Tomorrow's the "Big Day!"

Tomorrow, the girls have their very first soccer games! Woohoo! I'm terribly excited! They're going to look so cute in their uniforms. Which reminds me... I better have them try it on, because if they're too big, I'll have to alter them tonight... (after all, fewer things could be as embarrassing as having your shorts fall down as you're running down the field...!)... Mika's first at 8 am and Marika follows at noon. Lucky for us that we live so close to the fields - we're planning to walk over, which should take only 10 minutes. I heard that parking is an absolute nightmare.

After Mika's practice yesterday, I asked how she liked playing soccer. "I like it a little," she answered truthfully. She's improved a lot since the first day of practice and she can definitely run, so we'll see how she feels at the very end. I do like her coach a lot (his wife is really cool, too) and she's having fun.

Yesterday, though, we had to sign a waiver saying that we would promote nothing but a positive attitude. We're not supposed to yell anything negative and we're not supposed to do any coaching at all. I don't know what that means! The coach's wife said that one season, some coach wouldn't even let them yell "Shoot!" whenever the girls got near the goal, because he wanted to figure it out on their own. It's going to be very strange trying to be quiet, after all these years of cheering/yelling teammates. I might have to be muffled!

Hopefully, our soccer banner will hold up (and nothing will fly away)! I look forward to seeing it up (it's 5x3 and will be suspended on 6-feet of rebar) so I can take proper pictures of my handiwork.

In other school-related news, I finally spoke to Marika's teacher yesterday and was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) that she had already heard of the playground incidences involving Marika. She also knows that I told Marika to stay away from the girl. The teacher had a long talk with her kindergarteners yesterday about being nice to others, because apparently one kid (a boy) told another kid (a girl) to go punch someone (a sweet little girl). They found her getting pummeled on the playground, curled up in a little ball! Isn't that just AWFUL?! These are 5-year olds! What is going on here?!

So Marika was lucky it wasn't her getting punched. I would have raised an incredible amount of hell if it had been. I'd already decided to be right against the playground fence and watch her during her last recess, just to make sure she's okay (and for my own peace of mind). Yesterday, the girl who picks on her wasn't on the playground because her mother volunteered (like I had) and took her home a little early. I'm still wondering if that mom thinks that my child did something unkind to her daughter. If I knew that Marika had spit on somebody, I'd go apologize to that mother, wouldn't you? I would have been totally mortified at her behavior and embarrassed that it reflected on my parenting abilities.

This situation is really stressing me out. I can't do anything more to protect my child unless something worse happens. I can't believe I even have to worry about this!

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Miscellaneous tidbits:

1. Need Michaels coupons? Here's one for 50% off one item (good next week) and 20% off your purchase (9/12 only).

2. Any B&N members who need in-store coupons? Here's one for 10% off one item and another for 15% off one item. Both expire 9/12.

A morning with second graders...

Yesterday was my first day helping out in Mika's classroom. I was a little bit anxious (I knew reading and math was on the schedule) but I was totally blown away by the second graders. Not only were they all amazingly polite (Everyone answered me! No one talked back!) but they all read quite well, too.

I'd known some of the kids since kindergarten (when I helped out there) and some from last year. Some kids had already seemed embarrassed to say hello to me outside of class but when they saw me again, they were all smiles (that was nice!). It was lovely to see how far they've come, too.

Mika's teacher is extraordinarily nice, too. Kids are constantly coming up to her before and after school, to say hello and give her hugs (and these are children she's had in previous years). She runs a tight ship and I was pretty impressed. During the moments when I had finished working with a group of children, I was able to observe Miss Mika at her desk. WOW, she sure does fidget a lot during class! At one point, I thought I heard her humming (which alarmed me, I've been trying to break her of that habit for ages - no sense in having people throw erasers at her in college for being disruptive during an exam), but then realized it may be the boy next to her - I couldn't tell, they were both fidgeting! Ah, life as a second-grader...

I was only there for less than 2 hours (but I felt useful) and then it was time to pick up Miss Marika. I had been nervous all morning about her, but since the kids weren't permitted to play outside because it was too cold, there was no playground incident. I was shocked at how relieved I was.

Tidbits...
1. In case you're a Basic Grey fan but not signed up for their monthly newsletters (they have a monthly sketch and inspiration project), check it out here: BG Newsletter.
2. There's a new batch of free B&N ebooks here.
3. If you are a (free) font lover, you may want to check out this scrapbooking site/store. I used to check them all the time ("Thinking of You" is one of my favorite fonts of all time - it's similar to the Making Memories rub-on font), but hadn't in a couple of years, until I was looking for a specific font.
4. Betterworldbooks has extended their Labor Day sale for another week (til 9/15). Woohoo! Don't forget to go through Ebates!

Hope everybody's having a good week! =)

Drumroll, please...

This past Friday, a couple of my other soccer moms (AYSO) came over to work on their banners. Mia had already started on hers and managed to finish hers, shortly before midnight (I'd never seen such exhausted kids!) - her Blackhawks banner looks amazing, I'll have to get a picture to show later. Dawn has to make 2 banners and is coming back tomorrow to use my diecut machine.

