Chicks in Turquoise

My Mom met someone many years ago via an online quilting group. That someone has since become one of her very dear friends. Being a typical daughter and moving in on all the good things in my Mom's life, I've moved in on that Friend, too. So now, we both call her Friend and care about her deeply.

Our Friend begins chemo tomorrow to have another go at cancer. She's beaten it once and we know she's going to beat this one, too. So, dear Friend, here are three generations of chicks wearing turquoise because we love you, we're thinking of you and we wish we could do more.

Fight, fight, fight!

No Rest for the Mommy

Saturday was supposed to be a day of play and nothing else for the Gupta family. Vinay was off to golf and I was taking the kids to the pool for the day. We had lunches packed, sunscreen slathered and everyone ready to go.

We weren't there five minutes before Kev fell not once, but twice. Amiya stayed with some friends at the pool until my Mom could come and get her and I raced off with Kev to the ER.

Four hours, three stitches and a whole lot of tears (his, not mine) later, and here's what we've got:

I don't think I'd be smiling so big if I had a Klingon ridge running straight up the middle of my forehead and three big stitches smack in the middle of that. But if I didn't see it, I'd never believe he had such a nasty (extremely bloody) cut.

He was a trooper about all of it, even telling the doctor to "'top it. You makin' me mo owies." as she was stitching him up. Priceless.

The Real Deal Today

Today was Amiya's real birthday and she woke up thirty minutes before we usually have to drag her little self out of bed. She wasn't missing a minute of this day!

She took a treat to school and her teacher (have I said how much I love her?) didn't miss a beat when Amiya walked in the room - she immediately wished her a happy birthday and made her feel like a star.

When she came home she helped me shop for her birthday dinner - an Indian meal that she chose. And then she got to decorate her birthday cake (see above).

We ended the night with gymnastics class where she got lots of birthday attention and then birthday cuddles.

All in all, a very perfect birthday for a very wonderful six year old!

Amiya's Birthday Party

Somebody turns six this week and she's very (overly) excited! But why not? Kids have the birthday spirit absolutely correct - live it up! Life is precious.

Since her birthday falls in the middle of the week, we had her party today. Her theme was cupcakes and girly pastel colors.

With her balloons and her cupcakes before the party. She chose the cupcake design - blue bases, pink icing, lots of sprinkles. (How much easier can it get?!) If you click on the picture you can probably see the cupcake earrings and her cupcake bling, too.

With the cupcake Grandma crocheted for a fast-paced game of Hot Potato Cupcake. Again, blue base, pink icing, lots of sprinkles! So cute and the kids had lots of fun! Thanks Grandma!

Some of the kids working on their cakes that they decorated to take home. They each got two layers, frosting and all the sprinkles we could find in Tampa. I thought this would take at least 30 minutes - ha! Maybe 10. Crazy. Anyway, they each took their individual cakes home in a bakery box as part of their favor.
Blowing out her candles. Amiya's officially of the age where they add in the cha, cha, cha between each line of the song. So cute!

And, if you click on the picture and Blogger is feeling benevolent, you'll be better able to see Kev's expression. He was hellbent on blowing our her candles with her. Poor kid is going to have a hard time waiting 11 months for his birthday to roll back into town.
Kev, Aiden and Vinay in the little men (& one big man) corner.

After the party ended, Amiya and two new friends from school were playing space creatures with the laundry basket. Nothing really remarkable, but it is sweet that she feels so good with these girls and she's only been in class with them for two months. It makes me feel good that she feels so good.

Complain, complain, complain

It seems I complain and whine and moan a lot about life in Florida. The ants, the heat, the humidity, the drivers, etc.

And yet, I can't complain today. We had a nice family dinner and then the four of us headed up to our community's pool for a bit of family time. It was nearly 80, still, at 6:30 PM and while a bit brisk on the way home, we had a great time! I'll spare all of you pictures since none of you are living in a climate like this - are you still shoveling snow?

Suffice it to say that just once in a while I am struck upside the head with the nice part of living in Florida.

(Complaints shall resume in the morning, to be sure.)

Does life get better?

I don't think so. It's really pretty good.

Kev turns 3

So, somebody had a birthday recently and he's now a very big boy of 3. He won't tell you that he's a big boy, he's going to tell you that he's still a little boy.

He's got little interest in doing big boy things (like not wearing diapers), but that's alright. (Or at least I tell myself that it's alright.)

