Are There Any Scholarships in Those Awards?

I am so proud right now, I’m amazed my head is still attached to my shoulders. Patricia had her moving-up ceremony yesterday morning at school where all the fifth-graders get certificates and have a reception afterwards. Each student got to walk across the stage, shake hands with the principal and get the certificate from their individual teachers (there are three fifth grades). After the students all got their “diplomas,” the principal then said there were two additional “surprise” awards to be given out. The first was the Triple “C” Award, generated from state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office, which is given to students who exhibit “character, commitment and courage.” The principal read a letter from Cuomo about the award, and then called Patricia to the stage.


After receiving her Triple “C” Award, the principal said they award academic excellence for students who scored “4’s” in all areas in all marking periods. The only two to be called up to the stage – Patricia and her friend since kindergarten, Nicole. Both girls arrived at the City School District as fourth-graders when St. Peter’s School closed, so the two to be recognized for academic achievement had their foundation set at St. Peter’s. I couldn’t have been prouder.

Today at school, she received even more awards for participation in the Odyssey Program (gifted and talented) in math and English Language Arts (ELA), for reaching (and exceeding) her reading goal for the year, for perfect attendance and she was the student selected from the fifth grade for the art award.


To top off her two days of awards, she had her hair cut in a bob this afternoon and is donating the 10-inch pony tail to Locks of Love. Next up: the Nobel Peace Prize and canonization.

Both girls have to make brief appearances at school tomorrow morning, and then that’s it. This weekend, we’ll be working at the St. Peter’s annual June festival. I’ve organized the book sale each year for the last five years. Previously, it was for fair-share tuition at the school, but now it’s just community (church) service. My fellow garage-sale shopper and salesgirl, Patricia, will join me behind the tables. If I can’t find a babysitter, Margaret will be watching Brigid because there’s no way we’d be able to handle her at this event.


After the July 4th weekend, Patricia and Margaret start the summer theater program at the college where they will attend a three-week workshop that culminates in a production. This year, they’re doing the Little Mermaid adaptation called “Once on This Island.” Last year, as readers of the blog may remember, they were in “Seussical The Musical Jr.” Both had such a good time and enjoy performing, I told them they could do it again this summer. After that, we’re on vacation and will visiting my friend in Vermont and then going on to Cape Cod for a few days. By then, half the summer will be gone, and they’ll be thinking about back-to-school shopping. Too bad Target won’t be open in time for that. If only I could hold off buying them anything until October, but then, they’d be going to school naked for six weeks. Given Brigid’s recent proclivity for nakedness, maybe I can send her along as well.

Did Lady Godiva Have an Easier Time on the Potty?

Well, our lives have settled down a bit now that a lot of the craziness has ended. Margaret had the last of her final exams on Friday and is done until she has to show up at 8 a.m. Thursday to pick up her report card. That’s it. They have the kids come in for five minutes. At 8 a.m. Patricia doesn’t fare much better. After today, which is a full day of school, she has to go Tuesday and Wednesday until 11:20 and then on Thursday until 10. Why they don’t just cram everything into two full days at the beginning of the week is beyond me. They stretch it out as long and as far as they can so all it ends up doing is disrupting everyone’s day. We’re lucky; we don’t have to worry about child care for them, but I can’t imagine what families have to do if both parents work during the mornings like most do.

Because Margaret is off until Thursday morning, she’s going up to the lake today to spend a few days with Grandma Downs and the horses. This is after having spent the entire weekend up there with Jack, Patricia and four friends for a belated birthday sleepover. They left Friday before I got home from work and picking up Brigid. I had the Baby B to myself all weekend. We hung out a lot, playing and laughing. The weather was questionable, so we didn’t get to do a lot outside. We did run around the mall and the halls of my office building on campus, which she really loves to do, oddly enough.

Brigid has been speaking up a storm, and doing a lot of singing, too. Last night, she was singing – over and over again – the quintessential Ring Around the Rosey song. I sat there wishing I had a recorder because it was adorable. She’s really been enjoying Simpayella – that’s Cinderella to you and me – and has recently discovered The Wizard of Oz, or, as she says (and Margaret did, too) Wizard of Boz. For the last few weeks, our VCR had been on the fritz so we had to bring down the little portable TV that Michelle had given us years ago that has a VCR built in. Coincidentally, we were missing a Barbie DVD that no one had seen in weeks. Saturday night, on a whim, I put my hand in the VCR slot to see if anything was obstructing it because every time you put a tape in, the machine ejected it immediately. Guess where Barbie was? Apparently, somebody who will remain nameless (Brigid) decided she wanted to watch Barbie in Princess and the Pauper and popped the DVD into the VCR slot. So two problems were solved at once and we’re happily watching hour after hour of taped programming.

