Volleyball

Ainsleigh was in third grade the first year that she decided she wanted to play Volleyball. She had never been interested in any other sports besides taking swimming lessons and tumbling. I have always encouraged my girls to play sports but they were never interested. So when Ainsleigh said she wanted to play Volleyball, I was all for it. 

At that time in our lives money was pretty tight and I had a lot of Mommy guilt about not being able to give my talented girls all the opportunities I wanted them to have. I was very thankful that, at the time, we lived in a community where there were opportunities like this that were affordable. 

The coach was one of Ainsleigh's classmates Mothers. She did a great job and right away I appreciated that she fostered a very positive, encouraging environment with a focus on teamwork. So far, that seems to be the trend in all of Ainsleigh's teams and when she started playing again this year, it came naturally for her and  I loved seeing her telling her teammates good job, and giving them thumbs up even when they made a mistake. It's awesome to witness these parts of my kids' personalities when they are in new experiences like this.

Here is Ainsleigh when she started in third grade:

Ainsleigh in 4th grade; the year she started rocking the knee socks!

We moved to Georgia in the middle of 4th Grade so we missed out on 5th grade volleyball. But this year I noticed that our YMCA partnered with Cobb Atlanta Volleyball for a Fall and Winter session. I asked Ainsleigh if she wanted to do it and, of course, she absolutely did. No nerves, no fear, no "I might be stepping outside of my comfort zone" type fears that I would have had going back into a sport after time off. Just "Yep! Let's do it." I love that about this girl. She doesn't really get intimidated by other people's expectations. Just her own expectations of herself.

She was assigned to the Falcons team for Fall session. They all played very well together. Only lost one game all season! They made it to the finals and the championship games were all on one day. We were hoping they would at least win the first game but they went on to win the whole thing! It was so much fun. 

Here they are high-fiving after taking the first round.

Her team was so great. They really started cheering each other on during the championship and I think it intimidated the other teams. That alone helped them win I'm sure!

Her Championship medal up close:

We were starving afterwards and told Ainsleigh she could pick the restaurant as part of celebrating her win. She picked Golden Corral. Tim and I have no idea where that choice came from. We are not really buffet folks, but the girls love the dessert bar so they were in heaven. 

Right away, she turned her focus to the Winter session. She was given the opportunity to either stay in the regular league or try out for the advanced, White league and she wanted to try out for White league. 

Now don't get me wrong, Ainsleigh is great at Volleyball. She is focused, willing to work hard and definitely gets the game. But she is small in comparison to the other girls. In fact this team was 5th and 6th graders and she was one of the oldest on the team, but definitely the smallest. As much as I want it to be a non-issue, sometimes it does affect her. She has to do overhand serves this time around and, although she is getting stronger, she doesn't have all the power of some of the other girls and sometimes she struggles. I was honestly a little bit nervous that it would come into play during try outs and so was she. I really didn't want to see her disappointed if she didn't make the team. My girl is a perfectionist and I knew she would have been hard on herself. We have been practicing a lot and I wanted to see her hard work pay off so we gave it a go. I figured if she made it or even if she didn't, it would be a good experience.

So you can imagine our joy when we got this email:

Tonight she has her first practice as part of the Eagles on the White league. It is a competitive league so I know it will be more of a challenge than the last session. She's still having fun and hopefully, if my perfectionist daughter learns anything from this experience, it will be that she doesn't have to be perfect all the time. Sometimes she can just have fun.

Rainy days and a sleepy girl

Paige stayed after school today for her school's Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser. She jumped her little heart out and bounced out of the school with lots of energy. Then she helped me with dinner, we ate, she sat down on the couch next to me and the next thing I knew she was out!

The cats were sharing the couch with her. They aren't very friendly with each other yet but getting closer. 

It's been so rainy and cloudy here the last few weeks. Hoping sunshine returns soon. 

Halloween 2015

Fall has come to Georgia and we are so grateful for the cooler temperatures at last even if they don't really come until Halloween time. We really miss our Illinois Halloween traditions with friends but are slowly creating new traditions down South.

Tim made a major deadline at work so he was very relaxed this weekend which was very much needed after a stressful few months. We took the girls out for lunch at their favorite restaurant, Carrabbas on Halloween. They were serving free kids meals for the holiday so you know I couldn't pass that up! The girls had Italian sodas for the first time and Ainsleigh loved it, Paige, not so much. We came home and carved pumpkins then got ready to trick or treat with friends.

The weather was beautiful and the girls had stamina to stay out late! Ainsleigh was an 80's rocker and Paige was Mal from the Disney Descendants movie, a favorite in our house these days that gets played almost daily. Both girls really loved their costumes and enjoyed getting ready. Ainsleigh is getting really good at putting on makeup, not sure I am ready for that, and colored hair is always a pleaser. Amazing what a $3 can of colored hairspray can do to make a costume super special. I am living it up as much as I can since I know we probably only have a few more years of this left with Ainsleigh.

