Laps

"But I'm having trouble sleeeeeeeeeeping!" Mabes whined.

"That's because you are running laps around your room. You were exhausted this afternoon. If you would lie still for 5 minutes, you'd fall asleep," I pointed out.

I really had to fight the laughter on that one. There's something about hearing weird noises in your kid's room, peeking in to see what's going on, and seeing her running in circles around her room while her stuffed cats watch from the small table she's moved to the center. She had a very serious, matter-of-fact expression on her face. You know, because it's perfectly normal to do that an hour after bedtime.

GO TO SLEEP! She was up late last night because she was excited about starting to ride the bus. She's up late tonight because apparently she didn't burn off all her energy. This is why I'm in no rush to move Annabelle out of the crib. Then again, she actually likes sleeping--or at least she did until about 3 days ago. What's gotten into my kids?

It's been an eat-nutella-out-of-the-jar kind of day.

Boo. But I kind of wish I had a picture of the running.

Coffee Cat

"But I thought these were *my* flip flops!"

"Ugh, why is Annabelle such a coffee cat?!?!" Mabes yelled, exasperated, one day. I think she meant copy cat. I can see how it could get old but frankly, it's adorable. Annabelle LOVES Mabes. Mabes started school a couple of weeks ago, and it was really hard on Annabelle. Last year was no big deal--Annabelle was young enough that she didn't really notice. Annabelle is old enough that they can play really well together (when they're not screaming and fighting, of course), and suddenly her buddy is gone 7 hours a day now.

Ready for her first day of 1st grade

After the dropping Mabes off on the first day of school, Annabelle whimpered, "Mae...Mae...Mae..." the whole way home. The next day at Trader Joe's, she randomly started saying it again, complete with elbows bent, palms upturned shrugs. And then I foolishly drove home past the school, which of course made Annabelle cry and yell for Mabes. I didn't think she'd recognize the area.

Mabes yelled at me to come watch her fly. She didn't realize
than Annabelle was copying her.

Chillin' on the couch

Playing in boxes. We have real toys. I promise. You can see them scattered
in the background. They just prefer boxes.

Playing dress-up

And while Mabes occasionally gets frustrated that Annabelle copies her so much, she mostly loves it. Mabes gets the constant attention and adoration she needs, and Annabelle gets blanket rides around the house. Everybody wins!

Warrior Dash

I am what you would call "indoorsy." I hate camping. I hate bugs. When I was 16, I was secretly thrilled when I found out my jaw surgery would prevent me from being able to go to Girls' Camp. So on Saturday night, after mentioning that we had run Warrior Dash that morning and my friend looked shocked and asked, "And you LIKED it?" I didn't know what to say.

My sisters' experiences convinced me we needed to try it. We gathered up some friends, registered months ago, and were ready to go. I knew I could handle the distance (about a 5K), but with obstacles involving heights? I was a little worried. Plus, we had a 10 am start time. It gets hot early here, and I try to finish running by 8 am or it's miserable. And as Hurricane Irene slammed into the Outer Banks, we didn't get any rain, just lots and lots more humidity. Blech.

We think we're tough.

We got there in plenty of time to park, get our packets, take some pictures, and people watch. I saw a few people who had finished earlier waves, and I was a little disappointed that they weren't that dirty. I knew they hosed off, but still...

I can't tell if Dave's giving the stink eye
or trying to read something far away.

We lined up with our group, waited for the start flame-throwers (because start guns are for wusses), and were off. For the next 3 miles, we ran, jumped over hurdles, crawled under barbed wire, jumped in and out of tires, climbed in and jumped out of several (clean) dumpsters, scaled a 16 foot wall, ran through forests, crawled through a completely dark tunnel, balanced on high wooden beams, crawled over cargo nets, climbed up a ladder and down a fireman's pole, trudged through a waist-deep pond (while jumping over floating logs), had 2 more climbing obstacles, leaped over fire, and then ended with the mud pit.

After. Not pictured: the blood trickling down Dave's leg.

I'll admit: initially, I wanted to run at my own pace. But we decided not to rush it and just have fun. I'm so glad we did. The pond was by far the most difficult thing for me. I was ready for mud, but I don't know what I was expecting here. A man-made pond? A big puddle? An inflatable pool? This was a real pond. Swamp. Covered in green. And it smelled terrible. But we did it together, it cooled us off, and I can't remember what we were saying to each other, but it was hilarious. And gross. We finished climbing, jumped over the fire, and cannonballed into the mud (more or less) together. And since the crowd loves a mess, we barrel-rolled through the mud under the barbed wire. Added bonus: I think we got scraped up less that way.

