Where did the time go....and then you were 6.....

As I reflect on the past year this poem I found really hit home and brought tears to my eyes. You have grown into such a beautiful, amazing little girl that I am so proud of

Yes, you are 5 now...

Your birthday was March 20th. You are 5 years old now. I sit back and try to remember where all the time has gone. I search my mind for all the new things you have started doing and saying and there are just so many to mentions. You have been going to the Montessori school for 9 months now. You are blossoming into an independent self-thinker with all kinds of ideas. You love music and are always singing and dancing around the house and putting on shows. You have even started creating tickets for your shows and making sure everyone has a seat. You have such a sweet mild mannered way about you. In fact I think you have an old soul. Just the other day you asked me if I would take care of you always and forever. I of course answered with a resounding yes, of course. My heart just beams with joy whenever I see your little face. I am so proud of all of your accomplishments. You count to 20 in Spanish, can hold a basic “Hi, how are you, and I am fine thank you “conversation in Spanish. You also can recite a lot of colors in Spanish as well. You are starting to read short stories by using phonics to sound out your words and can spell lots of 3 letter words by sound. You are now eating hamburgers and chicken nugget meals at McDonalds and actually tell me you are hungry. I remember when we had to fight you to eat and spent hours in feeding therapy to get you to eat anything. You have come such a long way in your short life. You are so independent anymore. It hurts me sometimes that I am no longer needed at most times but is also exciting to me that you are so independent and able to do so many things on your own. The fact that you are growing up is so bitter sweat. For now I sit and watch you, and drink in every minute of your discoveries and you are so excited to show me… soon enough I will not be enough. In fact soon enough you will not want “mom” in your business all the time, soon enough your friends will take precedent over mom, soon enough… but for now I will continue to enjoy the little moments when you want me to cuddle you and hold you and sing you to sleep….that is until, soon enough…

You can learn a lot from a 4 year old...

Tonight at a lazy dinner at Chili’s since mom did not feel like cooking after a long day at work, Elyssa asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up. In a matter of 5 seconds my whole 40 years passed before me and it did take long for me to realize I had never done what I wanted to do when I grew up so I quickly answered “Elyssa – I’m already grown up and I am what I wanted to be – I am your mommy!” She laughed and said “mommy, that’s not a job”. I guess in a sense she is right, I don’t view being her mommy as a “job”- it is more like an everyday adventure. So in all my adult wisdom I decided to turn the tables on her and ask her “Elyssa what do you want to be when you grow up?”- it took her no time at all to answer. No she did not reply as I would have wanted her to and say that she wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or president of the United States, instead she looked at me with her big blue/hazel/green eyes and said “mommy, I’m going to grow up and be me”. I don’t know how she does it, but for a mere 4 years old she makes the most profound statement. I could not have asked for a better answer. So many of us establish high expectations at a young age trying to determine what it is we will end up being in this thing called life that we never take the time to just “be ourselves”. Our lives are filled with so many complicated issues and expectations that we never just allow ourselves to be “just me”. We put on personalities and adjust our ideas to meet the needs of others and never allow our own personalities to shine. Honestly, I hope that my little girl has the ability to never loose herself in the “mediocrity” of life and the conforming to what society accepts as the “norm”. I do pray that God gives her the strength to stand her ground and do what she is meant to do and not what is expected of her. Of course that all being said, mommy and daddy will still try to convince our little girl that a degree in medicine, law or engineering will never be a bad choice in life- hey we do have to keep her somewhat grounded now don’t we?

