The reality

For a few weeks leading up to the wedding I was shopping for a new dress. Becky bought her dress in February when we were in Florida. So Ally knew there was a wedding coming up and no kids were invited (or allowed) to attend. She understood no new dress for her. We explained that Aunt Beth was coming to spend the day and night with her. We called it a "sleepover" with Aunt Beth.

All was good. Ally was a bit bummed to miss the wedding - she has attended 4 in the past 4 years so she is well versed in wedding and the fun one can have at them.

But OK.

Then Saturday night a week before the wedding we were in the car driving home after dinner and talking about how next weekend Aunt Beth was coming and Mama and Mommy were going away.

And she finally got it.

We were leaving her.

She was inconsolable.

She cried hysterically in the car the whole way home.

It was the longest 12 minutes in the car.

We finally got home. We cuddled, we snuggled, we chatted. Every time she got calmed down she would think about it and the tears would start all over again.

"I am going to miss you"

"Why can't kids come"

"Why are you leaving me?"

It was pretty awful.

It took me about 2 hours to get her to go to sleep.

The next day was rough and I settled in to bracing myself to a week of meltdowns and high emotions.

During the week we heard her listening to the story book my parents recorded her for Christmas. I think hearing their voices was a great comfort to her.

 One thing that Ally and I talked  about during one of our snuggle sessions before bed was "what can we do about it" her words for how can we fix how she is feeling.

We talked about all the fun things she and Aunt Beth would do. But she wanted something specific. "something special mommy"

I offered to make her a photo book with pictures of our family. She thought that was a great idea.

So I spent Sunday last week creating on online.

The book arrived on Wednesday - here she and Becky are opening the package.

Can you tell she likes the book?

She looked at several times a day the rest of  the week and left it displayed prominently in her room so she could see/find it at all times.

I managed to have pictures of the 3 of us several times a year for the past 5 years.

Then Ally wanted to take some pictures of Becky and me.

She asked for a silly pose.

Friday night before we left was difficult. Ally was so excited for Aunt Beth - the first thing she asked when we picked her up at school was "Aunt Beth is coming today? When?" Beth's flight was delayed but she arrived after dinner and Ally went with Becky to pick her up at the airport.

Bedtime was filled with tears and emotions.

At one point I told Ally we were only  going to be gone for 1 day. And she replied "its a day and a half" She was right and I tried hard not to giggle at her despair.

Sleep came about 2 hours late.

Then at 345AM Beth walked into our room and said "Ally wants mommy". Beth was sleeping in Ally's room on the futon.

So I get up (Becky stays asleep) and I spent  the next 2 1/2 hours trying to get Ally to sleep. She would dose off and then the minute I got up or I even made it out of the room once she would wake up and cry out.

It was heartbreaking.

The mix of emotions - she was so tired, and so happy to spend time with Aunt Beth, and so scared of us leaving her. At one point she explained that she "likes things the same" and that with Aunt Beth its not the same as mama and mommy. Confusion and anxiety are hard for a 5 year old.

I told her I knew she could do it.

But she persevered.

Our cab came at 645AM and by then she was watching TV and was OK with us leaving. We got a cursory good bye. No more crying and that was it.

Aunt Beth and Ally had a great weekend.

It would have been hard to have a bad weekend with Aunt Beth. She is pretty much the best Aunt ever.

Here they are at Ally's music performance.

All year Ally has taken a music class after school and the year end performance (show) was on Sunday during our flight home. So Aunt Beth took Ally and she even took a video of the whole performance so Becky and I could see it.

My beautiful girl all dressed up. I bought her some new shoes - black patent leather with a tiny heel, but since she is a practical girl like her mommy she said they were too uncomfortable to walk in and we returned those and she picked out these pink sparkly ballet flats. She loves them!

Aunt Beth and Ally did a lot of shrinky dinks - its a jewelry tree full of butterfly and bird shrinky dinks

And to our surprise there is a surprise for mama and mommy!

In talking about the weekend now, Ally says she had fun with Beth but that she missed us, and that at bedtime she cried a little. Beth was great, she broke the rules, she played, she entertained, she crafted and she was there for Ally.

We had a great time at the wedding and enjoyed ourselves knowing Ally was in good hands for the night.

Katy's Wedding

This past weekend Becky and I flew to Chicago for 1 night to attend my cousin Katy's wedding. May 5 2012. It was a spectacular wedding and my cousin was seriously the most beautiful bride I have ever seen. Aunt Beth came and stayed with Ally for the night - their adventures will be the next post.

My Aunt Martha (AKA Mother of the Bride) and me all dressed up ready to go to the ceremony.

Becky and I

My parents

My brother Kurt and his wife Christine

My dad asked for a picture of the 5 of us in our nuclear family.

The groom waiting at the alter for his bride

My cousin Katy and her dad, my Uncle Phil as they walked to the ceremony.

Left to right; Uncle Phil (aka Gruncle), my dad and cousin John. They all wore matching checked blazers it was a riot!

My brother Frank and his girlfriend Sindy.

