A Week of Firsts

Isabelle is going through another growth spurt. Her emotions are all over the place, she cries at the drop of a hat, and she's accomplishing new things every day.

Just this weekend, we were swimming over at Mom-Mom SuSu's house and she finally let Ed teach her how to swim underwater without holding her nose. This was a big feat for sure, we've been working on it for the two years since we moved to Florida. The kid can swim like a fish, she can dive down for rings on the bottom of the deep end, and she finally mastered a pretty decent cannonball (even though she can't create much of a splash since she's so small). But this past weekend, she stopped holding her nose and now can jump in, swim, and dive underwater without holding her nose.

Then on Monday, she was able to yo-yo for the first time. She can get it rolling up and down about 4-5 times before it finally peters out. Hey, I think that's probably more than I can do.

And finally, she told us she was R-E-A-D-Y to get those training wheels off of her bike. I knew she'd eventually come around to it so we haven't pushed it. We tried to take them off a few months ago and just was NOT prepared or confident enough to give it an honest try so we put the trainers back on her bike and figured we'd wait until she made up her own mind. That was yesterday. We don't have the benefit of hills in Florida so we had to settle for the grass field in our local park. The grass is super short, almost like a putting green so it's pretty easy to pedal on it. It took her about 10 minutes and then she finally just got it. She wasn't confident enough to give it a try on the sidewalk or pavement yesterday, but we'll go up to the park each day after dinner and let her practice a few minutes. I think it should only take her a few days before she's ready for the open sidewalk and we'll go back to riding bikes to school (or Rec Center Summer Camp in a few weeks).

So this has been a BIG week for our little girl. She's growing so fast and she continues to amaze us every day. Kindergarten wraps up here in just 3 weeks, I can't believe the school year is already over. What a fast, fun year it's been. Looking forward to a fun eventful summer, starting with a summer vacation in Maryland the day after school lets out for 10 days.

The Sky is Falling!

Well, maybe not the sky, but Isabelle's teeth sure are. Less than a month later and we have six teeth gone now. Her bottom two came out with her adult teeth already grown in. The other 4 have no adult teeth in sight and I'm not sure she has the room anyway. She's very proud of herself, all grown up.

Thisth is Getting Interesthting

Isabelle went to bed one night this week and after about 30 minutes, came running and crying out of her room. Her mouth was full of blood and she was inconsolable. She went straight to Daddy and said, "TAKE IT OUTTTTTT!"

Iz has been sporting a pretty major snaggle tooth for weeks now. Her 4th loose tooth was one of her largest, one of her upper central incisors. She was taking a drink from her metal water bottle in the dark and must have hit it just the right way to give it a good knock and now she finally was prepared to let Ed yank it for her, after weeks of refusal.

So, now we have a listhpy Isthabelle in the house who is constantly playing with her gap tooth with her tongue. Now we're really in the awkward years for pictures.

You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

Iz and I had to run an errand on Sunday around lunchtime. Ed was getting some stuff done around the house so just us gals went out. Normally, Izzi will fight me about going on an errand, especially if Daddy is home and she could just stay home. But she didn't fight me on Sunday for some reason, she willingly came along with me and was quite pleasant to boot. Not sure why but it was a nice little hour of girl time with my favorite gal.

As a special surprise, I took her to lunch. Except lunch wasn't at a normal restaurant. I took her to Baskin Robbins. She was quite confused when I asked her what she wanted. "Don't I have to eat lunch first?". Nope, kid, today we're having ice cream sundaes for lunch.

She was really excited when she ordered her mint chocolate chip hot fudge sundae with crushed oreo cookies. Ice cream for lunch, and not just dessert. What a concept. It was a fun surprise, one of many I hope to spring on her in this new year of 2014.

Farewell, Princesses

Last year, Isabelle politely asked me to remove Dora, Backyardigans and a few other favorite cartoons from our DVR so she could upgrade to the "big kid" cartoons. It was a sad day for me, realizing that my little one was growing up so fast.

With a treasure trove of dress-up costumes in her room, we haven't had to purchase a Halloween costume for her yet. This is the first year she wanted to go to the store and pick a new one out. All of her dress-ups, apparently, were for little kids and she was "done" being a Princess, at least for Halloween.

To avoid the mayhem of the store, knowing she wouldn't be able to decide, I let her shop online first. We still went to the store to buy the final choice but we did our deciding before we got there.

This year's masterpiece was a pink Supergirl costume, which was pretty darn cool if I must admit it. She wanted to be Batgirl but the store didn't have it in stock yet by the time we got there so she opted for the Supergirl one instead. They were essentially the same costume (boots, mask, glovelets, a cape) but the insignia was just Supergirl instead of Batgirl.

My little Supergirl looked awesome and had a fun day with a storybook parade where she dressed up as Fancy Nancy, a Halloween party at school, and trick-or-treating with friends.

Overheard in the WWOI

Isabelle was reading a book to me the other day. In the story, the girl character wanted to wear her hair in pigtails for school.

Izzi got to the word and stopped. She started to sound it out. It's not a hard compound word for her, so she got the pig and the tails but she still hesitated to move on. She looked at the picture, then back at the words. She finally finished the sentence out loud but then she stopped.

Izzi: Mommy? What in the world are PIG tails?

Me: You know what pigtails are, baby. We put pigtails in your hair for every soccer game, it's when you have two ponytails instead of one and there is one on each side of your head.

Izzi: So when I play soccer, you put PIG tails in my hair?

Me: Yup! Why? What's wrong?

Izzi: Oh...nothing. I just always thought they were called PINK tails.

Me: I think I like pinktails better.

