Letting Go, Fa La La

I'm the kind of person that arranges their book shelf from tallest to shortest. My CDs and DVDs have always been in alphabetical order. And if I ever had several items of various color? Roy G Biv, baby.  

Let me be the first to say it (and then my family can be the second and third and fourth), I like things a certain way.  

If you're following this, nodding in agreement, this next part is where our stories might differ.  Most people's story would say "And then I had kids and learned that things are better when children put them in their own unique order and...." NO.  

No. No. No. And no.

Kids are dumb. They don't respect how soothing the proper placement of things can be. They thrive on creating chaos. It's their mission. And they work on that chaos with the same compulsion that causes me to rearrange the Christmas tree after they've "decorated" it.

Homemade candy cane next to a real candy cane?  Ornamental redundancy and just plain crazy! 

A candy cane next to a candy cane next to a candy cane? It's a confectionery orgy on this tree! 

I know it's wrong to feel this way. I don't need your judgey-face looking down your nose at me. I look down my own nose at me enough for the both of us.  But the down-looking only comes after my brain has screamed about the fact that my daughter is wearing navy blue with black and my son has a patterned shirt on with a totally different patterned pant not to mention the fact that the two share no matching colors and someone has stacked a plate on TOP of a bowl in the sink and what did I ever do to deserve such punishment?

We have an advent calendar that the kids use each year. Each day, the kids take turns putting up the next ornament. This is a tradition that they relish. It's always the first thing out of the Christmas box and the first thing put up for the holidays.  If it's their calendar day, it is one of the first things they do when they wake up that morning.  It's a decorating process that I am only an observer of.

And it hurts.

Case in point:

Seventeen days in.

Look at this. The cardinal is kissing the dove who is pecking on the Santa that has a candy cane hooked on the ball at the end of his hat.  All the while, Beaker is in the middle of a two-car, one train pile up that happened right outside the gingerbread house's driveway while the snowman and gingerbread man run away, hand-in-hand, unharmed from the crazy chaos that was my beloved advent calendar.

But in keeping with the spirit of the season, I stifled my inner crazy and left the decorations as is. All of them. I didn't touch a single ornament. Every candy cane was left in place, even if that place was right next to another candy cane of the same color even though, why would you do that when you had two other candy cane colors to choose from in addition to a bunch of other ornaments, most of which were not candy canes and maybe we should just have no candy canes next year unless I can color-coordinate my brain explosion to match the wall color.  

And then, a beautiful thing happened.  Something so amazing and heart-warming that your faith in your life-choices are all-at-once restored and you know that everything is right with the world.  

Cara placed a wrapped present gently under the tree, nestling it on top of the hand-made tree skirt and right below the crocheted bells that my great-great aunt made that had been a part of my tree since I was an infant.  Craig looked down at the gift and said, "The snowmen are upside-down!"

Hands off. He's mine!

Proof that I left it alone all month.

The Unknown

Me: "When you were little, I didn't know how much fun you'd be."
Connor: "But now you do."
Me: "You're right."
Connor: "You just don't know when."

Veggie Tales

Overheard conversation between the two kids:

Connor: "How come I get the most vegetables and the least dessert?"
Cara: "You do not get the most vegetables. You get the least!"
Connor: "Well, why? Don't mom and dad want me to grow big and strong?"

Doctor Who-loween (Part 2)

Once Connor found out that Cara was going to be the Tardis from Doctor Who for Halloween, he firmly decided that he wanted to be the Doctor.  Now, just which Doctor he would be was another question.

Again, for those of you not in the Doctor Who loop, there have been eleven different men playing the role of the Doctor throughout the show's fifty years, each with their own distinct look. My kids have only really been introduced to the last three, so the choice of which Doctor wasn't so difficult.

Connor opted to be the most recent (and youngest) Doctor and, after we ordered and received the sonic screwdriver (a non-weapon the Doctor uses which also varies from Doctor to Doctor) for the eleventh Doctor, it was easy to see why. We all took turns playing with this part of his costume, pressing the buttons to activate the sound and light.

Unlike Cara's intricate Tardis costume, Connor's costume was relatively easy.  I found a blazer at a used clothing store and sewed brown felt patches onto the elbows. I had fabric leftover from when I made the bow ties for Cara's shoes and I made a bow tie for Connor (and watched a YouTube video to show me how to actually tie it). A button-down shirt, skinny tan pants, and brown boot-like pointy shoes and he was all set.

The Doctor and his Tardis

Now, in addition to the recreational Halloween costumes, both Cara and Connor had costumes for a month-long Halloween project that they participate in at school. Each child in first through sixth grade selects a hero to study. They spend the month of October doing research on this person, making a portrait of their hero, and writing a report which they then present to the class at the end of the month.