One of the many fun things at the reception was the PhotoBooth - you would go in and get your picture taken like in a traditional photo booth at the mall - Here my Aunt and Uncle were dressed up in costume. I admit to doing the booth 3 times - it was a riot.

The event was held at the McDonald's Corporate Headquarters and at 1030PM the waiters come out with giant cheeseburger hats and platters of McDonald's cheeseburgers. So here I am with my mom and brother as we eat out burger!

We had such a great time at the wedding. I really can't think of anything that could have gone better. I wish I had a picture of my Aunt Suzie but I somehow missed getting one of her.

Thank you Aunt Martha and Uncle Phil and Katy and her new husband Jim.

Fun at the Park

 On Saturday afternoon we went to our neighborhood park - for 2 hours!!! We think that might be a record. There were no other kids there, it was just us. For 2 hours! We had a picnic lunch. Ally did lots of monkey bars and swinging and climbing and sliding. She and Becky played hide and seek, and we all played store for a while. As you can see above, Ally rode her bike to and from the park.

It was just a great afternoon.

Becky coming down the slide head first!

Crazy Strong Girl

She can finally do it! Ally can reach the monkey bars at our park with out a boost. For two years now we've had a milk crate for her to stand on so she could reach. But GOOD BYE milk crate.

 Above was the first day she could do it. She always runs over and tries and this time she could reach! She was so excited, and so was I. I took the picture with my phone and emailed it to Becky right away.  It was awesome.

 At school she has mastered the monkey bars there as well - these are much higher than the ones at our park and they swing since they are on ropes. But it doesn't bother Ally at all.

 Here is her latest feat of brute strength. I used to call this "cat's cradle" when you pull your body up through your legs and then are inverted hanging from the bar.

This is not an uncommon trick - many kids can do it.

 The brute strength is that Ally can hang like this above for a long  time - as in several minutes. And she can swing her body in that position. Unbelievable.

She said her arms were tired so we left to walk home.

 But as we approached the park closest to our house Ally said to me "my arms aren't tired any more mommy" I asked if that meant she wanted to play at the park. Of course!

 Back at the monkey bars. Again and again. She can no do them backwards and skip bars.

She was in a great mood and the weather was beautiful so I just couldn't resist getting a few of Ally's smiles.

Letter to Aunt Beth

Ally received a note from Aunt Beth and was determined to write her back.

 She even addressed the envelope. I hope it gets to you Beth!



Reward

All year it has been a battle to get Ally to eat her lunch. In fact in the fall one I found out that Ally's friend Willow was not eating her lunch either - and she told her mom "Ally doesn't eat her lunch and I want to be like Ally". I was not exactly proud of that influence. We talked with Ally a lot about how important it is to eat lunch. She takes the same thing every day - a soy nut better and jelly sandwich on wheat bread with the crusts cut off, some kind of fruit or carrots and in the tiny container either marshmallows or fruit gummies. She usually takes a juice box, because until recently we had been unable to find a water bottle for her that did not leak and we've tried at least 8 different kinds. But over Spring Break we found a new one and Ally was thrilled to have water again at lunch.  Apparently so thrilled that she started eating all of her lunch. After 3 days we told her that if she made it the whole week we would take her to the toy store and she could pick out a new toy.

 Here she is on Friday with her empty lunchbox!

She was super proud of herself for eating her whole lunch. She is definitely going thru a growth spurt, we can't believe how much food she had eaten the past week.

I had to remember to bring her a snack to eat after school every day (in the past I would just give her whatever was left in her lunchbox and she would eat that on the way home).

 At the toy store scoping out all the toys.

The final decision was a 160 piece set of shrinky dinks! Its a fairy jewelry set. Should be lots of fun.

I love you both

When I picked Ally up at school on Friday I glimpsed something different in her backpack - it was a piece of paper with Mommy clearly written on it!

Usually papers have mama on them, I asked Ally once how come she made so many pictures for mama and none for me at school. She told me she knew how to spell mama but not how to spell mommy! One of her friends, Grant, heard us talking - and he said "its easy...m-o-m-m-y or you could write ma, m-a or you could write mom, m-o-m" Ally looked at him quite perplexed, since to her each name is a different distinct parent, not a pseudonym for mother. Ally and I talked about how Grant was right mommy is m-o-m-m-y and we left it at that. So I was quite excited a few weeks later to see a paper with mommy on it. Even more surprising was what the whole paper said. I opened up it at home.

 It was a butterfly

And clearly written on a piece of paper glued to the butterfly were the words"I love you both"

Awwwww it makes my heart melt.

Upon a closer look the front of the butterfly has both of our names - my name Mommy is in the middle and Becky's name Mama is in the bottom left (on the rain cloud as Becky pointed out). The students all use scrap paper for their creations, and this was clearly a leftover worksheet.

Then on Saturday we went to a kids concert by one of our friends and Ally spent the entire time working on the above picture of our family. She said I am the one in the purple dress, and Becky is the one with all yellow hair. We especially like Ally and my two-toned hair. Ally pointed out that the hair is outlined in the correct color - hers is black and mine is brown.

I think our giant figures are pretty cool.