i am an indian princess

like my friend moon ko, one of the photos in the yearbook yourself options shows an exact replica of a hairdo i myself sported at one time.

i was not in high school, however. i was in kindergarten. while i do admit i looked pretty stinkin' cute in my little bouf, let me take you below the surface. read on, my faithful friend, for a story rife with mystery, tragedy - and comedy.

on this fateful friday, about a week into the school year, our class was to dress like indians. i'm sure we must have been learning about native american culture, but the lesson has been lost to me. buried deep beneath the horror.

my mother took so long doing my hair that morning, even though i was impatient and excited. she had no reason to hurry. she only had one girl's hair to worry about. and she was not a gentle hair stylist, either. my hair follicles still cringe in abject terror at the memory of their morning torture sessions.

when mom finally finished her masterpiece, i could hardly contain myself as i raced to the bathroom to behold what i was sure would be the most beautiful indian princess ever. long, flowing black tresses interwoven with the feathers we'd been given. maybe a few wildflowers, too.

but when i gazed into those marbled mirror tiles covering one wall of the bathroom, all i saw was a huge light brown bouf with the curl at the bottom resting on my shoulders like a stole of shame, a yellow polka-dot bow perched precariously right above the bangs. i stared, frozen in open-mouthed shock, for several seconds before i could tear myself away.

i stumbled, sobbing, back down the hall to where my mother now worked to dress one of my younger brothers. "i-, i-, i- "

"what? what's wrong?! did you hurt yourself?"

"noooooooooo. (sob, choke). i'm su-su-supposed to b-b-be an indian p-p-prinnn-cessss!" and i dropped my pathetic face into my little hands and wept.

my mother, ever resourceful, picked up one of the feathers, stuck it into the top of my bouf and declared, "there. now you're an indian princess. go get your shoes on."

september's 12-of-12

i finished my september 12-of-12 layout in record time! (this will change, come january, when i will abandon this super-simple layout and begin shamelessly scraplifting some of the other layouts i've seen there.) once again, by mid-morning, i completely forgot to take pictures. but i did remember gain right at the end of supper time. i also forgot a self-portrait again. oh, well.

we didn't leave the house all day. hurricane ike, along with the tropical depression (can't remember its name) off the west coast of mexico, has wreaked havoc here in kansas.

nothing like texas - i'm not whining or comparing our plight to theirs. i'm just saying it's been really rainy here and that'll continue for another week or so. which means we will not have much time to play outside. which means (again, i'm not trying to compare my teeny problems with those who've had to leave their flooded homes) we will most probably have time-out-o-rama at our house. our little guy needs his outside time. i'm not opposed to a little fun in the mud, but not all day every day! or maybe . . .

what a day already!

today is the 12th of the month. 12-of-12. i could fill my page with pictures of temper tantrums and time-outs. maybe even if today were 30-of-30, lol. but i'm determined to keep my patience and my good humor. i have taken just one photo of one time-out.

yesterday i finished my pre-work layout for cathy zielske's "design your life" class at big picture scrapbooking. it was torture, i'll be honest. even though we were given exact measurements, colors and basic layout (nine squares).

my scanner isn't twelve inches wide, so i scanned from one edge, then from the other and combined them in photoshop elements. i wonder how other people do that . . .

i'm still worried i will not be successful in this class. i have an abstract picture in my mind of exactly how i want my pages to look and what i want them to "do," but rarely can i translate that idea into reality. (much like how i cannot translate the precise mathematical calculations i make on the golf course into a long straight drive.)

by the end of this class, i expect to know a lot about design. i also expect to have a much higher level of scrapbooking comfort. i want to be able to put a photo and story down on paper in a pleasing manner and in a reasonable time frame and with a minimum amount of emotional discomfort. that's it! so, cz, don't fail me!

girliness lost

i don't know what it is about me these last few days, but i've been emotional, sentimental, nostalgic. thinking deep thoughts about so many things, past and present. for example, i've been lamenting the fact that i grew up with no sisters. no girlie influence at all.

having four brothers, all the tv i watched was that which appealed to males. shows like "the incredible hulk," "a-team," westerns. i don't even know the names of any shows with a female audience from that time period.

