Second Verse, Not Same as the First

As a follow-up to my last post of Swaddled Sweetness, our mornings have not gotten any better.

When the weekend finally arrives, we are not the kind of family to sit around the house to rest and relax after a taxing work week. In fact, it’s been 2 months since we moved into our new house and we still have a garage full of boxes that haven’t been unpacked. Who has time with so many fun things to do, places to explore, and new friends to meet!

This past weekend we had friends visit from Maryland. They left Sunday morning and we met some new friends here in Tampa. A friend of Ed’s from high school lives in Tampa now too, so he had a bunch of people over to watch football on Sunday. We met some really fun people.

On Monday morning though, we paid for our busy, hectic, super fun weekend. Everyone overslept. Our morning was more hectic than normal. Everyone was tired, and therefore cranky. Isabelle and I had one of our typical morning knock-down drag-out fights. It was a doozie too. I was yelling at her to get dressed, get her shoes on, brush her teeth, brush her hair, eat her breakfast, no she couldn’t watch a cartoon, we had to leave, we were late, ackkkkkk!

At the same time, I was running around trying to get dressed, brushed, etc.

So Monday night, we had a sit down to talk about our morning routine. Isabelle and I agreed that Monday morning was NOT very fun. It made us angry and sad that we got into such a bad fight. So we agreed that we had to do things differently. Our new routine as we laid it out Monday night:

• Isabelle’s Princess Alarm Clock will go off at 7:30 AM. If she wants to watch a cartoon that morning, then she has to wake up at that alarm time.

• She has been taught how to turn on the TV and access her recorded cartoons so she can pick what she wants to watch.

• After that one cartoon is over, she has to come wake me up (I’m usually up by this point anyway, but if I’m still hitting the snooze button, she is supposed to come rile me awake at 8:00 AM)

• At 8AM, we eat breakfast together. We have 30 minutes for breakfast so we set the timer for 20 minutes to remind us it’s time to finish up so we have time to get dressed.

• No later than 8:30AM, we each go get ourselves dressed and put our shoes on (quickly…NO playing in our room).

• Then we brush our teeth and hair.

• We should be leaving the house by 8:50AM at the latest to get to school on time.

We worked on a poster together, drew pictures for each step in our routine, talked about what happens if we miss any step in our routine (like we have to give up the one cartoon if we don't get up when the alarm goes off, or Mommy will have to pick out her outfit and get her dressed if we're behind schedule, etc.)

Fingers crossed we're on a path to a more civilized morning and maybe those few extra moments we save can be used for more swaddled sweetness.

This morning, we got through the last step of brushing and it was only about 8:40AM. I asked Isabelle if she wanted to read a book before we left since we had some spare time. She was totally shocked and thought I was joking. You mean here? At the house? Right now? Read a book???

And that's exactly what we did. We cuddled on the couch for 10 whole minutes and read a book that we haven't read in a while. It was an awesome way to send her off to school and start my workday.

Swaddled Sweetness

This morning was the typical morning of any Mom of a pre-schooler...

We woke up with kisses and cuddles, we fixed a healthy breakfast and chatted about world politics over a glass of freshly squeezed OJ. Then we jointly picked out an adorable matching outfit for her to wear to school all while singing silly songs together.

NOT!

We woke up in a panic after the 5th slap of the snooze alarm. We raced to throw dry cereal in a bowl, realized we were out of juice so had to count the cereal milk as our breakfast beverage too. I threw together two semi-matching outfits (one for me, one for Isabelle) from the least smelly clothes I could find in between the hamper and the floor. Then we swished some toothpaste in our mouth with a shot of water for a morning dose of dental hygiene. As we're running out the door I realize Izzi is still barefoot so I impatiently SCREAMMMM at her to go get her frickin frackin SHOES ON!!! You know that is part of getting dressed blee, blah, blah!!!!

While she is shoeing herself, I'm scrambling to find my phone, sunglasses, keys, and the grocery list (hey, maybe I can hit the store on the way home from school?). She is STILL not out of her room by the time I finally locate all of my own missing items. ISABELLE!!! NOW!!!! We have to leave NOW NOW NOW!

I'm COMING, MOMMY!!!!!!! I had to find my socks, and find my shoes, and my shoes weren't where.....blee, blah, blah!! Stop talking! Let's GOOOOO!

