Leap Day Due Date

8 years ago today was my due date and the last day I worked before my pregnancy leave.. It would be 11 days of forced rest and relaxation before Holly was ready to join the world.. We talk a lot about today as part of her birth story.. She tells me she didn't want to be a February birthday that only came around every 4 years so she waited to come out.. 

Plus Mommy's belly was too cozy.. 

So here we are 8 years later and my life is so vastly different! But interestingly enough not as different as I thought it would be... Having worked in academia before having children I find my life as PTA Board President, Manager of After school enrichment classes and Special education advocate not that different..  

I still attend lots of meetings and am part of many committes and District work groups, trying how to figure out how to do more with less.. Budget and funding concerns and educational outcomes.. 

Just in a much more personal and meaningful way now.. I still work with faculty and I still train people on technology and I even still register students with an online system my husband created (how crazy is that... Rosterizer 8.0)

I still am full of information pointing people to the help and resources that they need.. And I still love my job.. Though I still have a work day that goes long into the night.. I guess the big difference is I am now paid in hugs, thank you's and the personal gratification that I've helped make my school and community a better place..

But I also get to spend long days playing barbies, climbing at the park, jumping on the trampoline, hosting play dates, pushing swings, splashing in the pool, napping occasionally with my 2 year old and driving all over town to see friends and attend play dates, classes, and other community events..

I'm also surprisingly a much more relaxed person.. In someways the stakes are much higher when you are raising kids but somehow most of the time I realize things will work out just as they were supposed to.. I occasionally even remember that the journey is half the fun so I should make time to smell the roses.. 

And though I'm much busier now, I get much less sleep, and hardly any time to myself (other then 2am) and even less alone time with my husband.. It's worth every second.. And really my children will only be almost 8 and just over 2 once.. And tomorrow they will be that much older.. So on this day of reflection I am reminding myself to appreciate every minute.. Because even though it will be 4 more years before today comes around again.. My god my girls will be almost 12 and just 6.. I will have a middle schooler and looking back on this letter to myself it will feel like only days past since I wrote it.. This day will be back and those 4 years will pass like a blink of an eye.. I wonder how much the same and different my life will look then...

End of summer party

Here we are over at Chloe's house for a mini morning potluck party the Friday before she started kindergarten.  It was certainly the end of an era and hopefully the start of a new chapter that allows us all to stay close even if the time we get to spend and play together is less.  With everyone at different schools and on different schedules and making new friends in kindergarten it will be much harder to see each other.  Even now some of our friends we only see every few weeks, or in some cases every few months.  Holly loves her friends, she misses them and she asks about them constantly.  And we have all know each other at lease 3.5 years longer in many cases so I don;t doubt we will be able to stay in touch, but I think things will change over time.  It was so fun to ring out the summer with our friends and a wonderful meal together.  Now its time to juggle new commitments and do our best to get together with our old friends, its always a balancing act, but I have faith in the friendships we have formed.

The Nutcracker - Videos

I took Holly to the Lesher Center in Walnut Creek to see The Nutcracker.  It was our second year in a row going with a group of friends who were able to get discount tickets through a home school group.  The show was amazing, and it is awesome how engaged and well behaved Holly was during the show.

It is a fun event  for all of the kids to dress up for and a beautiful place to take photos.  Before the performance we met for some lunch and then headed to the show.  We again got first row seats which is awesome.

Here are the various Video's I took from my phone of the performance of The Nutcracker that I took Holly too, some are short just a few seconds others are about a minute and a half.  Holly loved watching them and remembering the show. 

Holly's Twirl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cysNGjB3I1I

Coffee Dancers 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UubNdIjGwjI

Coffee Princess
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox3FMpp2294

Marzipan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbjcMgNNLTI

Dragon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ4Px60OuaY

Polichinelles
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYQpWLZdNQ0

Sugar Plum Fairy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K73fvS14T7g

Finale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=folB3VCD2FM

Finale 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xza9ZuGlT8

Citlali & Holly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ4kbPKVQLA

Afterwards we all posed for fun group shots.  Since we were in Walnut Creek, and that doesn't happen often we made arrangements to meet Kaylee and her Mom for Coffee, they too were going to the later performance of Nutcracker on the same day as us.  they girls had fun playing and dancing in there fancy dresses together.

A few nights later I was reading Holly the Nutcracker and remembered back to the performance.  Finally I realized the tie between "the land of the sweets" and the "international dancers" who preform for Clara - The dancers are: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, tea from China, candy canes from Russia; Danish Marzipan perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger and her Polichinelles (bon bon's from France) and a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz - with a finale from the Sugar Plum Fairy.  

Holly enjoyed reading the story and we talked about all the different Characters.  I look forward to making this a yearly tradition and looking back to how she grows and notices different things each year.