Father’s Day was bike accessory day for Jack, who asked for baskets for the back of his bike that he can use to transport groceries – doing his part to reduce the carbon footprint – and a front-carrier bike seat for Brigid. The baskets work great; the seat, not so much. Although she can fit in it, and she seems to love it, we think it’s a small version of a good idea. There’s a reason it was $50 less expensive than the one we first looked at. It’s built for an American Girl doll. So, I’ll probably pack it up and send it back in exchange for the larger version. But as you can see from the test drive photos, Brigid loved it. And yes, for any of the three people out there who read this, we know she (and Jack) needs a helmet. The test drive took place in a circle around the back yard. We have to find the bike helmet we used for the girls when they were toddlers. I think we may have unloaded it in a yard sale.

In addition to other big-girl indications, Brigid has been showing an interest in the potty. The fact that she wants to strip down to buck nakedness as soon as we walk in the house helps because while she’s running around in the buff, I keep asking if she has to go potty. She has been sitting on it, and jumping off and running around and sitting back on it. But when she gets this startled look on her face, she runs up and says she needs a diaper on. This clothing thing has been weird. She doesn’t like to wear any. She’ll consent to wearing a diaper and onesie, but she doesn’t want to wear anything else when she’s home. Sometimes, she tries to get me to take off her clothes at day care, but I have to draw the line somewhere. Those clothes are expensive, and I want to get some use out of them. I know nudism is a common enjoyment, not just for toddlers but many adults, too. In our house, however, it’s unchartered territory. I’ve never dealt with a child so intent on not being clothed. I’m hoping it does indeed help with the potty situation. At the very least, it will help me keep all the floors clean.

Recital Week Comes to an End

Well, Hell Week No. 2 has ended with a collective sigh of relief. What started a week ago with dance recital rehearsals and chorus concerts has ended with the successful four-day run of the dance recital on Sunday afternoon. The dances were all a great success, the girls did phenominally well, and we even managed to juggle babysitting Baby Brigid in the midst of it all. Of course, because it was the weekend of the recital, temperatures shot up into the 90s, making it dually unbearable for dancers and spectators alike. I'm surprised no one passed out either on the stage or in the audience. The girls danced all four nights, with their tap routines being the nightly contribution. Their jazz routines were performed on Friday night, along with the tap routines, so they had six dances to perform that night -- the two tap numbers (one of which was a kick line), the two jazz numbers, the finale and the opening number, the mother/daughter tap dance that I participated in as well. I had to be there all four nights at least as far as the mother/daughter dance. My jazz numbers were Friday and Sunday, along with the finale on those two days. Whew, it just takes my breath away thinking about it again. It's a lot of fun, it's a lot of work and it's great when it's done.

Now we enter Hell Week No. 3, so named because I go away on Wednesday for two nights, leaving Jack to fend for himself with the girls. It's not so much Margaret and Patricia, who of course will be in school. It's Brigid and her refusal to sleep through the night in her own bed and my arsenal of ammunition -- two barrels -- that help her get back to sleep. We'll see how he does, but it can't be helped. I'll be in NYC on a conference.

Margaret starts final exams next week, if you can believe that. The school year is winding down in a whirlwind. Before we know it, they'll be out for the summer. Once next week is done, Margaret is done. Patricia has to go through June 26, but the days that week are all half days. I don't know why they do that. Why not send them for full days on Monday and Tuesday and call it a week? They only have to go in until 10 a.m. on Thursday to pick up their report cards. That seems ridiculous. But she'll be saying goodbye to the elementary school experience. Next fall she enters Stafford Middle School.

Along with the heat wave we've had some pretty warm nights for sleeping. Brigid slept through Saturday night, but she had a fitful night last night and neither she nor I got much sleep. We're thinking of breaking down and installing the air conditioners, even if the heat wave ends mid-week. I'd hate to go to NYC and leave Jack to cope with that kind of heat with a baby who won't go back to sleep. Now that's miserable.

With our dance recital schedules being so hectic, we called in reinforcements babysitter-wise, and Brigid had Lauren, our friend's 17-year-old daughter on Friday night. Lauren walked Brigid over to her aunt's house around the corner because they were celebrating a family birthday. Brigid was the hit of the party, taking Lauren's hand and walking her all over, eating cake and ice cream and charming everyone, so I'm told. Lauren's aunt -- our friend's sister -- is also the director of the child care center, so Brigid knows her intimately. Her name is Sally, but because Sally first met Brigid with a bottle of bubbles to help her overcome her fear the first day of day care, she has since been known as Sally Bubbles, so the party was at Sally Bubbles' house and Brigid couldn't have been happier.

