Wrapping Up Summer 2010

Wow! This summer has zipped by faster than any I can remember. Maybe because my kids didn't have time to be bored. Maybe because I was so busy I didn't have time to notice any boredom. Whatever. Tomorrow marks the first day of school for Ritenour students and I'm relieved. Now the days will have more structure and less "fly by the seat of my pants" feel to them.

Jack didn't do much this summer. He is now officially accepted at Florissant Valley Community College and will finally begin his degree program in computer engineering. He's taking baby steps to this, but it beats sitting in his room all the time playing video games.

Sami, on the other hand, kept me so busy that I barely had time to see my husband and son. She finished summer school with passing grades and went directly into Color Guard practice. We just found out that Ritenour band and color guard have been invited to march in next year's Memorial Day parade in Washington DC. So now the intense fund raising efforts begin. Sami needs $650 to be able to go and we don't have the money. They have already had two car washes and haven't raised a tremendous amount. They will be having pizza sales later and that promises to be a big draw. In the meantime, Sami is looking for odd jobs to bring in money. She has spent the summer walking a dog for an elderly lady and also helping clean her house.

Girl Scout Gold Award Update

It looks like Sami will be painting a mural on the wall of a building located in downtown Overland to be a scenic backdrop for the newly built Erickson Plaza. Ritenour art students are supposed to help with this project, but Sami needs to submit drawings to the art teacher in charge. She also has to present these ideas to the mayor and Overland Business Association. Pretty intimidating, but I know she can do it. Another girl in her troop will be taking an adjacent wall for her Gold Award project as well. Hopefully, the girls will be in sync with their drawings. The whole project is pretty daunting.

Will post updates as the project comes along.


Summer 2010 - Part 2

Sami made a new friend this summer. Well, actually, they have known each other since Sami started dating Trent. The girl is one of Trent's sisters. Tonya came to St. Louis to visit with her dad and I took the girls out to the Butterfly House and the Magic House. They both had a ball. Any awkward feelings between them (Sami and Trent are no longer dating) vanished when they went into the Magic House. I never saw two girls have more fun. Sami had a few "Lucy" moments (Lucy Ricardo of "I Love Lucy") like crashing into a mirrored wall in a funhouse maze and pressing her face into a peg board only to have her upper torso also press through to the other side.

On the way to the Magic House, I took the girls to Kirkwood Farmer's Market to look at the fresh boys, um, produce. Yea, produce, not boys. Produce.

I'm not sure how long this friendship will last since Tonya lives with her mom in Oregon, but they seem to get along great and Tonya is such a terrific girl. Only time will tell if this friendship is meant to be.

Wave goodbye to Summer 2010 and say hello to a new school year. Hope Sami and Jack make it a good one.

Motherhood - The Wisdom of Many

If every mother wrote a book on her experiences as a new mom, the books would fill the Library of Congress ten times over - I don't have stats to support this theory, it's just my opinion.

NBC's Today Show had a piece on parenthood from the show's anchors and it made for fairly interesting reading. The side piece on motherhood myths next to the article was particularly interesting because it reflected a few things I experienced and foolishly believed I was alone in my feelings. Wow! I'm normal afterall!

When I had my beautiful, handsome, brilliant, funny, exceptional baby boy 18 years ago, I spent days trying to nurse him only to find that this natural mothering thing was very painful and very difficult. All these years, I thought something was wrong with me - nice to know I'm not alone. Also, during the first few weeks after he was born, I would look out the window and wonder when his parents were coming to pick him up. This mom thing hadn't really kicked in until after about a month. A word of advice to all new moms - that adorable, soft, squishy, gurgly, bundle of cuteness eventually grows up to be a purple-haired, tatooed, body-pierced, loud teenager that you won't even recognize as having come out of your body. Ladies - you have been warned.

Do I feel like I'm a better mom than my own mother? That depends on the subject. I'm more involved in the kids' schooling than my parents ever thought about. Were they bad parents - not really. This parent involvement is a relatively new thing - my parents were never encouraged to be part of my school day except at parent/teacher conferences and even those were competitive events between the parents with money and the parents without. The money won, by the way; therefore, my parents were pretty much ignored by all my teachers.

I think I was more involved in my kids' lives when they were littler - seemed more important then. Not that it isn't important now that they are teenagers - if anything, they need me even more now. It's just they want more independence and they should have it. I'm luckier than some parents. I know where my kids are at night, I know who they run with, and I know their teachers by name.

Parenting isn't easy - its not supposed to be. That's what love is all about.