Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all moms past, present and future. I hope everyone has an amazing day. Being a mom is the hardest job in the world. Many times unfortunately many moms including myself feel under appreciated. Today I felt very appreciated.

First off I started the day extremely early taking my own awesome mom to the airport for her much needed vacation to Florida. I hope she has a great time because as far as I'm concerned she is the best mom in the world. She has always put her children before herself and I have learned that from her. I would do anything for my girls as I know my mom would do anything for me. So it was my pleasure to get up at 4:15 to take her to the airport. It's the least I can do for all she does for me.

When I got back home I went back to bed. When I got up we went to see Iron Man 2. This was a must for me on Mother's Day. I love Robert Downey Jr. I will give a full review tomorrow. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we went to one of my favorite restaurants for linner as it was 2:30. That was fabulous and I just finished watching the Celtics win a playoff game. Now if only the Red Sox could win tonight I would have a perfect Mother's Day. I hope all the moms out there have as great a day as I'm having.

Tis the Season for Rashes

Everyone loves to see the end of winter and the beginning of the warmer season of spring and summer. Well with the change of the seasons come bugs, poison ivy and other irritants that just drive a mother crazy.

My 9 year old told me on Sunday that she was itchy. She appeared to have bug bits or something on her knees and ankles. Well I thought a bath would make her feel better so that's what I did. When she got up out of the bath she was covered in hives. I couldn't believe it. I ran to the store to get some benadryl. An hour after giving her the benadryl they were gone and never came back. I have no idea what it was or what caused it. It was one of those mysteries. Just something else to worry about.

My friends daughter got a mosquito bite and it got all inflamed and infected and she had to go on antibiotics. My friend was very distraught. She can't keep her daughter inside all the time, but this seems to happen every time she gets a mosquito bite.

Now yesterday my 9 year old came home with a red rash on her arms and legs. It was pretty red and she told me she got sent to the nurse and she told her it was heat rash. I wasn't so sure, but it wasn't itchy or bothering her so I let it go. Well she still had it this morning and I took a good look at it. The rash had a very lacy look to it and it was now on her cheeks. I had an aha moment. It had to be fifths disease. I wasn't positive so I did call my pediatrician and I was told to come on over. I told her I thought it was fifths disease and she agreed. Luckily it is basically just a mild virus. She is not contagious. She may develop a slight fever and the rash will last for a few days, but other than that it's nothing major. I'm glad it wasn't anything serious, but I can't help thinking that the warm months always bring on these types of issues. Oh well I love summer. Get me to the beach already. Oh yeah then I have to worry about sunburns.

Sea Change, Great Summer Beach Read

Summer is almost here so that means vacation and relaxation at the beach. I personally always like to have a book with me to read. I tend to like really light books at the beach because I don't want to get stressed out. I just want to unwind and go someplace else. For this reason I have really enjoyed discovering the wonderful world of Young Adult fiction. There are just so many choices. Some good and some bad as is the case with any type genre. So I'm going to try to post at least one book a week that I think you could pick up and get lost in while on vacation.

First up a real summer love story. Sea Change written by Aimee Friedman. The title and cover hooked me on this book because one I love anything to do with the ocean and two it seems to deal with mermaids. I have loved mermaids for as long as I can remember. Who wouldn't want to spend their life in the ocean just floating along.

Okay so this story is about 16 year old Miranda. Miranda is spending the summer on Selkie Island with her mother after her grandmother has died. The Island is the summer home of many rich families that her mother used to be close to. She is befriended by a group of girls who are totally boy crazy. She also meets up with a boy who works at the science center on the island named Leo. She's really drawn to him and to the mysteries of the island. She begins to wonder what's really up with the island and is it really so far fetched that mermaids could exist. Not to mention is Leo a merman? Miranda is a wonderful character that you see grow throughout the story. She really discovers who she is and feels more confident in herself. I truly enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone who's looking for a little escape reading.

Dance Class Pictures

Okay so the past couple of nights I've had to take my girls to get their pictures done for dance class. This means they have to get dressed in their costumes and put on makeup and get the hair just right. This is really a pain in the butt. My oldest fights me tooth and nail. She's so not doing dance next year. She just doesn't love it enough and I'm certainly not going to make her go. It's not worth it for my sanity. She'll have to find something else. I insist on some type of activity. There's no way she's sitting on the couch all day watching TV.

Anyway, my oldest was fist up and she has the most beautiful ballet costume. It reminds me of Romeo and Juliet and she likes it which is a miracle. Her hair has to be in a bun no problem their I looked up how to do a ballet bun on Youtube. I honestly love Youtube. Then it was on to the makeup. Now you would think she would love to be told she needs to wear tons of makeup at the age of 13. Well if she doesn't get to pick it herself she's not happy. Not to mention they wanted her to wear fake eyelashes. Why they want her to do this I have no idea? You can't tell from the audience and really they're still just kids it seems ridiculous. She also told me there was no way she was wearing them she would quit first. That was just fabulous. So I get her to the dance studio minus the eyelashes I have in my pocket. I figure I can get one of the other girls or moms to help me out. Well my daughter lucked out because I bought the wrong ones and her teacher told me not to worry about it. My daughter didn't care either way because she was not wearing them and that was that. Needless to say it was a very stressful night. They were running about 1 1/2 behind schedule because one of the photographers was new and slow. It was so aggravating, but there was nothing we could do, but wait. We were lucky my daughter only takes ballet. One of her friends ended up being there much later because she had more routines.

