All-Star

My eldest made the All-Star team for her soccer division.

Yea Baby!!!

This is the first time she has ever made All-Stars. She has wanted to be on an All-Star team for so long!

She plays soccer and softball. She is much better at soccer than softball. But then again, she has been playing soccer for 7 years now, and softball for 3.

She is not the natural athelete though.

She has to work at the sport and after time, she becomes good at it. This year she played indoor soccer on soccer's "off season", which greatly increased her skill level. She definitely has the ability to play on a club team, however she doesn't like practices and it's not something she breathes, night and day. She enjoys softball too and wants to be able to do that as well.

I am so incredibly proud of her!!!!!!!!!! She worked hard to be on this team and she definitely deserves it.

Sugar and Spice?

My friend, Schmoopy just found out that she is having a girl.

I am so incredibly happy for her!!

Ahhhh, little girls. They are so precious!

That is until they turn into preteens.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my girls. I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world! They are THE most precious things in my life. I love to talk about them, I love to brag about them. I love to tell my birth stories about both of them, because they both had different births.

One put me in labor for 16 hours, 3 hours of pushing and I ended up having a c-section because she was 10 pounds, 6 ounces. Yea. OUCH is damn right!

The other one decided to come early and was 5 pounds, 15 ounces and I got to have her vaginally. I was so happy that I got to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section). Between the two, I definitely liked the vaginal birth better. MUCH easier recovery. Now obviously there are reason why women have to have a c-section, so I am in NO way putting those down AT ALL.

And talk about two different girls!

The eldest? Very much a "sugar" girl. (Well, that is until she hit the preteens and now she is just a heavy dose of Cayenne Pepper.)

The youngest? Very much a "spice" girl. She is definitely a feisty one! She keeps me on my toes, that's for sure. Who knows, maybe she'll turn into "sugar" when she gets older. I doubt it, but I can hope, can't I?

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me....

Santas in Australia have been told not to use "hohoho" because it offends women.

Here is the article:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071115/wl_asia_afp/lifestyleaustraliachristmasoffbeat

Yea, because all women are "Hos"??!!!!

Her First Concert

Last night my friend and I took our girls to see the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert.

It was both of our girls' first time at a concert. And what a concert for them to see for their first time. I don't think anyone ever forgets their first concert they went to. It's such an exhilirating experience!

This is the view we had. Not the best, but not the worst by far. And I had to remind my eldest that she was VERY, VERY lucky that we even got tickets for this concert and didn't have to pay an arm and a leg.

The Jonas Brothers were the opening act and you should have heard all the shrieks and screams coming from the arena. I'm sure glad I brought my ear plugs! Not that I didn't want to hear the concert, of course I did, I just didn't want to have ringing in my ears for the next few days!

And I could hear the concert quite well! I suggested to my eldest that she wear them, but she declined. And normally I would make her wear them, but this was her first concert and I wanted her to actually have that feeling of the ringing in her ears to know why I wore them, and how she would think twice the next time about wearing them. I think she might wear them next time.

Then Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus came on stage...

I had a decent camera to zoom in to get decent shots for her.

I was quite content to sit in my seat and listen to the concert. I loved watching my eldest's expressions and movements during the concert. It was such a joy to me that I was able to provide that for her. :)

It also brought me back to my first concert. It was 1983 and it was the night before the first day of school. My best friend and I went to see Def Leppard. My mom had gotten the tickets from someone she worked with and my friend and I were so thrilled to go! Her parents took us there and we got to go into the concert all by ourselves. It was so cool for us. We had such a blast. It didn't matter that we were tired the next day, the first day of 10th grade, the first day of high school. We enjoyed it VERY much.

Oh, and I did make my eldest go to school the next day. She didn't mind though, she got to show off her concert t-shirt.

I didn't go into work today though. I took it off. One of the benefits of my job and being an adult. I can take the day off from work if I want to.

The Downside of Junior High

Junior High.

I have a feeling I will be writing a lot about this in the next couple of years. Oh yea, and then about high school.

It's amazing how, they are still at the same school (they go to a K-8 school), but yet, now that they are in junior high, it's different.

When I see my eldest going through the things she's going through, I almost feel like I'm looking in a mirror from when I was that age.