Then, on Sunday, we called on another babysitter with connections to the child care center, Alaina, who is a college student who worked in Brigid's room for the last three weeks. She took a very hot and sweaty BB for a walk to a neighborhood market and bought her an ice cream, and that did the trick. Although Brigid knew Alaina from the center, I think the ice cream sealed the deal. And she brought a bag full of activities for the two of them to play.

All that added up to our being able to enjoy the recital -- both as performers and spectators -- without worrying about Brigid running around screaming. It makes a big difference. I did not shoot digital photos of the recital, just film. So when the film is developed, I'll have the images put on a CD so I can upload a few for the blog. The girls did a terrific job. I'm so proud of them.

Busy Schedules Create Cranky Kids and Moms

The craziness of our lives has yet to slow down. We're entering Hell Week 2, what with dance recital rehearsals, chorus concerts, field trips and the recital itself. Jack just returned from a conference in Connecticut over the weekend. I leave for a conference in NYC next week. I'll be glad when the school year is over and everyone can take a deep breath and recharge. Patricia has her "Moving Up" ceremony the last week of school, and no, it isn't like the Jeffersons, movin' on up to the east side. It's moving from fifth grade, the elementary school, to the middle school. It's hard to believe she'll be a middle schooler next year, but she has matured and changed so much this year I shouldn't be surprised. She's become very poised, very funny. She's lost some of that confounded sensitivity that would send her crying at the slightest challenge or embarrassment. She's still sensitive -- she will still well up at some things, like when I tease her about some of the very cute things she did as a young girl. But they're fewer and farther between. She's become very proud of her physical accomplishments -- the higher fitness level and being able to fit into clothes she had previously outgrown. People have been commenting on it, and she seems happy. We're just keeping an eye out that it doesn't become an obsession or a body-image problem, which is so difficult and prevalent at this age. It's all about choices, and she's making some very good choices. I'm proud of her.

Margaret has been doing some typical teen things lately, like going up to her room after school and not emerging until dinner time, only to return afterward. She's doing homework for the most part, or reading, but it reminds me of me when I was that age. She has been working hard with her drama club to prepare for the end-of-the-year performance of one-act plays. Between dance classes and rehearsals and drama club practice, she's been incredibly busy. She's also trying to spend as much time as she can with her friend, Maggie, whose family is moving from the area at the end of the school year. That will be hard on Margaret because the pair have really become very, very close. She has a few other close girlfriends, but Maggie is her best friend.

Brigid has been having some very weepy episodes, most of which happen when she's not on track with her regular routine at school. The weekends are hard on her and she loves going back on Monday mornings. She's been learning how to skip and enjoys skipping around the living room with Patricia, and her vocabulary and ability to communicate in longer sentences has just exploded. She still has a very odd propensity to want to strip as soon as she returns home. Actually, she's also tried to get us to remove her clothes when we're out, like at a restaurant or the mall. She feels very comfortable running around in just a onesie. It's the first thing she says when she gets home, that she wants us to take her clothes off, or her pajamas off when she wakes up in the morning. I don't know how they manage to keep her clothes on at school. I'll have to ask.

She's still very much in love with Boose-ah, which is how she says "Patricia" now, as opposed to Ba-det, although Ba-det sometimes makes its way back into her vocabulary. Ma-get is and has been for some time Margaret. She'll pine for them and prefer them in many instances to myself, usually when I've said no to something or when I have to do something contrary to what she wants to do.

Her mood has been out of sorts lately because of stuffiness, too, and that always makes for a difficult time. She is very congested and her nose bothers her. It may be allergies or it may be a cold, but it bothers her. So I dose her with Dimetap at night, which helps her sleep. She's still not sleeping through the night, however, and instead crawls in with us to finish the night. It doesn't help that Boob still plays a big part in her routine. But it's a lot in life we're both not ready to give up yet. We'll see how she does when I'm in NYC for two nights.

Summer is quickly approaching and Margaret and Patricia will be involved in the summer musical theater program at the college through the end of July, at which time we'll be on vacation. A friend from college will be visiting her family in Vermont at the end of July through the first week of our vacation, so we were able to arrange for us to go down for an overnight visit. We'll then be able to extend that visit for the rest of the week out onto Cape Cod, since White River Junction, Vt., is two hours toward the Cape when we go. It will be our first time out to the Cape since the summer of 2004 and Brigid's first time at the ocean, so we're really looking forward to it, even if it's not our usual time in the cottage.

With all the recitals and dance classes, Brigid is still enjoying dancing on the sidelines. Although she won't be a hula baby next season, she'll be able to be in the 2009-2010 class. By then, she'll be a seasoned pro. With her temperament, I'm sure she'll be telling all the other kids how to do it. I can tell them from personal experience, you don't cross the Brigid.