Then it was onto my other daughter who takes tap, jazz and ballet. She's 9 and she loves dance. She would take it everyday if she could. She was no problem getting ready. She complained about nothing loved doing all of it. When we got to the studio for her there weren't as many kids as the night before. They were running ahead of schedule and it was great. The difference being they asked for a different photographer. Apparently it got really bad the night before and they didn't get finished with the older girls until well after 11:00pm which is ridiculous. My daughter has 3 different costumes so we had to do a couple of changes. A friend gave me a little trick last year she told me to layer the tights so all she has to do is take off the top layer to get to the next costumes tights. This was such a time saver I can't even tell you. Each costume has it's own rules and accessories. I have written instructions that I have to constantly look at to make sure everything is just right. As soon as one picture is done we do a quick change for the next and then do it one more time. The only problem we ran into was we changed to quickly and one girl who only takes jazz wasn't in the shot so we had to change back. This was no problem because we were running so far ahead of schedule. It was such an unbelievable difference from the night before I was out of there in less than an hour.

Now I only have to go through this 2 more times, dress rehearsal and the show. I love watching them perform, but it's exhausting to get them ready. It will nice when we have the summer break.

Glee Was Awesome

Once again I'm talking about my daughter's favorite show. Glee was great last night. They had some fabulous songs and some very silly moments as usual. I tell you I hate it when the episode is over and I have to wait a whole week for a new episode. It's had to be me.

The episode dealt with a list that was posted about the Glee club and who had the worst reputation. When the list is published there is going to be big trouble the principal wants to know who did it. This leads Will to ask the kids to find a song for the Glee club that has a bad reputation and give it a new one. He kicks things off with a fun rendition of Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. Oh the memories on that one. Good times.

Some of the kids who were left off the list want to get on. They think the best way to do this is to break out in dance and song in the library. This group includes Kurt, Mercedes, Arty, and Tina. Britney is there too, but because she doesn't understand why she isn't higher on the list. They sing Hammer Time wearing MC Hammer pants and all. Honestly, I couldn't stop laughing. The pants just killed me.

Oh Emma also gets a backbone and yells at Will for his behavior. You go Emma. Sue Sylvester is as funny as always when the Glee kids find a video of her dancing to Olivia Newton Johns Physical and put it on YouTube. This causes major embarrassment for her until Olivia calls her and they do a new Physical video together. Seriously this woman is just hysterical.

Also of note is Rachel doing a video for the song Run Joey Run from the 70s. This causes a huge problem for her as she is doing it to give herself a bad reputation in hopes of making her popular. She asks Puck, Finn and Jessie to be in it, but none of them know she asked the others. When they see it they're all mad and Jessie breaks up with her. I think Finn was the most upset though.

Finally, Rachel sings Total Eclipse of the Heart which is one of my all time favorite songs. She totally rocked it with Puck, Finn and Jessie joining in. I loved it. Can't wait till next week. I hear Finn is going to be singing Jessie's Girl. Another of my favorites. Seriously is it Tuesday Yet.

My Daughter is in LALA Land

Tomorrow she has her pictures for her dance class. This in itself is no big deal. I'm used to this once a year. She puts her costume on and her makeup and we go get her pictures done. It's no big deal. Well I should say it's no big deal as long as the costume is ready.

I was talking about what time we had to go tomorrow and she tells me that her costume needs to be fixed. It's too big. Now let me just state for the record I asked her last week after she had her costume day in class if everything was all set and she said it was. Now she tells me it needs to be fixed. I am not a great sewer. I can sew on buttons and simple things, but I can't handle alterations on a costume. Usually I call in my mom on this, but it's too late. She needs to wear it tomorrow. Needless to say my daughter is in LALA Land because if she was here she would have told me after her class and I would have asked my mom to fix it. So lucky me I have to spend my night doing this. I just hope I don't screw up royally. Fingers crossed people, fingers crossed.

Very Proud Mom

Last night I went to go see my daughter in her school play. My daughter is in 7th grade now, but I think I should note that up until this year she has been in speech therapy. She was diagnosed with apraxia when she was 3 years old. It's basically a speech delay. She had a lot of difficulty saying certain sounds so she has had speech therapy 1 to 2 times a week she's she's been 3. She was always very cooperative and tried her best. She really didn't want to go to speech therapy in fact the last few years she started to get embarrassed that she still had to go. She didn't want her friends to know. I felt bad, but I also knew she still needed it. Finally this year her therapist asked her what she wanted and my daughter said she wanted to be done. After talking with my daughter and the therapist I agreed. She really had come as far as she was going to with the speech therapy. She was thrilled. I was a little unsure. She had been doing it for such a long time and sometimes I still have to have her repeat something. Never the less she graduated herself from speech therapy.

Now she did her school play last year and I was proud of her. She only had 2 lines and she did fine. Now this year she had many lines and sang quite a few songs that she sang as well. She felt very confident and with good reason. I went to see her in the play and I couldn't believe this was the same little girl who had such a hard time with speech when she was little. I was amazed and so proud. She really is growing up. I can't wait to buy it on DVD so I can watch it again.

She is so sad that the play is over and there is no more drama club till next year. I can understand why because her face was lit up by the biggest smile all through the play. You could tell she was having a good time. Now she will be an eighth grader next year and they get to pick the play. Her and her friends are already talking about it so I hope they pick something great. It really is great that her school has a drama club and she is able to experience this. I really am just so happy for her.