Mommy Saves the Day

It was like any other Wednesday morning, driving to work down the George Bush Highway toward work, my tunes playing in the background as my mind drifted to the days events that I had ahead of me. All I could think about was that darn RFE case sitting on my desk to follow up on this morning. It had been a horrible mess that just would not go away and I was on my way to tackle it again one more day. Then, my cell phone rang and interrupted my mindless thoughts. From the ring tone even before looking at the caller ID I knew it was Eddie. I answered but to my surprise it was a little tiny voice that answered my “hello”, it was Elyssa in a frantic voice “Mommy!”, I answered “yes, Elyssa what do you need?” I could hear the frustration in her voice as she said “Mommy, you have to come home right now!” I almost had to giggle because I could not imagine what she had conjured up in her little head that was so important that I needed to “come home”. “Elyssa” I ask “ what's wrong, what do you need?” She could barely hold it in “Mommy, Mommy , you have to come home, you have my Tinkerbell watch in your purse and I need it, I need it to wear to school!” ….and so it begins. My little girl has officially become a a girly girl. Gone are the days where she did not want bows in her hair and I could decide what she wore in the morning, she is now an independent young lady with a fashion and opinion all of her own. Although she wears a uniform to school and there is not much in the way of decision making , she does decide every morning if it is going to be 1 or 2 pony tails in her hair or if she is going to just wear it straight. She has bows and headbands that she chooses from every morning and please , lets not forget her lip gloss that she takes along with her as well. We choose from either the small one that fits in her pocket or the fancy one that she can wear around her neck all day at school like a badge of honor amongst the little girls. She has an array of necklaces that she chooses from as well. Hearts, butterflies and even “bow” necklaces are what she has to choose from. And today, this chilly October morning she was unable to find her new Tinkerbell watch we bought for her this weekend and because of that her world was coming to an end. It only took me a few minutes to calm my little girls fears that mommy did not have her watch in her purse that it was upstairs in her bedroom on her dresser. I could hear the sigh of relief in her voice as she turned to daddy and said “daddy , it is on my dresser, please go get it, mommy said it was there”. She quickly thanked me for my help and told me she “loved me more and good bye”. What an empowering feeling as a mom that I could so easily calm her frustrations and solve her biggest problem with such little effort. My mind does drift to the years ahead when it will not be so easy to kiss a boo-boo all better or find her pooh bear when he is hiding under the covers or that missing Tinkerbell watch that was not really lost. Sadly, I think about those days when her best friend steals her boyfriend, or she does not make the cheer leading squad or get the lead in the school play. I ask myself how will I then at those times make her feel safe and secure? I don't have answers for those questions now, I guess we will cross those bridges when we come to them. For now I am going to just enjoy the beautiful little girl in her pig tails with matching rainbow colored bows looking into my eyes and saying “mom your the best mom ever!” and pray that God gives me the strength to keep her safe and innocent as long as I can.

.....and we have another first for Elyssa

So Friday night we decided to take Elyssa to the Circus. She has never ever been to a Circus and has begged to go before. To be totally honest I have never been to a Circus before either so it was not only a first for her but a first for me as well. Because it was the first time, we decided to pay a bit extra for the tickets so we could get ring side seats, I have to say, it was totally worth the extra money. Since we waited so long to get the tickets we were unable to get center ring side tickets so they were a bit to the left of center ring, if we did not have a front row seat this could have been a problem, but since we had front row seats we were able to get up and walk down to the far right side ring and watch the show up close. It was simply fantastic. I sometimes have to ask my self what is more fun, taking Elyssa to these kinds of new adventures or watching the amazement, wonder and excitement on her face. I just love it all. During the “flying trapeze” act she was holding onto my arm half watching and have hiding her face because she thought they were going to fall. She was squealing in delight as they flipped from one to the other swing above our heads! Her favorite part was watching the elephants. They had an adorable 4 year old elephant that just stole the show. To my own surprise I really loved it all as well. I have always been hesitant about going to the circus. I was never a fan of the treatment of the animals but I did do a lot of reading and it seems most of the problems are with the “small second rate” circus's that there is a lot of animal abuse. I did investigate the Shriner Circus and it seemed ok. Of course I could just be fooling myself, but I have to try to keep convincing myself it was ok. We actually left 2 hours early for the Circus in Fort Worth and still barely made it 10 minutes early. We ran into a ton of road construction along the way and I was getting very upset that we would not make it at all. Only in TX can there be massive road construction on a Saturday! We made it with 10 minutes to spare! So when we go there they were tearing down all the bounce houses and elephant rides. I thought we had missed all of it , but the had a 30 minute intermission in the middle of the show where they set it all back up for the kids to enjoy. So Elyssa got to enjoy her first Elephant ride! She also go to bounce in the bounce houses and we tried to do face painting but ran out of time. Believe me it all came at an additional cost, funny how it all starts adding up. During the second half of the show we all enjoyed some hand spun cotton candy. After the circus we enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Mexican Inn and then headed back home to the Dallas area. It always seems like such a long drive to the Fort Worth area. Elyssa fell asleep on the way home and even stayed asleep when I carried her into the house. She woke up and said “mommy, the circus was so much fun today!” That is all this mommy had to hear to know that we made the right decision last night!

