day to get the experience of it. Then I realized, I work on a ranch every day. I herd kids and dogs on a daily basis, through meals, getting out the door, coming home, rounding up the toys that constantly escape the corral. It's a 24/7 job without the chaps. (Although the dust definitely makes its way in..)

I am a teacher. I would have loved to be a teacher. Molding young minds while surrounded by books, words, and numbers. Elementary mostly, definitely not Kindergarten. Alas, that never panned out for me. However, I did realize, especially with Sprite now reading simple stories by herself, working on her long vowels, short vowels, and seeing the thought processes behind everything click as she gets it, I am a teacher. Every evening before bed, sometimes on the way home from school. Easy A.

I am a writer. Thank you, blogosphere, for letting me call my own shots and make my own schedule. It keeps me sane.

I am an actress. I would love to say I kicked ass on the boards back in high school, but the competition between the Thespians was tough and my major roles were few and far between. Sure, I worked professionally, if you want to call it that, for the likes of Disney and Universal, spieling away in front of thousands a day, each time adding my own unique flair to the character. I missed those days until I found out that my  daughter has her own dramatic flair. Just weeks ago, she stopped in the middle of the front office at her preschool, on our way out the door. I passed by her, saying goodbye to the director when Sprite howled in pain. Turning around, I looked down as she clamped her right arm to her side and scrunched her face at me.

"You hurt me!"

I was shocked to hear her say that considering that "I never touched you!"

Her eyebrows burrowed further, adding to the tortured gleam. "You almost did."

Brava.

Brat.

People tell me I should consider enrolling her into acting lessons, but the only good I could hope to see coming out of that would be an outlet for the personality to go as camp as she wants, a few hours a week.

I am a professional. Every Monday through Friday, I get to leave it all behind for 9 hours and focus on something completely different, while in the company of other like-minded people. My lunch is not interrupted by "more ketchup" or "Sprite, use your fork" or "rice is not meant to be eaten by fingers!" or "No, we do NOT have chop sticks! Use your fork!". I can run to the store on a quick break without holding someone's hand or denying someone the Hello Kitty doll they conveniently placed by the cash register with the word "SALE" right in front of it. (Yes, my child knows how to read the word SALE. Long vowels, remember?) And I enjoy what I do for the most part.

I am a mother/housewife. I take pride in the clean laundry, the mopped floors, semi-clean child, "Sprite, get your fingers out of the ketchup!", my home. Sometimes, I do wish I had more time to accomplish my tasks, which would take blocks out of the other jobs in my life, but I'm not about to complain to the upper management.

Sure, I've had those dreams of being one or the other full time. But considering where I stand and what I love to do, I get to dabble in everything.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

For more dream jobs, send your resume to the talented Gretchen at Second Blooming! The job will be filled tomorrow, so inquire now!

Spin Cycle: Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Or Dad) (Or Fill In The Blank)

 

Every morning when I wake Sprite up, I ask her what her dreams were.

Every morning, she tells me a variation of the same thing: "I was in Disney World with you and Daddy and Blue and Harry." "I was in Disney World with Daddy and he was making me go on the water slide (Splash Mountain) and I screamed very loud, like a hundred loud." "I was in Disney World with Abigail and we were looking for Daddy and Mr. Josh."

The location stays the same, the only change being exactly where in Disney World she is, but her companions swap out on a daily basis, usually stemming from who she's been in contact with the day before, to her usual favorites like us or her best Orlando friend, Abby. (Abby's sister Madeline sometimes makes an appearance, but Abby's name is usually a repeat performance.)

Every morning, I repeat the same question, expecting the same answer, hoping for something different, since I know she's giving me a stock response. I know her dreams cannot revolve around Disney World 24/7, it's just not possible, but she sleeps so soundly, no noise, no sudden wake ups, I don't think I can recall more than one time where I've heard her succumb to a night terror, that I can't tell what invades her imagination when the conscious mind turns off.

My own dreams are known to be pretty elaborate, I will more often than not verbalize and John gets to be the lucky witness since he's such a light sleeper. Sometimes, I wake myself up, I can talk that loudly.

But Sprite? Still an enigma when it comes to her dreams, something I didn't think would happen at the age of 5 considering how articulate she is.

 

 

Wanna Spin? Go see Gretchen over at Second Blooming where The Spin Cycle has taken up residence! What more could you ask for?