playing with dolls? i had some barbies, but my brothers' g.i. joes usually blew them up. or they buried them in the yard. or hung their severed heads by their hair from the clothesline. i did get a holly hobby bicycle for my birthday one year, but by the end of summer, she'd been disassembled for parts for various violent experimental machines.

polishing nails, playing dress-up, putting on make-up? huh-uh. nope. i didn't even feel like i was "allowed" to dream of prince charming and a fairytale wedding. i would have been laughed at for sure. and no girl-emotions, either. no crying, no female drama.

when added to our frequent moves, this equals a serious retardation of the ability to make girlfriends. not the desire; just the ability.

i made my first girlfriend in seventh grade. she moved away. and so, coincidentally, did we. i missed most of the eighth grade due to illness, but the summer before ninth grade, i really "blossomed," as they say - got boobs and hips and had great hair and learned how to use make-up to my advantage.

i became friends with the sister of one of the boys who liked me. butch and beverly (and bev's boyfriend) and i were inseparable. such intense but innocent good times. then . . . we moved away. (note: bev and i now live about an hour apart and we see each other every year or so, although we email back and forth frequently.)

i can't remember exactly how i met angela, but we became bff's. we had a lot in common, but were different enough to be interesting to each other. our friendship cooled a bit when we both moved twice more before graduation. but we went to the same college and jumped right back into our friendship. then, toward the end of our sophomore year, something happened. a gradual distancing at first and then someone told me she'd said horrible things about me. i never asked her if it was true. but i think about angela often. i wonder what happened back in college. i wonder how her life turned out. if she's happy.

fast forward to today. my cousin vicki and i've been best friends since we've lived in the same town since 1992. i made two very good girlfriends after hiring them, debbie at one company and susan at the next. then i became friends with susan's sister sharon. susan and sharon remain good friends and may be the first women, other than vicki, who i've felt i could confide my truths to.

what's the point of all this? i don't . . . know. i think there may be no point at all. but if there were a point, it would be that tomorrow is my very first ever pedicure appointment. tim gave me a gift certificate two birthdays ago and i'm finally using it, due in part (maybe wholly due) to my recent yearning for the girliness i should have had growing up. and i am so incredibly nervous about it. dumb, but true.

emotional day

i am exhausted today. tired and cranky. my eyes feel sandy and they're red and puffy. and did i mention i feel fat and homely? ah, it's one of those emotional days. so lovely.

but while i'm all crabby, i'm also feeling appreciative. i got to see the kids (minus michelle) this weekend. good stuff. and i have a great husband. i would appreciate him more, i suspect, if he were more like dr. mcdreamy on grey's, but he's ok, i guess.

just last night, he brought me a chocolate malt. and i didn't even tell him i was feeling "snacky." (note to self: this chocolate malt consumption does not help with the whole chubster thing.) and, come to think of it, he brought me a happyccino yesterday morning when he came home from work, too, because i'd been up several times in the night with timmy, who caught a cold from preschool. yup. good guy.

i am not appreciative of my hair. or that big mole on my cheek! or my planning skills, as we decided last minute to get pictures taken at one of those drop-in places. it would have been nice to have a picture of us in dressy clothes. and maybe i could have done something with my hair and maybe put on some makeup.

i am, however, appreciative of preschool. i am alone right now. and my home is utterly silent, except for the sound of my wind chimes on the front porch and the patio in back. ahhhhhhh . . .

coffee break

friday was errands day. we went to the library. returned some books, checked out some books. (i am currently in love with llama llama mad at mama. also, i am so excited that we'll be getting scholastic book order forms from preschool each month. i miss them! when looking over our first one, which we received on "meet the teacher" day, i immediately noticed llama llama and his little pouty lip. so, i was glad to see the library had a copy.)

and, as always, timmy is in love with the little plastic coffee service at the table in the children's library. we sat and had a cup o' joe or two before we left and when it was time to go, timmy asked me so sincerely why he doesn't have a coffee pot at home. since wal mart was our next stop, i decided we'd look for one.