We had a fun little birthday playdate at the park and the theme was elephants, elephants and more elephants. There's not a whole lot of elephant partyware out there, but we did alright. Especially because the kids couldn't have cared less. Kev and his "best fwend" Brody chased each other around with bunches of balloons the whole time. They giggled and fell down and chased some more. It was great to see - especially because Brody is a really nice little boy - I'm glad that they have such a good time together.

We had a pancake bar and some fresh fruits - and then cupcakes instead of a birthday cake. Kev tried really hard to get all those candles out, but a little help from his sister was greatly appreciated. He relished the singing of the birthday song and is still insistent that everyday is his birthday. If only, buddy, if only.


He got lots and lots of great presents - at right you can see the game Elefun from
Grandma and Grandpa. A fan blows butterflies out the schnoz of an elephant. They both love it. I love it, too. It's quiet and calm and since they love it, it buys me four minutes of peace! (Please note that he is wearing big boy undies in the Elefun pictures - so it's not diapers 24/7 anymore!)

Kev also got this circular puzzle from a good friend of mine. Since you know he loves his "fuwwles", you have to know this would be a big hit. And, as an added bonus, it spins. Can you imagine the delight?

And finally, when all was said and done, the little man crashed out very hard. His small not insignificant collection of stuffed animals grew greatly with his birthday - he now has added another elephant, a chimp and a tiger, plus various others that he's pilfered from Amiya's room. I have to change his sheets today and I am going to count the number of stuffed animals he has - I have no doubt it will be above 40. And he tucks each of them into a little cave he makes out of his blankets each and every night. Poor kid. So much work and only 3.

The (Relatively Short) Story of Reese

Vinay came home from work one day and decided that we should really take the kids to the state fair. So off we went one bright and cheery Saturday morning. First tent in is dogs, dogs and more dogs.

It's important to mention that my husband is not an animal person. Not that he dislikes them, but he has never expressed any interest in a dog, cat, bird, fish or turtle. Ever.

What does Vinay see? A beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog. He said, "If we ever got a dog, that's the dog for me."

I about fell over. Us? A dog? WHAT?

But, ever the opportunist, I jumped on the situation. Walking through the fair I tried to speak in code so the kids wouldn't overhear and get too excited. When we came home that night, all lights were green so I hopped online and did a bit of research about shedding and dander - Amiya's allergic and all (more on that shortly). I checked out dogs that are good with kids, don't have crazy medical expenses, won't chew up our furniture (or our children), and, most importantly, dogs that were available from rescue groups in our area.

We were set on a low-shedding, medium-sized dog and were hopeful that we could make this work. Amiya's sensitivities to animals seemed to be much better in the past year - we had big hopes she was growing out of it. We found an animal rescue group that had many mid-sized dogs and so we headed out to one of their meet the dogs sort of things the next morning. We met Cheryl, the rescue lady, and she said she had a couple of dogs that might be just right for us. So, we set up a time for the next Sunday to meet.

At home, we spent the week getting a crate, collar, leash, dishes, food, treats, and toys. Then we set off Sunday morning for the 1.5 hour drive to meet the dogs. They were all sweet, all with a story and all needing a family.

We finally settled on Reese - a mix of a Plott Hound and something else. Reese weighed in around 30 pounds - so not too big for the kids and was hard for the shelter to adopt out because he had a bum leg. He was great with kids and trained - p.e.r.f.e.c.t! So, we brought him home after stopping to get him a doggy spa treatment - shampoo, conditioner, blow dry, nails and ears - in the hopes of leaving all the extra dander outside of our home.

Vinay was a bit anxious about all of the dog stuff - mainly not quite sure how to be sure Reese wouldn't pee all over the house. All of that notwithstanding, Reese loved Vinay. He followed him all over the house and wanted to benexttohim all of the time.

He also loved the kids - and who wouldn't? They're kids: rowdy and gentle, quiet and not, patient and loving. He gave lots and lots of kisses - alternately delighting Kev who giggled every time and squeeging out Amiya who found it disgusting. They wanted to walk him constantly, play fetch, go on picnics (at left) and just be next to him. Reese was nothing but patient - even when Kev banged on his food dish or poked at his tail.

But then. The allergy monster hit. And it hit with a vengeance.

That's her eye (just in case you were not quite sure) and that gelatinous, juicy bit in the outer corner of her eye? Well, that'd be the mucous membrane completely inflamed and pissed off. This was after Zyrtec, after Benadryl and allergy eye drops, after constant hand-washing, constant not kissing, petting or roughhousing with the dog. (And really, if we didn't want to have a pet that the kids could kiss, pet or roughhouse with, we'd have just gotten another fish.)