Fast forward a few hours, I need to wash the linens today. I go into her room to strip her bed and I find her "Baby Lola" very carefully swaddled, lying on her bed, with two of her favorite stuffed animal buddies snuggled up next to her. I know this is what took her so long this morning while she was supposed to be shoeing herself. She had to make sure her babies were gonna be OK today while their mama was off to a big day of Pre-K4.

I really need to start getting up around the 2nd or 3rd snooze alarm so we have some extra time in the morning for adorableness like this...



Well, We Found the ER!

We woke up at 2am to a horrible goose-honking sound that even the multiple ceiling fans and air purifiers couldn't dampen. Isabelle was frantically trying to catch her breath and getting agitated, upset and scared. As were Ed and I!

Rewind 3 days to the forecast of a Hurricane Isaac heading towards Tampa as a Category 1 Hurricane and we hit the toy aisle when we did our Walmart run to build our emergency kit. We got a new board game (Trouble, a classic fave of mine) and a Princess Lego set for Izzi and Ed to work on.

Last night, when I heard the goose-honk and heard the stridor as she tried to catch her breath, I feared the worse. She had inhaled one of the impossibly teeny tiny itty bitty Lego pieces. She's almost FIVE for pete's sake, she KNOWS better than to put things in her mouth. But my mind went wild, maybe she was trying to separate two Legos and used her mouth? The set was a house, pool, grill, playground, etc. Maybe she was pretending to eat the food off the grill? (Which are these tiny little hamburgers smaller than your pinky nail).

Long story short, there was no inhalation. Whew!!! She has a virus (heard THAT one before) and the croup. No fever so she can go back to school but I kept her home today to keep an eye on her. She's more than fine, she's been the normal crazy lunatic all day that she always is.

At 3am, when we decided to play it safe and go to the hospital, we had NO CLUE where to go or how to get there. Thank goodness for GPS. We punched in the name of the place where Ed's grandmom Isabelle used to go and found our way there. It was very nice. The people were nice, they were quick and we were out of there in about an hour. Researching ERs was on my list of things to do when we moved here. I just hadn't gotten around to it. Hopefully they are in network on my insurance plan, ho hum.

On a separate note, Hurricane Isaac totally missed us. We had a little rain and wind, too many tornado warnings for my liking but no real problems. So lucky! Unfortunately for the residents on the Gulf Coast, Isaac wasn't so kind to them. On the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, it looks like we'll have another retired Hurricane name.

God Be With You, LA, MS, and AL folks...

The Beast Within

A new theatre buff has arrived in the Siler family. On Friday August 3rd, Ed & I took Isabelle to her first "Broadway" show (well, the traveling version here in Tampa). Beauty and the Beast came to Ruth Eckerd Hall so we opted for the Friday night show, we got all gussied up, went to dinner before, and attended the 7:30pm show.

I was able to pick really good seats from the online ticket office, you can actually choose individual seats, not just a section of where you want to sit. I got us seats in the orchestra section on an aisle, so we didn't have a row of seats directly in front of us. Thankfully the ushers don't allow people to walk in/out during the action, they kindly ask them to wait for a transition to move about.

Iz did sit on Ed's or my lap most of the show so she didn't miss a step or a note. I was more entertained watching her face than watching the show. (Well, I have seen it three other times before). She was wide-eyed, mouth agape, in total awe for the full three hours, even during intermission.

She learned the new word "intermission" and got to see the orchestra pit and learn what they do. She graciously clapped at all the right spots, laughed out loud with the audience, and was a perfect little lady. Brava, Isabelle, Brava! Next stop? Manhattan!

One Copper Penny

We buried Great Mom-Mom Isabelle this week. She was a valiant warrior against many rounds of cancer in many parts of her body. It took many years for cancer to try and get her, and she won most of the battles. But at 81 years, her body was just too tired from fighting 20+ years to just one disease.

Mom-Mom’s favorite flower was the yellow rose. So the funeral home and graveside were covered in them. Those flowers were the bright spot in the dreary day that reminded us of Mom-Mom’s spirit. Life was meant to be lived. And we were meant to be happy and cheerful and beautiful. I believe that now. I hope our daughter, who was named for this beautiful woman, understands this part of life too.

After the graveside service on Tuesday, the family gathered yellow roses from the casket. I now have them in a vase in my NEW home (which we purchased about 4 hours after Mom-Mom passed on July 20th, 2012). Family flew in from Maryland for the services. Some of them stayed here with us in the new house and they left their flowers. A week later, the flowers look as good as they did at the services.