I finally finished my banner today - but I enjoyed the process and still found plenty of time to relax and play this weekend. Luckily for me, Mia miscalculated her PVC frame, so I received the frame to use and custom-built my banner size to fit it (UNFORTUNATELY - my sewing machine completely died, so at least half of the banner border (it's 5' long and 3' tall) was sewn as I manually turned the knob. Yes, that took a long time!).

I took the banner to practice today (I didn't want the coach to worry) and was immediately told by one of the little girls that hey, she had blonde hair! Whoops! So the final banner has two blond girls standing next to each other (they are standing alphabetically, to avoid any appearance of favoritism).

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, although I do have to roll the banner up with a sheet of wax paper over the girls' fingers. Without it... the fingers come off! Not good! We'll see how well this banner holds up when the Santa Anna winds start blowing (maybe we should just take it down!).

In other news... Marika had another horrible day at school. She was in tears because another child had come up to her (later I found out, she was with the girl who has been mean to her over the past week - so it makes me wonder if she put her up to it) and said, "you're on fire!" Of course that doesn't make any sense and I kept thinking that they must have been playing a game because why else would she say something like that? And anyway, I told Marika - "you're not on fire, so what's the big deal?" As that little girl was leaving, I stopped to talk to her daycare provider (whom I am acquainted with) and simply asked her, "I'm just wondering why you told Marika she was on fire?" I honestly thought she'd have a straight answer and everything would be fine (you know, like, "oh, we were playing firefighter!"). The girl refused to say anything and in fact, shied away from me. Her daycare provider just laughed it off and said, "oh, kids... they were probably playing, I'm sure it was no big deal! Ha ha ha!"

But as we were standing there, another little girl came running up to the yard monitor and said that "that girl" (the one who spit at Marika) called Marika "a little piglet". I'm not even sure that Marika heard it (I don't think she was there) and frankly, I'm really sick and tired of this trouble, so I just told the yard monitor, "oh, they're not getting along" and I thought that that would be the end of it.

However, the yard monitor was VERY upset by this and called the girl over. She asked her, "did you call Marika 'a little piglet'?" The girl said yes, and once again, started crying. When the yard monitor told her to apologize, she did - and then ran over to her mother crying. THEN the yard monitor told her (and kind of me) something to the effect of "they're not getting along and they're not using nice words". The girl's mother absolutely refused to look at me.

The yard monitor's summary perturbed me, because as far as I know, Marika has not provoked this girl in any way. I have grilled her on this repeatedly ("Did you say anything? Did you DO anything? When this girl talks to her mother, is she going to tell her you started something?" Marika always says no, without missing a beat). I keep telling Marika to stay away from her, but she is having difficulty doing so - either she thinks things will blow over (this is the 3rd incident in 6 days) or she doesn't know how to keep her distance without being rude.

*sigh* But today she told me that some little boy kept pushing her. I asked if she asked him to stop. She had. Did he stop? No. Did she tell him again? Yes. Did he stop? YES! The boy was trying to tell her something (Marika said he had already told her most of it, so I think she was getting a little impatient with him) and was just excited. She resolved the problem on her own and everything was fine.

Hopefully Marika will be able to distance herself from this person soon enough. However, just in case, I've started a log of incidents. I'm troubled, because this seems like such an early age for bullying behavior. Ordinarily I wouldn't be so concerned, but the frequency of these events is kind of alarming to me...

Weekend Update

Can you guess where we went this weekend? Here's a hint...

Yup, we went to the Opening Day of the LA County Fair. Admission was only $1 between 10 am-1 pm (otherwise it would have cost an arm and a leg for us to get in).

Ooooh! The food! Do you see that sign for deep-fried Twinkies? No, we didn't try any of that stuff. Can you imagine the calories?!

Of course, there are the animals (we skipped the 4H animal competition this time)... along with obligatory hay maze...

And there was even a pirate band! Those poor fellows! The temperature must have topped out at around 108 degrees, but these guys were enthusiastically singing and jumping around (that's SAND they're on top of!). The girls thought they were a riot!

The fair had a few new exhibits this year. The girls were quite taken by the Princess House. Tons of things to play with, along with dresses to try on and pose in - and making their own crowns. We got lucky... instead of having to scrounge for crown decorations (at a table), a princess gave me a whole handful of bling. Of course the girls did not waste a single piece...!

Perhaps the coolest exhibit (for me) was the dinosaur hall. There were huge models, most of which moved around (a little bit).

A new (and permanent) exhibit was a 2-story carousel. I'd never seen one of these before and it was pretty spectacular. Everything was so pretty! I couldn't believe all the details...!

And of course there were the rides! Between 4-7 pm, rides were only $1 each. I thought we'd be done in an hour, but it took 2.5 hours for the girls to use up their tickets.

I liked Marika's expression the best on this ride... =)

And this is the one ride that took forever for them to get onto - we must have waited at least 30 minutes. I could not wait to get out of there! Daddy Dude was pretty wiped out and kind of grouchy, even though I told him that the girls will remember this day for a long time. This kind of activity wasn't something that either of us experienced in our childhood and I didn't want to be one of those parents who denied their kids something because they didn't want to deal with the hassle.