Totally dirty, but for a good cause.
(Which would be proving our awesomeness.)

Sadly, Dave lost his shoe. The mud was THICK. After jumping in, it took me a while to get unstuck and keep moving through the pit. Dave didn't realize until he was almost out, so he went back to look for it. He found 4 shoes that weren't his, and there was a pile of about 10 on the side. When the tractor came to dump more red dirt in, he knew it was time to give up.

Rinsing our clothes. My driveway
is still orange-ish.

We went to get hosed off, but with 2 hoses and lots of people, we didn't get a thorough shower. Plus that red clay sticks. We watched a little more, then headed back to the van to change and get food. We stopped at a Cook Out that didn't have a dining room or outside tables. The weather was perfect and we just sat on the sidewalk eating our burgers and shakes, talking and laughing.

No, that's not a nice tan. That's a layer of dirt.

So camping isn't my thing, but this totally was. It's the part of me that wore a dress every day of 1st grade, but tore up more than one running and climbing around. I think it has to do with getting dirty on my terms--I knew about the mud pit, but I knew I'd go to bed clean. And I knew I had a burger and shake waiting for me at the end. I loved the obstacles, and I'm trying to figure out a way to get the city to put up climbing walls, 3 ft hurdles, cargo nets, and maybe a small fire to jump over along the greenway. A girl can dream, right?

We had a great time and are thankful for great friends that not only humor us when we decide to do stuff like this, but swear they had a blast too and will stay friends with us. And we're incredibly grateful to Dave's mom, who left other family members during the hurricane to come watch our kids not only for Warrior Dash, but for Saturday night and Sunday morning Stake Conference.

Weekend trip! Or, taking pictures with uncooperative children

We went to visit Dave's family last weekend, and decided to take a day trip. Where? Well, not quite the coast. I guess they call it the inland coastal region. The inner banks, if you will. We went to Washington, a town Dave lived in when he was Mabes' age (though he has always referred to it as Little Washington, and swears that the locals do, too. I only saw signs for Washington), and Bath, the oldest town in North Carolina.

They had lots of decorated crabs around. Annabelle didn't want to stay
for the picture, Mabes just wanted to dance.
Awesome. Thanks for humoring me long enough
to take a picture, girls!


Downtown Washington

Mabes was excited to learn that the Washington we visited was the first town to be named for George Washington in 1776. We walked along the docks, saw the cute old downtown, and admired old houses. We were going to get hot dogs at supposedly the best hot dog stand around, but it was a one-woman operation with about 25 people in line. Also, she was probably 72 and moving comically slow (I think she wanted to see how badly people wanted their hot dogs), so we quickly opted for an air conditioned Hardee's instead.

Click on picture to see the "you are here." The Outer Banks (the area
being evacuated due to Irene) are on the other side of the Pamlico Sound.

House built in 1795

House built in 1785. Love this house, and it appeared to be empty!

Bath was incorporated in 1705, and was North Carolina's first capital, and I can now say that I've been to all three capitals of North Carolina (New Bern in 2003 and Raleigh several times...if the airport or driving around lost count). It's a cute old town with a beautiful waterfront. We visited St. Thomas church, the oldest surviving church building in North Carolina. There were a cluster of old houses and buildings in the area, so we enjoyed walking around and looking in them.

I think the girls most enjoyed digging through the gravel/sand/crushed shells that were everywhere instead of dirt. Mabes was really excited to discover a shark tooth. She kept asking Dave how it had gotten there, and if maybe someone had put it there. He tried to explain how things get washed to shore, but I don't know if she got it.

Picking up more rocks

We've looked at houses that are "colonials." This is a true
colonial house, built around 1744.

This isn't old. Just pretty. It's a B&B in the historic
neighborhood, and it's for sale!

It was really hot, but it was a great weekend to go out. It was certainly better than this weekend appears to be, though Bath and Washington appear to be inland enough that they shouldn't have major damage. They might get more shark teeth washed ashore.

Party animals

As mentioned earlier, Mabes has decided she loves kittens. You might call it a bit of an obsession. She decided she wanted a cat party, and immediately started planning. Awesome, less work for me. I wanted to make a pinata again, but that kind of took a lot of time. Plus, they recently chopped down a bunch of our trees, so we had nowhere to hang it--it was a convenient excuse.
I decided to do cat ears and collars in addition to Mabes' well-planned games. The kids colored shrinky dinks with their names on them, we baked them, then put them on their beaded collars. Dave was surprised how long the beading took them--I've worked with several of these kids in our preschool co-op, so I was banking on it taking them a while to do that while I made lunch!
When they finished, they played games. At Mabes' request, Dave made a "pin the tail on the cat" game, but took it a step farther and had it be "pin everything on the cat." And then instead of Duck Duck Goose, they played Cat Cat Mouse. And Cat Cat Bird. Mabes was disappointed that we didn't have time for Dog Dog Cat. (Creativity was limited.)