So insecure. So wanting just to fit in with everyone. Wanting to have the "right" clothes. Trying to be calm and cool so people don't make fun of me or talk about me in a negative way.

I see all of that in my eldest.

I see her going through the same stuff I went through.

But at least she knows she can talk to me about it. I just wish I could give her some good "magic" advice, you know?

My eldest is an intelligent girl. She's a straight A student. She's the one who, when other people ask what she got, her answer is almost always an A. And then the kids make snide remarks like, "of course she got an A. She always gets an A". I told her to say to them, "then why even ask me?" or say "it's not important" when they ask her what she got. I mean, come on, she's smart. You know she's smart, why do you have to try and make her feel bad because she's smart? She can't help that. She's already learned some really great study habits that help her to get the A's. When I told a friend of mine about her grades, she said to me, "Just like her mom. Always getting good grades" When she said that I was proud of my daughter, but then it also made me realize that they thought of me as the person who always got good grades. But they were also always my friends back then and still are now, which made me feel really good to have friends like that.

I am so grateful for the friends I have. The ones I made recently and especially the ones I've had since high school. They help me to remember more of how it was back then, so I can hopefully help my girls go through the rough times of junior high and high school.

I talked to my sister this evening too about junior high and how it was for her. I always think of her as the confident person. She's almost always confident about herself and who she is. She told me that she likes to emit a positive personality and she's always been that way. When we were younger (and still to this day) we went on a trip to visit family in another state and she ended up running into someone she knew! She has such a cheerful disposition and people naturally like her. And like I said, she's confident in herself. She's not conceited in any way, just confident and that is such an endearing quality that I've always loved about her. And now she's a teacher and she can show that quality to her students as well.

I always tell my eldest to be like my sister. To try and be confident in yourself, and be a happy person. Try and find the positive in the situation. I try and do that myself so I can show that quality to my girls as well.

Are there people out there that just want to be mean? Oh, of course there are. But I also know that there are people out there that don't mean to be mean, and that is probably about 95% of the pre-teen and teenage girls out there. They just want to fit in and go along with the rest of the crowd. The hormones are raging throughout them and it's like being on a bad PMS trip most of the time.

Junior high can be fun, but it can also be tough as nails too. For the kids and the parents too!

Like a Momma Bear, I would LOVE, LOVE to go up to any girl or guy that teased my daughter and tell them where to shove it. Unfortunately, I can't really do that. I have to allow my daughter to go through things in life that won't always be pleasant, but I can be there as a sounding board and to offer advice on how to deal with situations. Day by day, year by year, she's growing up and one day she will leave home and she needs to be ready to face that world out there, and I just hope that I can provide her with the tools she needs and the confidence and knowledge to face it and succeed.

Under The Lights

Tonight my youngest got to play soccer at night, "under the lights", as they called it.

Because of carnivals that are going on at the elementary schools, they had this division make up their game by playing at night. Because the fields are so small for this division, they had six games going on at one time, making it possible to play at this particular field that had lights. It was a neat thing tonight.

My youngest gets out there and she loves to run with the "bumblebee pack". That's pretty much what the girls do at this age, there are no set positions and they all cluster around the ball together. You can always count on her to have a great big smile on her face as she's running down the field with the rest of the girls. She could care less if she had the ball or not.

And her coach is SOOOOOOOOO great! She has each girl take a turn kicking the ball when it's their turn for the kick off. So they all get a chance to do it.

Well, tonight, my youngest had the ball and she got it down the field and into the goal (they don't keep score at this age and they don't have goalies).

Something clicked tonight. I don't know if it was because they were playing "under the lights" or what, but somehow my youngest figured it out to get the ball and dribble it down the field and into the net.

The first time she did it she had this huge smile on her face and her coach hugged her too!

Then, BAM!! She was on fire.

Then came goal #2.

Then goal #3.

Then goal #4.

After she made goal #5, she looked at me and put up five fingers. I was laughing so hard at her out of joy, seeing how happy she was out there and how much fun she was having.

I thought she was going to be a total ball hog out there, but I did see her kick it back to one of her teammates who had been kicking it before. I thought that was VERY good of her to kick it back to her so she could have a chance.

And last but not least, she scored goal #6.

What a night.

I'm so glad she had fun, I know I sure did, watching HER have fun and be nice out there at the same time.