i know it exists because the library has one, but i could not find a regular, plain ol' plastic coffee/tea pot and cups! however, we did find one blue one amid the mountains of pink. it was a cinderella tea service. timmy fell instantly in love. so we bought it. and timmy interrupted his important work as a police officer, a firefighter, an ice road trucker and a dishwasher to have many relaxing coffee breaks, complete with plastic chocolate chip cookies and "dog food" (pecans, walnuts & raisins) in his "dog dish" (a plastic gold-panning pan). and he always made some for me, too. quite the gentleman, that boy.

please note the camouflage shorts, rifle, wal mart smiley-face sticker and look of satisfaction.

tim did not instantly fall in love. in fact, he offered to return it to wal mart while timmy napped and find a camping coffee pot and cups instead. he smugly asked timmy's opinion: did he want this cinderella coffee pot . . . or a camping coffee pot and camping mugs just. like. daddy's? timmy chose cinderella. no hesitation. poor tim. but the rifle's gotta count for something, right?

pre-formal education angst

two days from now is the official "meet the teacher" day at timmy's new preschool. yikes! we've already met his teacher, miss brooke, earlier in the summer, but this official meeting marks the end of his toddlerhood and the beginning of his preschoolhood (is that a word?)

i haven't even gotten over the end of his babyhood yet and now he's starting his formal education. look at him - does he look like he should be leaving his mommy for 3 hours twice a week already?  

well, after he helped me make bierocks sunday, i admit i may have been ready for 3 hours of timmylessness. but only so i could clean my kitchen. i swear!

note: my sister-in-law, taryn, is to blame for the end of my baby's toddlerhood. my 4yo nephew, ethan, needs preschool this year so he'll be ready for kindergarten next year. oh, he's smart as a whip and already knows a lot of things, but he has trouble with transitions. and since our school district just went to all-day kindergarten (don't even get me started on that mess!), he really needs the help . . . but, back to the  point: stinkin' taryn! since ethan stays with me while his mom and dad are working . . . well, it didn't seem fair to take ethan to preschool and not let timmy go, too. stinkin' taryn.

i've had this undefined dread about preschool for a couple months now. even as i type this, it's not yet defined (although my hope is it will be by post's end). i am not so much worried about him being away from me for the first time (except for 3 days of vbs this summer, during which he did just fine) because he is not a clingy, needy boy. i am sad for me, of course, but that's not it, either. he is polite and respectful and he gets along well with other children, but he's not timid, so i'm not worried he be a bully or be bullied. 

no, i think it's . . . i'm worried about whether he will learn there. he's done just fine here at home with me. he knows, by sight and verbally, all the letters of the alphabet and all the sounds each letter makes. he can identify which letter "makes the beginning/middle/ending sound" of most words. we accomplished this through playing with foam bathtub letters and just talking about words and letters throughout the normal course of our day. we learn about animals and airplanes and money and books and history and . . . we just learn. as we go about our regular activities, while we're in the car. that's how kids learn at home, right?

but this preschool . . . it seems a little . . . weird. i wouldn't have chosen it (stinkin' taryn). the parents' manual doesn't mention much about regular school-type topics. they don't do worksheets. they don't practice writing or cutting paper with scissors. instead, there is a lot of information about avoiding gender stereotyping and about "cultural inclusiveness" and self-esteem. is this what school is about now? if not, why is this what preschool is about?

i want timmy to learn to read and write. i want him to learn proper grammar. and math. and history. government. literature. science. critical thinking skills. maybe a foreign language or two. you know. the things i learned in school and the things that will help him succeed in college and adult life. self-esteem, et al? let us handle that at home.

i swear, if i had more than one child at home now, i would seriously consider homeschooling. our neighbors when andrew and tori were little homeschooled their kids and they turned out well-educated, well-mannered and well-adjusted.

but, all this (admittedly, self-created) drama may turn out to be no big deal. because timmy's birthday is in february, he won't be eligible for kindergarten for two more years. next year, when ethan is already in kindergarten and timmy's good and crunchy (i picture the preschool administration wearing birkenstocks and pookah shell necklaces - i sure hope that is just my imagination!), i can send timmy to a more traditional preschool. but at least i feel better now that i've droned on and on about my worries. thank you, bloggy-blog!