From a little further back, so you can see the real deal. Not pretty. And aside from the horrible allergic reaction, you can see in her eyes that she was not feeling good about any of it.

So, we had to take Reese back. It sucked. He was a sweetheart of a dog and would have been a great pet for our family. But, on the second (and last) morning he was here with us, Amiya walked out of her bedroom with her hands in the air so she wouldn't touch him and he couldn't touch her. That's no way to live and we're not about to make her sick by introducing something she's allergic to and then giving her medication to make her better. If we don't have a dog, she's not sick. Easy enough for now.

We have an appointment with an allergist in a few weeks to talk about this situation because her reaction (view pictures if you've forgotten already) was so severe. Hopefully we'll find out if there's any hope with a hypo-allergenic dog or if we are a family of dog lovers from afar.

And that is the (not short on paper but) short story of Reese.

The Healthy Heart Disco

When Amiya moved from Kindergarten to First Grade in January we had a couple of worries like any parent would. Who would she pal up with? Would she have 'new girl' trauma? How would her teacher be? Would she be happy?

Not to worry. She loves it and she loves her teacher, although she wouldn't state it quite so emphatically. She has a very, very, very good teacher - so good that the district uses her for its' videos and training materials. She's nationally board certified and nothing short of amazing. I've never heard her raise her voice and I've got nothing but admiration for her.

Especially because of The Healthy Heart Disco.

What kind of teacher starts off Valentine's Day (or the day before) with a 45 minute block of time to be used for dancing, dancing and more dancing?

A really, really smart one. (Go back and read that paragraph that started with "Not to worry." again.) How smart is it to wear their little selves out before they even get a sugar high going? To get all their wiggles out before the fun of the day gets them into too much mischief and things go south from there? I think it was a stroke of genius - I'm not sure whose idea it was, but it doesn't matter, Amiya's class went and had a blast!

Kev and I were invited (as were all the other parents and siblings) and so up we went to do the hokey pokey, macarena and the chicken dance, too. Surprisingly, Amiya was very shy about dancing by herself, but very happy to dance with Kev.
Here you can see them doing the chicken dance. I felt like I was back in Wisconsin.

And here, as the festivities came to a close. Amiya was so happy to have her brother for her dance partner (ah, she'll hate that idea when she's 13 and he's putting bugs in her shower) and Kev was so happy to be at school with his Didi.

And, I'm back.

Was that the title of the last post, oh, two months ago or so?

I just don't want to blog lately, but my Mom, in her infinite motherly wisdom, has stated that someday this will be a treasure for the kids. And since I am neither possessing infinite motherly wisdom nor the good sense to have any sort of memory book for either child, I guess the blog it shall be.

So, I hope to write one blog post for every day for the rest of March. I am not observing Lent in anyway (except for feeding M&Ms to my friend's children who gave up chocolate - completely unintentional and I am sorry!!!), but perhaps this will be my thing. Keep me honest!

In the spirit of having something for my children to look back upon and see what I thought about their various shenanigans, let me show you a little something from Amiya. I'm like a peacock with this kid at school, although I try to keep my feathers all tucked away and not so showy when we're out of the house.

Hopefully Blogger will be nice and let you click on that so you can see it clearly at all.

The schools in our district participate in an online reading program called Accelerated Reader. Kids read a book and take a reading comprehension quiz (among other types of quizzes) at school. The teacher sets a goal for each child based on reading level, reading goals, etc. Books are assessed based on writing style, length of sentence, type of writing and vocabulary and given a level that roughly corresponds to a grade level. A book with a 2.4 level would be a book that most students at second grade, fourth month could successfully read. That level is also used to determine the number of points a student can earn from reading that book.

Amiya, as a Kindergartener, did not have access to this program through the fall. However, when she moved to first grade, it became a regular part of her curriculum and she is blowing me away! The typical goal for an on-level, competent first grade reader is 14 points. Amiya finished this grading period with 70.6 points. Her average book level was a 4.8 and her average score on all quizzes (ranging from a 1.5 level to a 5.9 level) was a 93.9%.

So, I don't usually brag about the kids here so much as I embarass them by archiving their antics but sometimes a Mom has got to show her plumage. This child rocks!

And it's not solely from the Gupta genes, either!