Sunday, September 20, 2009

Popping a hole in the bubble...

...alternately titled: The "F" Word.

Those that know our family know the tight bubble we are currently raising our young children in. I take pride in the bubble, because I believe it is the right place for my 4, 6, 8, and 10 year olds at this point in their lives.

My 5th grade 10 1/2 year old, is indeed though, beginning to show signs of curiosity in what exactly might be outside the designated bubble. As I begin to navigate the new waters of these pre-teen years, I am recognizing that it is okay to begin to pierce a small hole here and there in the bubble, under my guidance, of course.

So we come to movies...

We have always for the most part been very conservative with movies compared to families at large. Although within our chosen "bubble" we could be considered looser than others. My 10 yr old has never been allowed to see anything other than pre-approved PG movies.

However, last night her and I had the great opportunity to go on a date with our close friends...another mom and her 10 yr old daughter. E was not keen on seeing the newly released Cloudy With A Side of Meatballs, and upon perusing the movie offerings I happened upon Julie & Julia which happened to be rated PG-13.

I went to my go-to site for movie reviews from a christian perspective which you can peruse for yourself here . There I learned that the "13" rating was primarily for a selection of about 8 profanities which included 1 "F" word, 2 "S" words, and the remainder being the "A", "D", and "H" words.

A side note...in our family we are lean, mean, clean talking machines. Nary even a "geez" or "gosh" will be heard around here. My children DO know that bad words exist and why we don't use them, but in the younger ages, those "bad words" to them consist of "stupid", "shut up", and "gosh".

With E's advanced age, she is aware of what the "A", "D", and "H" words are, and thought she was "pretty sure" she had heard what the "S" word was, but in discussing whether we should see the movie and in showing her the review, she informed me that although she knew that there was a bad "F" word, she did not know what the word was.

Precious.

Isn't that so refreshing? That a 5th grade, 10 1/2 year old does not know what the "F" word is?

I love my bubble.

Anyway...

I talk to my friend and we decide we are going to go for it because the movie had a great review and we thought we could overlook the 7 or 8 instances of profanity, as we know our girls and know they know to never use that language and why.

So off we go.

It was indeed a great movie that I really recommend! (As a side note, I now am in love with Julia Child, am re-reminded what a uniquely gifted and talented actress Meryl Streep is, and that I WILL, nay, MUST make Julia's "Boof Bourgionione" at some point in my life...)

I have to tell you that the movie could have been total crap (also a word we try to discourage, however I find that it slips out of me way too much to have any hope that my children won't be desensitized to it in their future...) and E would have thought it was the greatest night of her life, simply because she was being allowed to see a PG-13 MOVIE (while sipping the most monstrous "small" $5 slushie drink which made me want to puke not only by looking at it, but also for paying for it!)

Anyways, about 2/3 through the movie she leans in to me and says, "mom, has the "f" word been said yet?" I said, "No, not that I have heard", and she says "Okay, I wasn't sure if I had missed it or not."

So now I was on my guard.

Sure enough, when the moment came, it was dramatic and unmissable. There it was. Out there. My 10 1/2 yr old had just heard the "F" word for the first time in her life.

As we left the theatre at the end of the movie, commenting on how good it was, how much we all enjoyed it, and how we all want to get Julia's cookbook and start cooking up a culinary storm, she leans into me and said "So that was the "F" word?"

I say, "Yes. And its really the most vulgar swear word. Its a terrible word and I hope you forget it."

Then she says "I don't know what I was expecting but it just wasn't what I was expecting."

I just started laughing at that. My precious, bubbled child who had no notion of what the "F" word might be, was unimpressed at the unveiling of the word. I just had to laugh. As we were walking out and talking to the girls about bad language and hearing their sweet thoughts on it and why they know not to use bad language, I mentioned E's comment about the unveiling moment of the "F" word.

My girlfriend and I got to chuckling when we tried to imagine what she thought the word might sound like (I am laughing out loud to myself right now). We started making up crazy F words that sounded more dramatic... "Flugalschnaderheimin!"..."Fraldindoedentanner!"..."Fortenmikelsnaden!"

We got to laughing so hard that I thought I might pee my pants, (which is a very hard thing for me to avoid on a good day).

It felt like a very grown up evening with our two growing up girls. It offered up good conversation and teachable moments, as well as great humor!

And although we popped a tiny whole in the well protected bubble for our girls last night, we still reveled in watching the girls, after bringing them to the "teenager" store of Aeropostle, buying them sweatshirts and watching them walk out wearing them, sweetly and innocently grab hold of each others hand and skip down the hallway of the mall.

:)

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Backpeddling...

I am home all alone right now!

This really never happens. I feel a little giddy with excitement about it!

We have had sickness in our house all week long, but today everyone felt good enough (minus the hacking coughs) to head to church and so I get to be here all by myself, since I did not feel like hacking up organs throughout the service.

I figure I better put my time to good use, so what better way than to finally, finally update some of our summer events on the blog before fall gets any farther underway.