Tim says I spread holidays out for a little too long. I can't help myself. I think I enjoyed doing that with my sisters when I was a kid too. So we had a few Halloweens celebrations this year. Wednesday night before Halloween, we attended a trunk or treat at a church in the historic part of town, just down the road. We had gone there last year also and they have lots of trunks in the parking lot with a game at each one. Paige was a little to shy to participate at first. Luckily her big sister always protects her and helps her out. The girls met a friend there that they knew from the YMCA and I met her Mom and we hit it off right away. She is an instructor at the YMCA and just a very personable lady. Looking forward to getting to know her better. The church serves a hot dog, chips, and a soda for $1. It is such a great service to the community.

Thursday night Ainsleigh dressed up and attended a Halloween festival at her school. They dressed up, trick or treated around the classrooms, watched a Disney Halloween movie outdoors and got pizza and popcorn. Ainsleigh was so happy when I picked her up! She had a great time and I feel like this transition to Middle School has been so good for her. She is maturing socially and really coming into her own academically. I am so proud of her. Paige had a really hard time understanding that she couldn't go with Ainsleigh to the party. She just adores her big sister. She and I ended up going to Chick-fil-A and she found some friends to play with there and enjoyed herself.

We had a great Halloween and now I am ready for the spookiness to be gone for awhile. Ready for Thanksgiving and looking forward to the Holiday season and reconnecting with family. I'm sure I will find a way to drag those holidays out as well which will not surprise Tim at all.

 

 

Looks like I forgot about my blog.

Today I recalled my blogs after reading another blog about a baby with trisomy 13.  A lot has happened since my last post...4 years ago or so. A major move, an addition of cats to our family, and two girls who are growing up very fast. I showed Ainsleigh the blog and she is really enjoying reading all the memories also.  She has laughed so much at her younger self and all the funny things she did and said. It makes me so happy that I have these memories somewhere! I may not have kept up on baby books, but this works too.

Today we voted. When we first moved here, Ainsleigh was excited to find that there was another girl in her class named Ansley! Ansley's Dad was running for Mayor. He is a very friendly guy, always at the school and is now PTA President. We had to get out and vote for him!

Ainsleigh is in 6th grade now. Middle School seems to be wonderful for her so far. She is growing out her bangs and has been wanting fancy hair these days and asking me to curl it. I pretend like it is such a chore but my inner 8 year old girl is thrilled. It is a little bit embarrassing to admit it, but from the moment the sonogram revealed daughters, I imagined how much fun it was going to be to dress them up and do their hair. I was never super girly but I have always had an interest in hair, makeup, and fashion; as much as a midwestern, small town girl can. I like to think it is my creative, artsy side and not just a "girly" thing. No one told me I would have two very independent, strong willed girls with their own ideas of fashion. It would mean no fancy hair styled by Mom. I'm lucky if they cooperate for me to brush it. Our closet consists of mostly comfortable clothes for Ainsleigh, dresses for Paige, and overall A LOT of cheetah print. Ainsleigh would let me dress her up a bit as a baby but Paige has essentially had her own sense of fashion from day one.

Paige is in 1st grade and doesn't take school as seriously as Ainsleigh has which is honestly somewhat of a relief. She isn't anxious about being perfect at her schoolwork like Ainsleigh has always been. Right now she just loves going to school and being social. She does announce the contents of her daily folder each day and makes sure I fill out any paperwork she has and sign her behavior chart. She is very responsible and organized that way. Eventually I hope her academics are important to her but she is working hard and enjoys school so that is all that I am concerned about right now.

It is odd to have both kids in school. I still have not adjusted but I am glad that the girls have. They are becoming more independent. My role as a Mother is swiftly changing as the girls need less physical nurturing and more emotional nurturing. I anticipated this time would come but of course could never really prepare for it. 

At one point in my motherhood journey I thought I had to be everything to them; their teacher, playmate, friend, confidante, nurse, chef, disciplinarian, entertainment director, cheerleader and psychologist. But life is forcing me to let go more each passing day and I am so grateful to see that, as I do, others have stepped in to nurture my kids in unique ways that they need from someone other than their Mother or Father. They have fantastic teachers who build their confidence and help me to see my kids uniquely through someone else's eyes. Ainsleigh has blossomed so much under her piano teacher who really "gets" her and encourages her in exactly the ways she needs. She is also playing volleyball now and it is been very cool to see what a great team player she is. Her coach loves that about her too and never criticizes her for making a mistake because she knows Ainsleigh will criticize herself enough. I think it is helping her to not take things too seriously but to have fun. Paige's teachers and even her bus driver constantly tell me what a sweet girl she is and I see it in her friendships at school. It is wonderful seeing my sassy girl's heart through other people's perspectives.

