1st Day of 1st Grade

 Is it really possible that our baby is in 1st grade? Yes, she acts more like a teenager or even more like a little mother, but it is still hard to grasp her being such a big girl. She still loves to be carried even though it is getting more and more difficult but I will cherish it and try to do it for as long as she will let me. I know the days are coming fast that she will be embarrassed of me. (Chris is in major denial of this fact) Right now we have a sweet girl who loves to hold our hand and sometimes reaches down and kisses our hand or says I love you out of the blue. She is so compassionate about others and has a very positive attitude. We are getting in a groove with our early school mornings and do not fight near as much about hair and clothes - though I know that will return.

(She has just climbed in my lap to be tickled as I write this and is now reading what I write over my shoulder. This newest ability to read anything and everything has it's major drawbacks when she reads all my text messages and e-mails on my phone and learns of things she does not need to know.)

She was very excited to start the year as she had experienced such an amazing year with Mrs. Shmidl. She had missed her friends over the Summer and was ready to be the big girl compared to the kindergarteners. I was much less nervous this year as well. I loved that we said hello to probably 10 moms and kiddos on the way in the first day and that she navigated the school and the schedule with ease. We had missed Meet the Teacher night due to our trip to SPI but we were pleasantly surprised to have Mrs. Woodland as her new teacher. She has a 23 year old son in the army and a 13 year old daughter who is obsessed with dance and volleyball and loves to share stories about them. Similar to Mimi she has taught for many years and loves this age of kiddos. Mrs. Shmidl had set the bar extremely high as Ash had idolized her but so far - 2.5 months in, Ash has had zero complaints about Mrs. Woodland. Thankfully, so far, we have been blessed with teachers that love kiddos and love to teach! I will continue to pray she has this experience in her life. It has also been fun for Ash to come home and talk to Mimi about her school day as she is finally in the grade that Mimi teaches and to Ash this is a HUGE deal. She loves to read to Mimi more than me - mostly to show off and asks nightly to help her grade the papers of her students. Overall, 1st grade is going well. She does complain that there is more work in 1st grade (mostly math) but her 1st report card was awesome and so far she seems to breeze through everything and is reading at the level where kids are supposed to read at the end of the year. During the parent/teacher conference Mrs. Woodland told me she loves being around Ash as she is a big helper and that she is doing great!  I try to volunteer at the school when I can and stay involved with her activities but mostly the best feeling is picking her up everyday and asking about her day and she always says it was great. Here's to a fabulous rest of the year!

CHEERLEADER!!!

When I was growing up, I made a point to make fun of Cheerleaders. Allie and I would pull our hair on top of our heads with enormous bows and say "I'm a Cheerleader!" Truthfully, I didn't like cheerleaders because I was probably jealous -  I am built like Gumby, have zero coordination, ability to jump, I am not tiny, etc - the odds are just really stacked against me. I tried out to be a cheerleader in junior high and my mother still makes fun of me. She tries to emulate my herkie jumps. Yes, Mimi may look like a sweet 1st grade teacher but she is very honest about her children's abilities - she has no problem telling me what I am not good at and cheerleading was at the top - this is why I love her, she didn't pump me up to believe I could make it only to watch me fail - she told me to try out if I wanted to but reminded me that I was smart and National Junior Honor Society might be more my "thing".  Kind of a "Bless Your Heart" moment - where the truth isn't always pretty. This is also why I love shows like "The Middle" - parents that make fun of their children - they love them but they do not believe they are perfect or infallible. This is how I try to raise Ash.

So all this is leading up to the fact that I purposely put Ash in dance, gym, soccer and cheer so that she has the opportunity to try it out as I always felt that I started sports way too late - always behind the game with these long lanky limbs. I want her to try it all out and then well, I kinda expect her to be the nerd that I was and love reading and the social scene but not be "sporty". So she has taken classes in dance, gym, soccer and most recently, cheerleading. She enjoyed each but mostly it was going to practice and forgetting about it the rest of the week. However when cheerleading came along, she was hooked! It has only been 2 months since we started but this child now eats, sleeps and breaths cheerleading. Partly this is due to the fact that her team consists of two of her best friends (but so did gymnastics) and the coach is her friend's mother but it is something more - she is actually good at it. She learns each cheer extremely quickly and takes it very seriously. She practices all the time. She is actually learning the jumps too! What I have to remember is that Ash is not me - she is tiny for her age and her skills will be different than mine. She is quite the individual and I am so very proud of her! (Though I do believe she also does it because she loves the spotlight and the boys - that part is similar to her ol Mom)

Enjoy the pictures from our 1st season! I have a strong feeling we will have a 2nd season!

Giving Tiger Paw High-Fives

Good Game Boys

Practicing

Looks like I may have a new name and opinion on cheerleaders ;)