Connor selected Dr. Seuss as his hero this year. Originally, he had been very reluctant to the idea of dressing up as this man, so I didn't worry too much about a costume. We had a sport coat and tie in our dress up stash that he could use and I popped the lenses out of some tortoise shell sunglasses to look like the glasses Dr. Seuss wore.  It must have been during the course of researching and writing that Connor changed his mind about dressing up. The night before Halloween hero day (or Halloween hero eve, as I'm going to call it) when I had laid out what I had pulled together for a costume, Connor insisted that he have a Dr. Seuss beard.  So, what do you do when a donkey who usually doesn't want to participate actually is excited about doing so? You make a beard out of felt, elastic, and yarn, of course!

The beard. A few choice words were uttered during the making of this beard. Mostly directed at the spiderweb of glue and fingers and yarn and felt fuzz.

When asked why Dr. Seuss, he replied, "He's the only famous person I know."  

Now,this is Cara's sixth Halloween hero and, this year, she selected Elizabeth Cady Stanton to research. Out of all that she learned about this amazing and outspoken woman, what stuck with her was how Elizabeth stood her ground, even when all those around her tried to convince her to give up. I listened to her talk with such passion about how horrible it was for Elizabeth's father to have said continuously to her that she couldn't do things because she was a girl. And the lightbulb went on for her. Wow. Women really were not treated well back in those days. Look at how far we've come.

Women's rights activist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton

I asked Cara if her father or I had ever told her that she couldn't do something because she was a girl. She thought for a moment and said that, no, we never had. Since Connor was present for this conversation and was listening intently, I decided to include him. "Have we ever told you that you can't do something because you're a boy?" This brother of an older sister says, "Paint my fingernails."

Two steps forward, one step back.

Did I Do That?

Me: "Do you think maybe you shouldn't touch those?"
Connor: "Well, NOW I won't."

Doctor Who-loween (Part 1)

It's no secret. My family is a bunch of nerds. If I was in denial before about this fact, my children's choices for what they wanted to be this Halloween would have been the face-smack of reality.

For those of you not familiar with the sci fi series "Doctor Who", these two series of posts may be a letdown. Unless you like super cool and resourceful use of materials to make kick-butt costumes. In that case, you should totally read on.

Cara had decided that she wanted to dress up as the Tardis from "Doctor Who". Those outside of the Who-verse loop, the Tardis is the blue wooden box that the Doctor uses for time/space travel. (Man, I am really resisting the urge to expound on that description and talk how the Tardis is much more than just a space ship and about the episode when the Tardis manifested itself as a woman and now I want to say that resistance is futile, which is a whole other can of nerd worms, so I'll just stop.)

So much more than just a time and space travel box. It's bigger on the inside.

Instead of doing a literal box costume, we had seen several interpretations of the Tardis that we were inspired by.  Because of my love of blue and my mother's thoughtfulness in keeping my old prom dresses, I actually had two royal blue dresses to choose from. Cara chose the strapless dress that I wore to my junior prom as the garment we would turn into a Tardis. 

Cara (age 6) in the dress that would be her costume six years later.

Cara did not want me to make too many actual changes to the dress itself, so we looked for a bustier to use over the dress instead of having to sew directly onto it.  We found a black girdle-type thing at a thrift store for $5. We used white scrap fabric to sew window panes to resemble the ones on the Tardis door.

The windows.

The size of the bow on the backside of this dress from the eighties seemed to be trying to compensate for the lack of shoulder pads and puffy sleeves in this strapless dress. Out came the seam ripper and off went the bow.

No more butt bow.

Most of the fabric from the deconstructed bow was used to sew wide straps onto the dress. Oh how I wish I had done this alteration before junior prom. Hours spent trying to keep my dress up would have been saved.

Much more 12-year old appropriate.

So far, we were into this costume five whole dollars. Man, I love a good deal.

I had to break down and buy white fabric paint but a good friend of mine (whose craft room is one I whole-heartedly covet) had some black satin that we were able to use to make a sash. I used letter stencils that I made to paint the sash and three coats of paint. Once this was done, it really felt like the costume was coming together.

Fabric paint ($1) on black satin fabric (free - thanks, Katherine) that I sewed into a sash.

One of the websites I like to visit had posted someone who made Doctor Who shoes. I promptly filed this idea in my brain (surprisingly, in an area of my brain that actually retained this idea) and talked Cara into using these as her shoes.

Brown flats that I painted to look like the Doctor (from the neck down, at least). Flats from the thrift store ($4), red fabric $2 (the rest of which was used for Connor's costume), and buttons from my giant button stash.

Originally, I had made a head lamp myself which was okay, but not perfect. Craig was very tactful in offering to upgrade this part of her costume and I heartily supported this project. 

Using a recycled cardboard canister, a couple of electronics pieces he bought at Radio shack (including the LED light), a switch and wires he removed from an old toy car, power tools, and a soldering iron, he got a MUCH improved head lamp for Cara's costume.

LED light with a switch that Craig designed and built. From scratch. With tools. It was glorious.