Izzi: Me too, I think I'll always call them that. 

Pinktails and marshpillows, that's what little girls are made of :)

Stuck in a Rut

We are 7 days into Kindergarten now. It's Thursday of week 2 and the Silers are getting this routine thing down!

Last year, day care started at 9am. And since I work from home, I was used to rolling out of bed at 8:15am, throwing Izzi some cereal and a banana, and driving her over to daycare in my pajamas (I sleep in comfy clothes, so they don't really LOOK like pajamas...uhhhh…or do they?) OK, maybe I wasn’t fooling anyone, but I digress.

So this year, Iz needs to arrive between 7:30am and 7:50am. That’s more than an hour earlier than last year! I knew we’d have a challenge with this considering us girls were typically late to 9am daycare last year. But THIS year was different. Anything after 7:50am results in a tardy slip. Which goes on her record. Which really reflects poorly on ME, not the kid. So this just wasn’t acceptable. I just assumed my poor child would be getting a LOT of those, but I've turned a new leaf. And on day 7, we are organized, on task, and getting it done. On Time!

I think Isabelle got my unfortunate trait of NOT being a morning person. I hate mornings. I'm tired, cranky, discombobulated, and need some time to wake up slowly. With our new schedule, we don't have time for that. And since I recently gave up coffee completely (!!!), I have no morning java to pick me up. I have to do it all by myself (with a little help, just the natural kind now).

So to keep us on task without any arguments, we created a new morning and evening routine, with times assigned to each task. (I get the morning routine, Ed takes care of the evening). We have all agreed to this schedule and therefore, it keeps arguments to a minimum. I run this morning routine military style, and there are no excuses for being late.

The Morning Routine poster was my creation
but don't knock the artwork. It's not my thing.

Here is a morning in the life of Jen and Izzi Siler:

6:00 AM Alarms Sound! We are allowed 15 minutes of hitting the snooze button, because, that’s just how we roll. I try to use this 15 minutes to do my Carl Sandburg stretches that were introduced to me in the Engine 2 Diet book. They really wake your muscles up and get your mind out of that morning fog. At 6:15, I’m usually going in to Izzi’s room with a gentle nudge that snooze time is over (which typically entails a 2 minute snuggle and some tickle bugs to get things moving).

6:15 – 6:45 AM Breakfast. Izzi is a slow eater in the morning, and she’s typically still in a bit of the fog too. So I knew I had to allow the most time in our schedule for eating breakfast (most important meal of the day, remember!). Her standard fare is some healthy cereal and a banana. Sometimes we vary from this with some whole grain pancakes/waffles, muffins, or some other treat. A banana is 99% of the time required (by her, not me) or it’s not considered a complete breakfast. My little monkey…

I make myself a morning smoothie packed with tons of good stuff (frozen organic berries, amazing grass green powder, banana, coconut oil, ground flaxseed, chia seeds, fish oil, you get the idea) while I check emails and get a few things done for work, and we talk about the day ahead.

At 6:45 sharp, all breakfast gets taken away. Izzi has come to understand and respect this about the morning schedule. She gets 30 minutes for breakfast (less if she’s running late getting out of bed) and at 6:45am, breakfast is over. She doesn’t even complain, or try to negotiate. It just “is what it is”.

After breakfast, we brush our teeth next. We found it’s best to do this step right after eating whilst still in our pajamas so when the inevitable toothpaste drool-spit combo gets on our shirt, it just hits our dirty PJ shirt and not our fresh clean shirt we are wearing to school that day.

We allot 15 whole minutes for tooth brushing. Her little Sonicare only takes 2 minutes, but there are so many songs and imaginary friends that also have to brush teeth, that reality requires 15 minutes.

At 7:00am, I better see her cute little butt in her room putting on her clothes. Meanwhile, the outfit has already been chosen (by her) and laid out the night before with everything she needs including undies, socks, and shoes. She only gets 15 minutes to get dressed, which I realize is NOT a lot for a 5-6 year old, but we usually have a few minutes of buffer this late in the morning from the other stages getting done quickly.

At 7:15am, it’s time to brush the mop. This step might warrant more time, actually. I threaten to chop her hair off almost daily (even though I swore I never would since I was threatened similarly as a kid and hated it). But I swear the kid must eat cotton candy on the side when I’m not looking and then rub her hands in her hair. Every day, she comes home with some kind of sticky, gooey, yuck in her hair and it’s a disaster to brush every morning (quick confession, NO my kid does not get a bath and shampoo every day. You can hand over my Mom-of-the-Year Award any time now.).

As soon as that fiasco is over, we leave the house (because, again, everything is ready and waiting by the door b/c it was packed the night before). I throw her ice pack in her lunch and we’re off.

Most days we walk or ride our bike to school. We live one mile from the school and honestly, walking takes less time than driving because of the traffic of cars, walkers, and bikers. I walk her into her classroom and get her settled (we’re allowed to do this for the first 9 weeks of school) and then I’m off to the gym for an 8:30 class.

Despite my grumblings of the early mornings, and passing out at 9:30pm every night, this new schedule has me feeling quite invigorated. I’m getting 2 hours of physical activity in the morning (granted the walk/bike to school/gym/home isn’t a high-intensity workout but it beats sitting in a car), I’m getting to the gym before work starts, and Izzi is enjoying a fruitful first few weeks of Kindergarten.

Everyone knows where they need to be, at what time, and how long they have to do each step of their morning routine. Now, if we could just work on that evening one!

The Evening Routine artwork belongs to Isabelle.
I actually think hers is much better than mine!

So, us Silers are stuck in a rut! But it's a very good thing...