Two events stand out most prominently....my 10 day getaway to Marco Island, FL with the girls, and Evie swimming in the county and state meets at Georgia Tech.

Florida...

We decided not to do our summer trek up to MN this year for a variety of reasons and so we really had a very relaxed, low-key summer for the most part. Then, about mid-July I started feeling restless to just get out of the rat race of suburbia (even though I wasn't even participating in it at the moment.) I just wanted to be where noone could find me and bother me (not that anyone specifically was bothering me...it was just a sensation I had!)

I asked CJ what he thought about just jumping in the car and heading to Marco Island (his parents have a condo there). He was in the middle of a big deal with work and couldn't get away, but encouraged me to just go with the girls.

I knew I could handle it, as I had made the 10 hr drive alone with the girls last Christmas when we went down there without CJ, and it went so smoothly. But I thought a guest might be fun, too, so I emailed my dear lifelong friend Jill, who is also my Evie Jill's name sake and fairy godmother, and randomly asked her if she could head to FL in about 2 weeks...after a couple email exchanges her ticket was booked and the plan was on!

I wanted to time it perfectly to reach Fort Myers, where she was landing, at just the right time, so we left at 6am in the morning. I am proud to say I am a master packer of a large family now, and with Marco being so casual and beachy (no makeup, no bra, no blowdryer, no dress up, etc) I packed all 5 of us in one rectangluar laundry hamper!

Yes, I am that good.

Anyway, it is noteworthy to point out how perfectly timed it was....we got to Fort Myers about nine hours later. Parked the car and walked in. As we were coming down the escalator into baggage, Jill was walking into baggage from her flight!! We couldn't believe it...we couldn't have timed it more perfectly! Jill and I always were a good team! :)

So she stayed with us for the first 6 days and we had a wonderful time relaxing on the beach and at the pool. Then the girls and I had an extra 4 days after she left before we decided to head home. Daddy missed us, and Sarah literally called him 20 times a day. It was so cute.

There was one incident with a gecko that snuck into the house one morning when Jill and Evie came back from their run. I am NOT a gecko person and we were all freaked and squealing like little girls standing on top of furniture. It took us an hour to problem solve getting the nasty thing captured, during which time I started to bond with our torture victim as we surely scared it out of its mind and ultimately, accidently injured him during his capture (we have left that little detail out with the little girls-we wiped up the blood smear and "released" him into a bush to go back to his family) The whole thing was ridiculous comedy and Jill and I laughed so hard at the obsurdity of the situation by the end that tears were rolling down our cheeks!

You had to be there to fully appreciate the humor. Just take my word for it.

I've never been an ocean swimming kind of girl. I much prefer basking in the glory of God's marvelous creation from the comfort of the sand and a beach chair. Plus, we are usually down there in the winter and the water is COLD!

But this was summer in Florida, and the ocean was like bath water! It was so awesome, we got in and floated and swam around. The girls loved it and so did I. I continually commented that I could not believe we had lived in GA for 12 years and had never once considered coming to Florida in the summertime because of the folklore that Florida is "too hot" in the summer. Well, let me tell you, it is a best kept secret that it is marvelous down there in the summer and I will be back every summer from now on!

Here are a few pics...



















Swimming...

My girl Evie Jill...we continue to be so proud of her God-given swimming talents! She swam for our n'hood summer swim league this summer and then participated in the county swim meet at GA tech, where she placed 2nd in the county in the two events she swam (50 free and 100 IM). It was so exciting to be at the beautiful facilities at GA Tech where the '96 summer olympic games were held. In one of her neck and neck events, I became "one of those moms" screaming and cheering like a banshee from the stands!

Then with her year round swim league, she qualified in 3 events for the state meet later in the summer, also held at GA tech. That also was an amazing experience and she placed in the top 15 out of 60+ swimmers for each of her events that she swam. She was also selected to swim in two relay team events which was great.

We wanted to make the state meet special for her, and since it was an all weekend event, CJ and I took her to a hotel downtown overnight and also toured the World of Coke with her.

My mom and Aunt Genny had come into town and came down to the aquatics center for one of her events and then took the other 3 girls on an adventure of their own for the next day.

We are looking forward to this coming year of more great swimming and hopefully qualifying for the short course state meet which is being held in Savannah, GA at the end of Feb. I haven't been to Savannah since I was pregnant with Evie and really hope we will have an opportunity to take her there again! Swim, Evie, Swim! :)

Here are some pics from the Georgia Tech Aquatics Center...





Tuesday, September 1, 2009

vacant spaces



Can you believe this?? This girl has lost 5 teeth, 3 on top and 2 on bottom (with another one on top still loose) in about the last month and a half! They get a little loose and she works and works them until they are out.

She is pulling them out too fast for the others to come in, so now there are just wide open spaces. At least one of the front teeth has come in so we know they will eventually emerge. I told her to STOP pulling them out now or she will not be able to eat!