Posts tagged Parenting
Best Homecoming ever!
Or at least that is the consensus I have heard from Princess Girl and her friends (via Re-tweets).
The weather for the parade was fabulous.
The half time dance by Princess Girl and the other cheer leaders was very good.
Decorating for the dance and hair prep went off without a hitch. There was even time for a nap (although everyone and their brother decided to call, message or talk to me in MY nap window).
Pictures were very nice. Thank you very much to Princess Girl’s friend and her parents who invited such a large group into their home for snacks, pictures and champagne punch (for the grown-ups only of course)!
Princess Girl said dinner was good. And her vegetarian date even found something to eat (after it was re-made sans bacon).
And the dance? The best ever! Very cute picture backdrop. No complaints about music choices. No major dress malfunctions. With the exception of the accidental elbow to the eye Princess Girl smiled the entire evening.
We were truly blessed with a fabulous weekend for this, our final, Homecoming dance.
Parenting never gets easier.
8/365 Matryoshka (Photo credit: Flооd)
My poor Princess Girl has a lot on her emotional plate right now. She has entered her senior year of high school. Being a “grown-up kid” is looming on the horizon. Each day, it seems, we have another “the last first of high school” event. Each day we have tasks due to prepare for her flight next year into the world of college and higher learning.
And I’m a pro at helping her handle these things. I know her. I know how to guide her to look at the exciting, happy side of these things instead of dwelling (too long anyway) over the sad, leaving home soon aspects. Oh I know, she still worries about all the changes. She is already missing her friends. But we are focusing on the positives. Things like how much fun she is going to have this year as “top dog”. Things like she will be the voice of experience for her younger friends as she goes through all of these events before them and can help shape and guide them in the next few years.
What I am not a pro at is helping her deal with her more adult feelings about how her dad has treated her for the entirety of her life. When she was younger, I followed her Pollyanna view. Hey, it’s her dad, but she is my Princess Girl. There was no way I was going to crush her beautiful little heart.
Now that she is nearly 18 and his actions frustrate her and break her heart on a regular basis because she is old enough to see that even if a dad lives a couple hours away that does not excuse them not participating in your life. She is old enough to see that dads who only spend an hour over lunch a couple times a year are not participating in their child’s life.
And all I can say is I am sorry. I tell her I wish I could change things for her. I wish I could fix it. Unfortunately, I am well aware, and so is she, that I can not fix his lack of parental participation.
And what I would really like to say is I am sorry your dad is a jackhole. I would like to tell her that I wish I could make your dad stop being a self absorbed tool. I would like to put his happy ass in jail for the money that he owes for her support.
But she does not deserve the weight of that on her shoulders. She does not need to bear any more of the burden of his actions than she already does. So I keep silent. I do not say those things to her.
But I think them.
Not sorry
Images of custom amirugami, an amirugami graduate in cap and gown. Self-made. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This is not an apology, but advanced warning…
Princess Girl’s first day of her senior year of high school starts bright and early tomorrow morning.
That should be an ‘enough said’. But in case it is not… The next nine months are going to be an emotional roller coaster. All of the milestones and activities will remind me of how proud I am of her. They will also remind me of how soon she will be going off to college and starting the next phase of her life not so close to mom.
We have already done the photo shoot for her senior pictures. Gorgeous! I am thinking a second mortgage is going to be in order for all of the prints we will want. It is going to be nearly impossible to narrow down our choices.
[Sidebar: Princess Girl’s senior pictures are amazing. I will post some here as soon as I get the release. For those of you on Facebook, you can see some of them there. Or you can go to DashaDenger.com , Princess Girl holds the first three spots in Clients -> Portraits I.
If you are looking for a photographer for senior pictures I highly recommend Dasha. It was a fun, laid-back shoot. If you book with her, give her my name as a referral and we will get credit towards prints!]
The next thing we need to focus on is college applications. And school work. And cheerleading. And homecoming. And…
Busy. Exciting. Sad.
Here it all comes. We’d better get ready!