I guess we'll find out in 20 years if our effort was appreciated or not!

Who knew ducks could cause so much drama?

Meet Super Duck! And here's his story...


It's fund-raising time at the girls' school. If the girls sell one item, then they could get a duck on a lanyard. Today, the girls finally brought in their duck coupons. I spent all morning working in Marika's classroom and when I finally poked my head out to find her when her lunch was over, I saw her bawling. Apparently, she had just gotten her duck a few minutes earlier, only to suddenly realize that Super Duck was gone!

Now, when you're 5 and have been looking forward to this duck for the entire week, it's practically the end of the world! When you're the parent who shelled out a chunk of money to buy fund-raising items so your child can have this silly duck, it's pretty annoying.

So Super Duck fell off and had disappeared. PTA (running the fundraiser) refused to give her a replacement, saying kids were losing them all the time because they keep pulling on them and since they have to buy the ducks, they couldn't afford to replace everybody's. Marika is, of course, still weeping while I'm getting more and more disgruntled. Of course we know that if somebody found the duck, they probably kept it. Just a couple of days ago, some kid ripped the duck off the lanyard of their friend (apparently, ducks are trouble!) - that's just not cool!

As a last resort, we stopped by the room where the morning kindergarteners were waiting to pick-up - we asked the yard monitor to ask if anybody had found Super Duck. I could not BELIEVE it when a young fellow stood up and said, "I think I may have found him..." and pulled out Super Duck! He actually gave it back to Marika!

When I went back to tell PTA (and another yard monitor had offered to give Marika her own duck tomorrow, that was so sweet), PTA made a big deal of this and said they would bring special attention to this kid, because NOBODY had ever turned in a duck they found before. Hopefully, by rewarding this kind of behavior, it'll promote more of the same. He'll probably get a special prize (and be praised on the intercom) from the principal - to top things off, the first yard monitor had already asked his teacher to give him a prize.

So, Miss Marika was appeased and happy. I told her to never forget an act of kindness and that this young man displayed good moral character and was very honest. I'm sure if she ever finds a duck, she'll do her best to make sure it goes back to its owner. =)

Here's Mika's choice of ducks...

Needless to say, Super Duck is not allowed to go back to school.

And here's the newest soccer player in the family! Can you believe that Marika was NOT the shortest girl on the team? She lucked out and is #5, just like her parents. Yay!

And here she is in action... I think she looks pretty darn cute! Much to my horror, Daddy Dude said that Marika was the worst kicker on the team! Humph! She just looked tired to me. That, and she's really small - there are two really aggressive girls on the team and I'm afraid that Marika may not stand a chance of seeing any action if she doesn't develop some gumption! Either that, or she'll just have to work on her speed...

Bejeebers scared out of me!

So now I'm waking up at 4:45 am to start my morning. THIS particular morning, however, we heard a loud beeping go off at 4:25 am. Daddy Dude kept trying to turn off the alarm clock, but since that wasn't the problem, the beeping didn't go away - until we realized that it was our alarm system. Apparently, the battery is low so it's running on back-up. Somebody's coming to replace the battery but we can still use the alarm system in the meantime. However, losing 20 minutes of valuable sleep was pretty annoying.

But you know what REALLY sucked? I was about 5 minutes away from home when I got a phone call (800 number) in the car. Since I don't have a bluetooth, I pulled over when I saw that whoever had called had also left a message - I had a bad feeling and sure enough, it was our alarm company saying that an alarm had gone off and if there was a problem, to please let them know (no mention of calling the police). I tried to call them, but when they said everybody was busy and to please hold, I decided to shoot on home instead.

When I got home - with my heart pounding - I checked the downstairs and everything was fine and intact. Then somebody rattled the door and when I looked out, it was a policeman. So I opened the door, only to see him whirl around with his hand on his gun! Surely yes, that's his job, but OH MY GOD! I think my heart stopped! I explained the phone call - apparently the alarm company had called and they had dispatched within 10 minutes - and said he could look around. He checked the downstairs while I zipped around upstairs. Everything seemed fine.

Daddy Dude had called the alarm company while I was zipping home and learned that apparently, our motion alarm went off. The policeman suspected it was some things that the girls had hung around the house, even though the air-conditioner wasn't on. The only thing I could suspect was that *somebody* had hung something up and it had fallen down (i.e., papers on the mantel).

So, we've wasted one false alarm now but at least we know that the police WILL come. I apologized heartily to him, because the police department just suffered a huge round of budget cuts - it really sucked that they had to waste their time coming out for nothing.

But there will be one new rule in the house - NO HANGING ANYTHING UP ANYWHERE BUT THEIR ROOM!

*sigh* I'm still a little bit rattled, but at least everything is fine. Hey, maybe we need to get a dog! Yeah! Great idea, right? =P Daisy the guinea pig does not appear to be cut out for security patrol.

I was also embarrassed that the house wasn't clean (in my opinion). Is that silly?