We are slowly building our village and thank goodness for that because I try to do my best, but it really does take a village.

What really makes for a good childhood?

A few years back Ainsleigh got one of those kid friendly cameras for Christmas. We finally downloaded all the photos instead of deleting the bad to make room for more.

The quality is pretty bad, but it was so much fun seeing all these photos that Ainsleigh has taken over the last 3 years or so, many times unbeknownst to us.

There were so many funny photos of Paige as a baby.

Ahh the days before Paige had her trademark head tilted, hand on hip pose for photos.

I bet half of them were photos of me sitting in the chair while Paige slept or nursed. You forget how of your day is spent that way when you have a baby.

Keeping it real

It looks like pbskids.org has also been a large part of her life. 

And how could I not love the early morning photos of me trying to smile while desperately hoping these photos would never be published on the internet?!

My favorites were definitely her self portraits.

I know it looks like a genuine smile but I was totally doing one of those, "Okay, I'll smile for the photo, but then you need to get out of the car because we are running late!" I hate that so much of our life is spent like that.

Then there were random still life captures of her toys and bedroom. 

It was very entertaining, but also a little enlightening seeing her perspective on our life. It hit home once again that this is my kids childhood we are making each and everyday. While Tim and I are worrying about making ends meet or getting time to ourselves, career changes and housework, we are inadvertently making memories for our kids that will make up their childhood when they are all grown up.

Who trusted us to do this?

Definitely thankful for a little "perspective." 

rough start

Paige and I just got back from riding Ainsleigh to school on our bikes. I have been trying to take her a different way so that she ends up at the crosswalk where she can ride across a somewhat busy street with the help of the school crossing guards. I am trying to prepare us both for the time when she can I let her ride by herself. It will be much easier if I know she is crossing there.

Like many times in our life together, she has decided this is something she "hates" doing. There is no logical reason for this. It is just something she has set her will against and therefore it is grounds for battle now. So it was THAT kind of morning. But I can't blame her too much. I was kind of hard on her with my "there will be no friends after school today" and "we are not riding bikes to school for the rest of the week because you have lost the privilege" threats. She hates crossing on the crosswalk, well I hate mornings like this.

It has been a rough week for all of us. Last night we lost power right before bedtime, while we were reading. The silence in the house made it so hard to sleep that I did a lot of thinking. You know the kind of restless, you should be sleeping but can't make your mind stop solving problems kind of night. I am hoping that things get better for all of us. It seems that we are not alone in our struggles. The transition to motherhood has been a difficult one for me. I know, it has been a few years so you would think I'd have worked out all the kinks by now but I am trying to have peace with my decision to stay home. I am really grateful that we can do it. I'm always questioning it though. It has been hard giving up my independence. I felt so much more stable when I knew I could make my own way without depending on anyone else. I know it will come again but it is hard for me as I'm sure it is for most stay at home moms.

So Ainsleigh is at school, Tim is at work, Paige and I are watching Curious George and another week has officially begun. I can only hope it is a good one, we all need it.

a coin and a pioneer girl

Last night, right before bed, Paige swallowed a coin. I thought, since she was almost three we would be pretty close to being past this kind of stuff. But no. We called her doctor's office and talked to a nurse. Apparently all we can do is watch for it. Sounds like fun, right?

Also last night, Ainsleigh decided that she would like to be Laura Ingalls Wilder for Halloween and Paige will be baby Carrie. I went to the fabric store today and bought a pattern, but man it takes over 3 yards for the dress and 1 yard just for the bonnet and another 2 3/8 for the pinafore. How did these pioneer folk afford the yardage their clothing required? I guess it is fine when you only have a few dresses and then hand them down or make clothes for the little ones out of the the bigger dresses when the older kids grow out of them. How's that for up-cycling? It was really fun getting fabric for new projects for both me and my girls and some to make little girl aprons to sell. 

The idea of making these dresses and bonnets reminds me of the Thanksgiving that my Mom made my sisters pilgrim dresses, hats, and aprons out of black and white fabric...I am going to hunt down that photo. At the time I was a little embarrassed of my family being a little weird but now I suppose I embrace it.

Photo as promised. Sorry Meghan and Carly but you are pretty cute. 

To be fair, thought I'd post this photo of myself also found while digging 

We picked raspberries at Country Corner with the Mom and Dad and the Foster cousins today. Temperature was 96 without the humidity factored in. We are definitely feeling it now! We are all pretty exhausted.

Off to change Paige's diaper and do some digging.