The Birthday Grrrrl

You know, just because it's your birthday it doesn't mean you HAVE to be happy and have a good time. I guess we're all entitled to bad days.

So Olivia turned the big 3 on May 13th. At this point she doesn't have a lot of friends. When you ask her who her friends are she lists Meredith and Meredith's friends. So I decided to forgo a large birthday party in favor of a special day at the mall with just a few kids. I should have called it a day at lunch. We started off at the Rainforest Cafe for lunch with Daddy, Gramma and Meredith. Here's what happened when I asked for the first picture:

I'm guessing underneath that menu she's NOT smiling.

So after lunch we had plans to meet up with Natalie (Olivia's buddy) and head to all the girly spots in the mall. I planned a visit to Club Libby Lu (against my better judgement) thinking that we would shop and maybe get glitter-ed and call it good. No such luck. Both Meredith and Natalie were Club veterans and were all about the makeover "experience". Olivia? Not so much. But she readily agreed to join her buddies and get made over.

The end result was a lot better than the process, as is obvious in the photos. She really did seem to enjoy herself once she snapped out of her funk. Maybe next year we'll do a backyard party...

Ah...Young Love

Meredith and Jake, sitting in a tree...

So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that Meredith has her first official boyfriend. His name is Jake and he's in the "other" preschool class. Which really just means that Meredith only gets to see / play with Jake during recess. His name first came up early in the school year when I would ask Meredith about her day. She would focus mostly on the day's snack and what they did when they played outside. No big surprise there. So she would talk about how they played "chase" with the boys. Come to find out this means that the boys run after the girls, trap the girls up against the fence and wait for other girls to come rescue those trapped girls. I'm guessing there is a lot of squealing and screaming involved, but that's pure speculation. Meredith would always comment on how fast Jake was. She sometimes gets notes in her backpack from him. Most of them root on a favorite Kansas team, but notes nonetheless.

Then one night before Christmas we were at the park looking at the holiday lights and I hear Meredith say "uh oh, Jake's here," but she's grinning. He eventually finds his way over to us, and without saying a word to each other, they both start running. Jake chasing (but never catching) Meredith, Meredith screaming and giggling. Honestly, they NEVER SAID A WORD. At this point I kind of guessed at a crush.

Last month there was a school outing at Wonderscope museum on a Friday night. We get out of the car and Meredith turns to me and whispers "there's Jake." I see Jake turn to his mom and say something (which I come to find out later is "there's Meredith!") Again, not a word is spoken. Jake's mom tells me later in the evening how as they were getting ready Jake says to her that he has to look nice because Meredith will be at Wonderscope too. But there's absolutely NO interaction between the two of them.

But we're making progress. Friday last week was rainy, and rather than play outside the kids in both classes watched a movie. Meredith tells me, sort of in an offhand way, that she sat by Jake they had their arms around each other "like this" as she puts an arm across my shoulders. And this morning, Jake's mom tells me how the minute he got into the car after school on Friday he says very excitedly that he "watched a movie AND got to sit by Meredith!" (Though he omits the "arms around each other" part.) And apparently he wants her phone number and address so he can invite her over to play this summer and "for sure" invite her to his birthday party. So they can ignore each other some more.

The only sad part of this story is that Jake and Meredith will go to different schools in the fall. Though the potential is there for their paths to cross in the future when they hit middle school. Time will tell if Jake and Meredith will STILL be sitting in that tree. And whether or not they actually SPEAK to each other...

The Sounds of Summer

1. Children squealing
2. Bike wheels ratcheting
3. The Ice Cream Man
4. Snoring

So the weather was finally what it should be in May...sunny and 75. Sunday morning we decided it was time to see if Olivia was big enough to ride on the trail-a-bike, or "tricycle" as she calls it (which is, in fact, true). Sean attached the third wheel to his bike and I put Olivia on the seat. I'm not sure she'd fully grasped what exactly this contraption was, but when Sean took off down the driveway Olivia said "whoaaaaa aaaaaaaaah". To translate, a nervous whoa that turned into a scream. Now this was an obviously happy scream, thankfully. We figured that was a good sign and loaded the bikes into the car to head to the park. Meredith has officially mastered the art of riding with two wheels. She's determined to be first in line when we ride - you can see her checking for passers out of the corner of her eye. If she sees you coming her feet start pumping and she inches farther ahead. We stopped to see some turtles in the creek, only to hear Olivia ask "why are we stopping?" and to, a few minutes later, hear Meredith say "ready? GO!" as she took off on her own. I guess they got a bit of Sean's love for motion. We found out as we rode that Olivia could officially reach the pedals, but she couldn't push them around for a full rotation. She'd push forward until she couldn't reach, then ratchet the pedals backward. Gotta give her credit for trying.

So after a morning spent riding bikes we headed home to do some much needed yard work. We're in the front yard, and Meredith says "you hear that? Sounds like a bell." Sure enough, it's the ice cream man. Now other than what they've seen on TV, neither kid knows anything about this phenomenon. And we all know how sneaky the ice cream man can be. He circles your street, making sure to ring the bell loudly enough for you to hear, but he waits until you just can't stand it any more to actually turn down your street. But, alas, he's headed our way. Meredith runs toward the curb and stares. Honestly, I'm not sure what she thought would happen next. But after some giggling and waffling we finally selected a Tweety Bird popsicle (for Meredith) and a fudge pop (for Olivia). Watching them drip and lick and drip some more as they sat on the front porch gave me such an amazing sense of summer. And summers to come.

Needless to say, the girls were exhausted by the time we finished bathing (or scouring in this case). They hit their pillows and were sound asleep just a few minutes later.

Ahhhh, summer.