New Job = New Things

Ok, so all work and no play make for a very boring environment right? Well I think we have taken that to heart in the Borden house. With 2 incomes it has allowed us to make some very nice upgrades to our happy little home. The first of these was our refrigerator. We have not had a working / functioning ice maker in our fridge for about 3 + years. So our first purchase was a new Stainless Steel French door refrigerator. Is it sad that I was so excited about an appliance for our kitchen? Well once we got one stainless appliance it was the course of natural progression that we would replace the rest of the appliances! In defense all of the appliances in our home are the original from when the house was built so did see some wear and tear. We found a great reseller on Craigslist and he hooked us up with a new dishwasher, over the stove microwave and stove. The stove was delivered today and was the final piece in our partial kitchen make over. I am pleased as punch with everything and even came home from work and cooked dinner. Now that is something that has not happened much since I've started working. My oven is so “neat” and I almost need a degree in engineering to figure out all the knobs and controls. I'm going to have fun figuring it all out. Elyssa loves having ice in the door, she gets glass after glass of ice and keeps dumping it in the dogs bowls. Good thing the dogs like ice!

Eddie is actually home this week. His new job is a travel job again and he was away all last week in Washington DC. The first couple days were really, really hard on Elyssa. She cried and cried for daddy and begged him on the phone to come home. It was not easy on me either. I had to not only get her up, dressed in her uniform and to school over an hour earlier than she is used to but also then drive to work for 9 hours and then drive home to pick her up every evening. I have a new found respect for working single moms. As a stay at home mom I used to think that stay at home moms had the hardest job out there. I ate my words the first week I went back to work! Working parents have it hard as well and I have to think on a whole different level. I almost think it is harder than my life as a stay at home mom. Before Eddie's new job he would get her up ,ready in the morning and take her to school. I would pick her up bring her home, feed her and bath her for bed. We split the responsibility. At that time, I felt like I had “0” me time, and I was exhausted all the time. Now when Eddie is away all week, I do it all....! I am over exhausted and I have to wake my poor baby up at 5:15 am, to get her to school when they open. She is the first one in the building and it is still all dark. I really thought she was going to take it a lot harder , but I think she liked having the teacher all to herself for that time before the other kids showed up. That's my little Elyssa, she is real trooper. I think that from this point forward when Eddie is gone, I'm just going to try to exist and keep us afloat! I really, really miss my days as a stay at home mom sometimes, so any stay at home mom's out there- don't do it! Don't go back to work if you don't have to! Really the grass is not greener. Take it from someone who has now walked on both sides of the grass. I almost desperately want to run back to my old life some days! But I keep reminding myself that this is ultimately good for Elyssa and she does love going to school. We have her in 3 different extra curricular activities. She is taking Tae Kwon Do, Ballet and Jazz class, and a Stretch and Grow class. Yes, they cost extra but it gives her more things to do at school and I don’t have to take her to a class after school with more time I don't ever have! She gets her karate and dance while at school. The academy does have a lot of wonderful classes that she takes part in that are all part of our tuition. She has Spanish immersion class everyday and boy does this kid know her Spanish. She came home one day and started a whole conversation with me in Spanish, I nearly fell off my chair! Amazing what their little minds will absorb. She also has music class and a computer class every week. Once she is starts kindergarten she not only takes Spanish everyday she can choose another language such as French or Arabic. We are really impressed with the school so far.

Well it is almost 10pm and way past this girls bedtime. Last night we were in bed by 8:45...yes, life as a working mom with a 4 year old....

They say change is good right?

