Thursday, July 7, 2022

England Trip 2022

Seeing Thellie was wonderful- it was sweet to see Lucy offer her a chocolate or ask if she wanted to sit with us for dinner. It was an unexpected exciting thing to find the clothesline- I did several loads of wash at thellie's and Ella and I would stretch out the line in the back garden in the breeze and clohespin all the things on it- it was like therapeutic.

On the flight home, there were no sick bags in the seat pockets. Every once in a while I need one, so I saved a pretzel bag in case it was needed. And boy was it needed. Lucy felt like she was about to throw up right when we landed, so I quickly handed it to her. It was like 4 or 5 rounds of sick. and it started to drip out the bag, so I quickly started holding it in my hands over the aisle- I felt like a supermom. Meanwhile, Ella starts crying profusely because she is so grossed out by the situation, immediately followed by patronizing exasperation, "I can't believe Lucy would throw up! That is so disgusting of her. Get it away!" 

The lady behind me offers gum. We take it. I offer one to Lucy- Ella is annoyed that I am even offering the mint gum to her sister because she thinks its for her! The flight attendant gives us a bag. Ella is offended that I didn't ask for a tissue because she was crying. 

Lucy finishes, smiles, smells her breath in her hand, and says, "not too bad."

the girls, and all of us loved the double decker buses. we rode on them in Norwich quite a bit, and took a open air double decker around London to tour it. It was embarrassingly touristy, but SUCH a good choice. our girls didn't complain about walking and we could see everything. 
These were the ancient ruins called Thetford Priory, it was a monastery hundreds of years ago. The girls climbed all over it and it was a nice break on our long drive from Norwich to London. I love ruins they are so ... romantic? like in a dreamy super old, mysterious, fantastical sort of way?
We rented this electric boat on the Wensom river in Norwich. it wasn't as cool as we had hoped. we wanted to sail by the city, but we didn't rent it long enough to sail all the way over there. instead we passed by a sewage outlet that was very stinky. and a lot of nice trees as well- but still underwhelming. 
Now that I home, I feel a bit anxious that whenever I try to teach important life lessons- ella always in annoyed by it. i guess that is fairly normal- but at only 8 years old?! i guess i expected it more from a teenager. 

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

Summer Time

 

I'm seeing the girls personalities more and more. Lucy had her dance performance about a month ago and she was just the sweetest- eager to to perform. Showing all sorts of spunk. And almost more endearingly, she was so supportive of the other dances. After her dance, she was sitting with me watching the others and she would hoot and holler for them! and then with private oo's and ahh's to me saying how beautiful they were. It makes me tear up just thinking about her confidence she must have in herself to be so in other's corners without being jealous.
Ella is so creative and cool. And practically seems a teenager to me, what with her choker necklaces and stylish outfits she picks herself and a bit of a too cool for school attitude at times. Plus she's both annoyingly independent - not trusting my friend advice or practically any of my advice - and a bit attached to me- not hardly wanting to spend a second apart from me at the pool for instance. Both sweet and tender and again- a hair annoying at times. Though i really shouldn't be annoyed at all- I should treasure it.

She also lost her tooth!! It was hanging on for dear life for a while- she could even turn it so the back of the tooth was facing forward while still stuck in!

At nights, after the sun goes down just a bit, we sit outside. look at this sunset! Its a tricky time though because its at about 8pm that the sun goes down enough for it not to be too hot in the front yard- and by that time I want the girls in bed, not outside playing, even though it seems a shame for them not to be because its so lovely in the summer night time. I should probably tell bed time to be damned because I won't get their childhood back. is that what I should say?
I showed the girls the movie Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan in it- the day or two after, I regretted showing them that because Ella would argue with me like a Lindsay Lohan teenager and it was a bit roll your eyes frustrating. But, it has also brought about this rock n roll phase. Lucy is using our rock band pretend guitar to do many a full out rock concert and she constantly throws up the rock n roll hand sign! haha its pretty fun. thankfully Lucy doesn't copy the 'arguing-with-your-mom' stuff the movie showed :)