Picasso's cat

I used Sarah's recipe to make strawberry cupcakes with strawberry icing. It uses real strawberries in both the cupcakes and icing, so it's practically health food! And I had made the candy cats (boo, the whiskers were messy, but I stopped caring after the first one) in advance, so the cupcakes were super easy to throw together the day-of.
It was a fun, easy party and I had a lot of fun planning it with Mabes. Of course, despite games and activities, the kids enjoyed running around playing cats the most. Mabes has decided she wants to be a cat for Halloween--with the ears and collar, I think her costume is pretty much done. I just can't let her change her mind.

I think she enjoyed her ice cream.

Six already?!?!

Dear Mabes,

Happy birthday, little girl. Six years ago tonight, I held you and wondered who you'd be. I wanted to call everyone I knew to tell them we had you--it was like the best birthday and Christmas all rolled into one. Before you were born, Daddy and I worried that you'd be overshadowed by your cousins. We worried that you would be the boring, quiet child in the corner at family events.

We didn't need to worry.

I can think of lots of words to describe you, but not boring and quiet. You are fun and crazy and say the most hilarious things. (Daddy thinks I should have a Mabes-isms twitter account--I don't think I could keep up with you.) You are a great big sister; Annabelle adores you. Your energy is unparallelled. You are so strong-willed, outgoing, and extroverted that your dad and I often wonder where you came from.

We've had a long, great weekend. You were tired tonight, and I know that was part of the reason you were a little emotional. We sat in your room and you told me you were nervous about growing up. You're excited about 1st grade, but also scared. You told me that you think about all the challenges, and how there are more challenges in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, and that scares you. You're worried that 1st grade will be more work than you can handle. You're worried you'll do something wrong. You're worried it will be hard.

This is a side of you I don't see often. While I don't know where the crazy extrovert came from, I can clearly see that the worrier in you is all me. I didn't know what to tell you tonight, so I told you it would all be okay, you might be nervous, but you'll love 1st grade just like you loved kindergarten. I told you not to worry about 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades, and just think about the fun things we'll do this week.

I don't know how to make the worrying go away. I don't know how to make "the challenges" easier. You are a brilliant little girl and I never want you to doubt yourself. You will make mistakes, and you'll even fail sometimes. You have so much potential, and I worry (see?) that something I do will stifle that. You will do great things in your life, but honestly? The challenges are part of it. It's how you'll learn. It's how you'll grow. I wish you didn't have to worry, and I wish I could tell you it won't be hard. I can't.

Six years ago, I had no idea the challenge in store in becoming a parent. It's been hard. I've cried a lot. I'm pretty sure it's only going to get harder. But that challenge has also been the most rewarding aspect of my life.

Kind of a random picture. But it goes along with the theme.
Also, Mabes seems so big here!

Mabes, we are so blessed to have you. You are a sweet girl with a big heart and bigger hugs. While I wish you didn't have to worry, I know it's part of life. If anyone is up for a challenge, it's you. I can't wait to see the things you'll do and the person you'll become. And like I told you tonight, Daddy and I will always love you. Just do your best, and everything always works out. Happy birthday, Mabes.

Love,
Mommy

Hello kitteh...

About two weeks ago, Mabes noticed we don't have any stuffed cats. Frogs, monkeys, elephant, dinosaur, unicorn, dogs, lambs, fish, bears, and more, but no cats. Probably because we don't need more stuffed anything. But Mabes was insistent. We needed a stuffed cat. Cats are, after all, her favorite animal.

Huh?

Oh yes, she told me. Her favorite. They're cute. And cuddly. And she loves them so much. She wants a stuffed cat for her birthday. In fact, she loves cats so much, scrap the dance party idea (no problem) and let's do a CAT party. Because Mabes loves cats.

I was kind of waiting for the cat love to blow over, but her party is tomorrow and she still insists that she loves cats. Other than briefly seeing Jeff and Jess's cat, I don't know that she's ever been around one. Whatever, she wants cats? I'll give her cats. I'm still not sure what to do at a cat party (play Minister's Cat and look at Icanhascheezburger?), but I've sewn some cat ears and Mabes has some game ideas so we'll see.

And Gymboree has very conveniently come out with a kitten line; I couldn't help myself. Mabes may only be turning 6, but she's already turning into crazy cat lady.