I went to change the water tonight and I had a very strong voice telling me to drop a penny in the jar. That’s a saying or piece of advice for newlyweds but that certainly didn’t fit our situation with 12 years under our belt. So, I didn’t understand it, and I even said out loud, “Penny in a jar? What the hell does that mean?”

Ed asked me if I was talking to him (I wasn’t). But when I looked up to respond to him, sure enough, there was one lone penny sitting in a dish on the shelf in front of me. It was heads-up too, which of COURSE means good luck. I dropped the penny in the empty vase. I put Mom-Mom’s yellow roses back in, and I filled her with cool water.

Then I went to Google to figure out the true meaning. As it turns out, a penny in a flower vase does help the flowers due to some oxidation stuff I’ll never understand.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Maybe good luck for Ed, Izzi, and me? Maybe the flowers will last forever? Maybe I just now know that Mom-Mom can talk to me whenever she wants. I sure hope so, because my daughter can only benefit from her amazing wisdom and faith.

Green Bracelet

We joined the YMCA when we got into town. We got a full family membership for less than one gym membership in Maryland. Many of the Y locations also have pools and offer swim lessons. Isabelle has been signed up since July 9th but only had her FIRST class yesterday because of the daily late-afternoon thunderstorms that grace our presence every...single...day.

While she was waiting for class to begin yesterday, the lifeguards announced they were doing swim tests if any kids were interested. While there are very few lifeguards in Florida (very very odd to me), the YMCA has more than they probably need. They have very strict rules too. If a child under 8 years old can pass the swim test, they are allowed in the pool without a parent. If they cannot pass the swim test, a parent MUST be with them within arms reach, even in the shallow end.

Although Iz hasn't had many swim lessons since we've been here because of rain, she's in the pool every day at least for a little bit. So naturally, she's learned to swim on her own. At this point, swim lessons are just to learn the actual strokes, get stronger, and gain even more confidence. We think she'll be on the swim team by next year, and a lifeguard by the age of 8 at this point.

So yesterday, while waiting for class to start, she told Ed she wanted to take the swim test. We didn't think she would be able to pass, but of course, we don't tell HER that. The swim test requires a kid to tread water for a full minute, and THEN swim the full length of the 25-yard pool. All of this while not touching the side of the pool or the bottom (they are in the deep end for the test).

I missed the whole thing since I was stuck at home working. Ed called me immediately, the proud Papa beaming through his phone that she had PASSED her swim test. She was now a proud wearer of the elusive GREEN BRACELET which gives her the permission to swim in the YMCA pool without her pesky parents.

Debby Downer

I joked as we left Maryland to move to Florida because the Tampa area hasn’t seen a tropical storm or hurricane in a really long time. That meant we were sure to see one this coming hurricane season since the Siler’s were moving there.

We haven’t even made it safely out of the first month of hurricane season and here we are with Tropical Storm Debby. This has been a weird one, none of the storm guys knew which way she was going to track. Some had her going towards Texas, some had her hitting N’awlins, some had them going to the panhandle, and some models had them coming straight for central west coast where Tampa lies.

We haven’t had much wind today here at the house but the yard and the golf course are totally flooded. There are many road closures, trees down, power lines down, and other damage that is just starting to get reported on the local news stations.

We haven’t left the house all day, in fact, I’m still in my pajamas at 9pm. The scariest part of today has been the multiple tornado reports and warnings. It’s kept me on my toes, trying to figure out where I will drag my family if Mr. Jim Cantore tells me to seek an interior room in my home. I don’t have a home. I’m in someone else’s house. And we have no basement or interior room.

The odd thing is, we haven’t “heard” the rain or minimal wind gusts all day. This house is a concrete block of architectural wonder. If we had a storm like this in our home in Edgewater, I would have evacuated already. You can’t hear rain on the roof. You can’t “feel” the house shake with the wind. And we’ve had zero water issues all day (from below, above, or anywhere in between). Granted the yard is totally flooded and the pool overflowed. Pop-Pop Bill has been out there draining water out of it a few times today. But the difference between a very old wooden beach bungalow and a Florida concrete-block newer home is pretty awesome.

And now that Tampa has had a pretty significant storm hit (we got the eastern side of Debby which has delivered almost an entire FOOT of rain), I’m just thinking that we are now safe from any head-on deluge for many years to come.

Debby, you’re going down…