Once that was done, I used a sheet of vellum and some ribbon I bought at the craft store ($3 total) and most of the leftover bow fabric to cover the headband and lamp.  With the black netting that had also been a part of the bow (it was unsed inside to help it maintain its stability in its giantness) and some iridescent blue beads I had in my craft stash, I made a little fascinator to attach to the head piece.

Head lamp fully assembled with fascinator attached.

And then it was all finished.

Cara in full costume with trick-or-treat bag.

Cara "being the box" with her friends dressed as a Dalek (evil robot from the DW series) and the 10th Doctor.

We are all so thrilled with how great this turned out.  I love that it was truly a family project.  What's even better is that a couple of her friends from school got inspired by her choice in Halloween costume and made some themselves. They were three little Whovians at her school's Halloween Ball. This nerd couldn't be prouder. 

A Dozen Years

Last week was Cara's 12th birthday.  While many people lament that time with their children has gone by so fast, I honestly can say that this journey has taken twelve whole years. Even when I was digging around on our family website, looking through pictures of Cara when she was much younger, I do not find myself wishing she was one of those ages again. I like her at twelve. Twelve is just as great as eleven and ten and nine and all of the other year-olds she was.

During a visit from my mother when Cara was 6 months old (and excuse me if I've told this story before), Craig and I had my mom watch our daughter for a few hours. When we came back to get her, my mother said that Cara had been great but added, "She really needs you to watch her."  I stifled a "Well, duh, she's only 6 months old. Of course you need to watch her."  My mother must have seen that expression on my face because she went on to explain, "No, she actually WANTS you to watch her."

Looking back on that statement now, my mother had summed up my daughter in one short sentence.

So, here are some pictures of us watching her over the past twelve years:

The night she was born, she slept six straight hours. The nurses later scolded me for letting her sleep so long. But we had both been through 22 1/2 hours of labor. We totally needed that sleep. This was just one of many times that Cara made other parents jealous of how easy of a child she was.

Cara was born just a few days after my grandmother's 90th birthday.  The first great-grandchild.  Though Really Great (as we came to call her) was not too thrilled about our choice in names for our daughter (she instead referred to Cara as "Cutie Pie"), she adored this kid beyond words.  Since one of her favorite pictures of me when I was little was one of me looking into a mirror, this picture was taken just for her.

This was Cara's "get excited" face. It was one of our favorite baby tricks. One which we asked her to do repeatedly. And she would happily oblige each time.

This is a peek into her room-keeping skills. Though the books have been replaced with clothes, the results are fairly similar.

I stupidly used the "I think I hear Santa" to try to get her up to bed. This only managed to get her more worked up. She called out through the railing in a long, dramatic voice (the hands are to help her voice project), "SAAAAN-TAAAAA!"

We usually were instructed to announce her before she'd come out and put on a performance. "Presenting, Cara the dancer/singer/magician/musician/gymnast" or whatever she happened to be at that moment.

If Cara wanted to be or play something that she didn't have a costume or toys for, she would just make it out of construction paper and tape. She made a doctor kit, hairdresser set, Spongebob mask, tiger costume.....The list is as long as her vast imagination.

A true Minnesota girl. She actually spends more time outside at home when there's snow than any other time of year. Snow has become her construction paper. 

The ease in which she slips from serious to goofy is something I greatly admire. As she nears adolescence, it doesn't seem to be diminishing. Thank heavens. She's a dork off the old blocks.

Cara has always not only remembered birthdays, she's also made it her mission to make amazing gifts for each of us for our special days. This was the calendar Cara made for Connor. Each month had a different one of Connor's favorite characters, which she taught herself to draw by watching YouTube videos.  

When Cara started Tae Kwon Do a few years ago, she surprised us by setting a personal goal to get her red belt in two years. While she's had passing interests in dance, gymnastics, volleyball, etc, this was the first activity she was whole-heartedly passionate about. Doesn't hurt that she's amazing at it, either. Though it did take a bit longer than two years (a fact that can be blamed on summers filled with travels), she's now one test away from that red belt.

She has finally blossomed from only feeling comfortable performing for her immediate family to performing in front of people. She was the lead in her class play in 3rd grade, performs with the local puppet wagon, and regularly signs up for any school performance. Even with all of these extra outlets, we still get requests to watch performances at home.   

I love that Cara will go with me to events like this. When other pre-teens would groan about "old people's music", my daughter would take Beastie Boys over Bieber any day. 

Cara has such a sweet and gentle spirit, it's no wonder strangers have approached us asking if Cara was a babysitter. She loves to direct activities and to be in charge, it's the obvious next chapter for her.  And it's a perfect outlet for our pre-teen "look at me" girl.

When people hear that Cara has turned twelve, the comment that usually follows is about impending teenage-hood.  But Cara has been an easy, though at times dramatic, child.  Even on the outskirts of Hormone Town, we still enjoy being around our daughter.

Happy birthday, Schmoo! We promise to never stop watching you.