Back on the saddle
Coastal Carolina logo {| cellspacing="0" style="min-width:40em; color:#000; background:#ddd; border:1px solid #bbb; margin:.1em;" class="layouttemplate" | style="width:1.2em;height:1.2em;padding:.2em" | 20px |link=|center | style="font-size:.85em; padding:.2em; vertical-align:middle" |This vector image was created with Inkscape. |} Coastalcarolina-wordonly-2.svg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Of blogging… but not really. I know. Total cop-out. I’m sure I mentioned Princess Girl and I went on an adventure of college campus visits over her spring break. We visited Florida State University in Tallahassee and Coastal Carolina University in Myrtle Beach.
It was a good trip. Princess Girl got a lot of good information. She now has three good choices for colleges to start applying for next fall.
I drove nearly 3000 miles last week.
I’m still trying to catch up with work (and deal with the major upheavals that are going on there).
I hope to be back in the blogging swing of things very soon.
In the mean time, if anyone know of any great scholarship opportunities, please let me know!
She just can’t catch a break
Poor Princess Girl. Some days it is so hard to parent her because I can’t believe the amount of crap that gets piled on her.
This week is Team Placements for the coming year at her cheer gym. She has been working really hard to move up two levels. That is a large jump. She has been going to open gyms. She has been doing sit ups to strengthen her core. She has been doing jump drills… With weights on her ankles.
I thought she had it in the bag.
On Saturday, at an open gym, she broke her toe. Doing a very simple tumbling move that she has been able to do for 5 years or so. She must have just landed wrong…
So now she is at Team Placements (They do not call them try-outs because everyone makes a team. This is to place you on the team level for your ability.) with a very very sore and broken toe. Now she is at Team Placements worried that she will not move up even one level because she is not hitting everything her best through the pain of a broken toe.
I just want to cry for her.
Instead, I’m feeding her pain meds and icing her toe as often as possible and telling her to just push through the pain. She’ll have a week to rest the toe after tonight while we do college campus visits. I hope the gym sees what is there behind the broken toe.
Wish her luck.
Princess Girl = Rock Star
I am a super proud parent today. Princess Girl’s cheer team won first place in her age/level at the Battle for the Behemoth Trophy competition (her gym’s home competition).
AND
Her team won GRAND CHAMPION! (Highest score of the whole competition.)
Grand champion is a big deal. Especially for Princess Girl’s team. The way cheer competitions are scored your level determines the maximum points you can be awarded for each stunt, move, tumbling pass. The higher your level, the more points available. It is based on difficulty, kinda like gymnastics and ice skating. What this means is a team from the highest level usually wins Grand Champ.
BUT
At this competition there were three teams at a higher level (more points available) and three teams at her level. Obviously, they got first at their level, but Grand Champion means they got higher scores than the three teams that have higher possible points!
GO IEC SENIOR L3!!!!!
And we are off to Nationals in three short days!
Busy busy busy
Image via Wikipedia
Trying to get everything planned for the trip to Cheerleading Nationals is rough. I know how to plan Disney. I can plan a trip to Disney that is structured so we don’t miss anything we want to see (sometimes twice), but with enough flexibility to be spontaneous and roll with any vacation changes we decide on. Having three days of cheer competition/team involvement that we have no experience with is leaving me at a loss on how to plan.
On top of that I am trying to plan for our spring break college visits. Again with no knowledge of those areas, timing of the things we will be doing, it’s tough.
But exciting!
Nationals! College visits! Big plans in the works… Now to figure out how to pay for it all.
More adventures in parenting
So Princess Girl attended the Sadie Hawkins dance at one of the bigger schools in our area with a friend this past Saturday. She had a great time. There were a lot of kids she knew from when we lived in that school district many years ago. There were also kids she knew from softball and other sports. And probably 10 or so kids from her own school.
The only down side? She said to me yesterday “I have never seen so many kids making out in one room in my life. It was kinda gross.”
“Well,” I told her, “That is why your school has the no kissing rules it does. A dance is supposed to be a fun party for all the kids that attend, not an excuse for a make-out session only for those kids that are on that path.”
I’m glad she finds a room full of kids trying to get to second base in public gross. I’m glad she can have fun with her friends without it having to be about who is going to be the next conquest. I’ve done my best to aim her toward being a well adjusted teen/adult. So far we are on the right track.
Can I just keep her my baby for a few more years?
A See of Green 