Well I think that we in the Borden house have seen our share of change in the past few months for sure. My last post was about the wedding we went to in April, by June I had a new job. Yes , you read that right, I had a job. I really had no intention of going back to work, in fact I was not sure if I ever wanted to go back to work, of course our financial situation had something to do with it as well. Eddie was looking for a new job, but the current economic environment was just not making it easy. So when a friend of mine called and asked me to come back to work with her I had to give it a second thought. She insisted that I email her my resume as soon as possible. This was a Friday evening, on Monday I emailed her my resume to review and unbeknownst to me she had already forwarded my resume to her manager who in turn called me within 15 minutes! I must say I was a bit impressed, for someone who has been out of the work force for over 6 years it was a bit flattering and frightening. Of course my friend Jamie had a lot to do with it , she talked me up, not really sure how since I'd been a college student / stay at home mom for 6 years! Anyway I had 2 interviews within the week and was offered the job the following Monday. To be honest if it had not been such a good offer financially I would have never, ever dreamed of leaving my precious little princess to re- enter the work force. So began my problem....what the heck was I going to do with Elyssa. I explained my situation to the HR person for my new employer and I was able to put off my start date for about 3 weeks. Hopefully long enough to allow me to find suitable care for my precious little Elyssa...

….and then came the tears. I started crying daily at the thoughts of leaving Elyssa. To be honest she was really ok with it. She was actually excited about going to school. Eddie was ok about it, he was not so sure about me going back to work and the fact that we had to leave Elyssa with strangers. I started interviewing a few different day cares every day. I was slowly getting discouraged because everyone I walked into felt so institutionalized. The kids were in one room all day and the kids all seemed out of control. The last place I looked at and yes, it ended up where we placed Elyssa was a new Montessori Academy that I happened to notice while driving by one day. I honestly thought the place would cost way to much just by looking at it and reading about it, but I figured what the heck. I had already decided to raise the bar a bit since looking at some of my other options. I knew I was not going to leave Elyssa anyplace that I did not get that “warm/ fuzzy” feeling. We had our appointment with the Montessori academy on Thursday and by Monday Elyssa was enrolled on her new journey. We were both about to embark on a new adventure. I at that point had 2 more weeks before I was going to start my job. I spent the first week spending everyday doing fun things with her all day long. We did the zoo, spray parks, and play dates. The next week Elyssa started school. I wanted to spend a week breaking her into her new schedule. She was going to be there everyday from about 7:30 when Daddy dropped her off until about 5:20 when I would be able to get her. The first day I dropped her off, I thought my heart was being ripped from my body. I cried all the way home and thought I was doing all the wrong things. I drove home as fast as I could and jumped on my computer, the Academy had online viewing web cams so I was able to watch my little princess all day long. It really did help, but of course I did not get anything done that day at all. So much for free time, I was to busy watching Elyssa Cam! She did wonderfully her first day. I only left her about 6 hours the first day, just enough time for her to get acquainted. I took her a bit earlier the next day and I thought it would get better but I think I cried even more the second day. I have to say I was glad that I had not started work that week and allowed myself the time to adjust to leaving her with strangers. I knew that all to soon these teachers would become more like family to her than teachers just because of the mere amount of time she would spend with them, but for that first week, it was just all to new for both of us. Now, for Elyssa she loved it. She was excited to go everyday and could not stop talking about it all the way home. She would ask if she was able to go back the next day! The week went well and by Friday I was feeling a lot better about starting my own new adventure the following Monday. I started my job on July 5, 2011, and things have never been the same. On the flip side, a little over a month after I started my job, Eddie got a new job. Not just a new job, an incredible new job, that had I just waited a bit longer , would never have had to go back to work. Funny how life works like that, right? We are blessed to be in the situation we are in now. Believe me it is tempting to quit work , but Elyssa is enrolled till July and paid through July of next year so she will be in school anyway. Next year she will be in kindergarten so she will be in school all day anyway , so I will keep working. The Montessori Academy goes to 6th grade, so as long as she likes it and is progressing we see no reason to take her out.

We have all kinds of new things going on right now, but I think this is a good start to the new chapter in our lives...stay tuned for more to come...!