Last night Moco was dancing around to Ke$ha’s “Tic Toc” on the iPod Touch, so I snapped a couple pictures of her posing in her cute new peace sign sunglasses. I thought they were cute pix of her 9-year-old attitude — but when I uploaded the pictures, I realized that you could see the lyrics on the iPod Touch (she finds karaoke type videos on YouTube so she can learn the words):
Mommy Photog Fail? Or just a Mommy Fail?
It’s well past bedtime on a Saturday night, Moco is sitting on the couch doing homework.
Mind you, the school year ended for her yesterday (Friday) at 9:30am.
She organized her own summer worksheets to include one of each kind of worksheet per day and in manageable chunks, sorted by day, and labeled with Post-it notes.
At this point, there shouldn’t be any doubt that she is my child.
Dear Tíos Gabi and Javi,
She didn’t learn this from me.
But you already knew that.
With love,
Your Big Sister
I feel really guilty that I write more “Why I Love Bubba” posts than I write “Why I Love Moco” posts.
Most of the posts I write about Bubba are because of the things he says and the funny things he does. That’s not to say that Moco doesn’t — because she does — but she’s older, and she gets embarrassed… and she can know how to read. She will tell me, “Please don’t write that on Moco and Bubba!”, and I respect her wishes… but then I never write them down anywhere, and then they’re lost from my memory forever as soon as the newest funny or cute thing happens.
If I had started blogging when Moco was younger, there would be plenty to write about — just like Bubba. Over the years, she has said and done a lot of funny things. Here are some of my favorites:
* She used to call the microwave the “beep-beep”.
* When she was crawling, she wouldn’t ever crawl from the living room (carpet) to the kitchen (wood) in our Marshalltown apartment. Instead, she would stop at the “border” between them and cry until someone picked her up and brought her into the kitchen or join her in the living room!
* She always named her dolls and stuffed animals after people she knows. For the longest time we had baby dolls named “Suzette” and “Theo” after my coworkers Suzette and her son Theo.
* She used to pretend that she had 5 imaginary puppy dogs. The first four always had rhyming names (but different every time you asked her) and the fifth was always Cinderella. For example: Pinky, Winky, Stinky, Binky and Cinderella. Or Kimmy, Limmy, Mimmy, Simmy, and Cinderella!
* Her artwork has always been very detailed. Her teachers have always commented on the level of detail she includes — in a birthday party scene, she would include mice eating crumbs under the table, or a stain on someone’s dress. She has created so many scenes on paper in the past, and there are always stories behind the pictures she draws — stories that are often more detailed than the pictures. We have containers full of her artwork over the years!
* Before she learned to crawl, when she would just sit on the floor in one spot to play, she would “pinch” imaginary items from the floor with her little forefinger and thumb to put in your hand or put in plastic stacking cups. Her imagination was incredible, even at 6 or 7 months old.
* In preschool, Moco attempted to pee standing up like her friend Steven. It didn’t work very well, and her teacher was not very happy, but she never attempted to do it again.
* One of her first sentences as a one-year-old was “Swiper, no swiping!”
* My all time favorite is when she was not even 2 1/2 years old. We had just moved into Watterson Towers, and our apartment faced the Amtrak station — and several trains passed through every day. (When you live there, you get used to the train horns… but when you first move in, it’s SO ANNOYING!) Moco would sit on the heat convector (which was basically like a metal window seat) in front of the living room window and watch the trains go by. Daddy and I were watching TV, and as a train slowed into the station, we heard Moco gasp and say, “That’s a big f*cking train!” Daddy and I looked at each other and both mouthed, “Did she just say what I think she said?” She had never said it before, and has never said it since… but it makes for the best Moco-ism ever!
This is not to say that I can only blog about the funny things that my kids say and I do, because I don’t. This blog is about their adventures — the things they do and experience — and the adventures of R and I as their parents. I try to share the fun and the exciting happenings in our lives and keep the other not-so-fun “stuff” off here. I want it to reflect the good times we have had as individuals and as a family. Sometimes it’s hard to accurately capture every day life with Moco and Bubba… I mean, really, our lives are pretty routine and boring except for the highlights in each day as captured here on this blog.
Sometimes it’s hard to capture daily life with Moco and Bubba, but especially Moco. She is a very good kid — quiet and a perfectionist — but she has a stubborn, tough, mean and vindictive side that most people never see. (I think she saves it all for home, honestly!) She is very smart but often doubts her abilities. She bottles things up inside, usually until it all comes out through tears. She doesn’t like to rush around. She prefers to arrive early or on time to practices and games — she doesn’t like arriving in the middle of something. At the same time, she likes to just do things at her own pace, and in her own way. She loses track of time easily, especially when she’s doing things she loves — especially reading or arts and crafts. She likes to put her own stamp on everything she does. She is, in many ways, a carbon copy of me.
I should start capturing more of Moco through pictures or scanned images of her artwork and her writing. That might capture her world even better than through stories that I write. She has an incredible imagination and a gift of rhetoric for a third grader. Her writing is pretty incredible, although never finished! When I think of Moco, I think of her messy room, her projects, her collections… the random items I find in her backpack or pants pockets… her seriousness and focus when she tunes out the rest of the world to do a project… the tender expression when she’s comforting her brother, or the frustration when she’s trying to teach him something new. Her world is so very different from Bubba’s, and I don’t think I can accurately capture it in the same way on this blog. Nor should I.
So… I will do my best to start capturing the world in the Ojo de Moco — through her eyes and her words, or through images. I will encourage her to write and share on here, and this will give me the incentive to continue to capture the images that I want seared in my brain — the little parts that might get missed if you aren’t paying attention… the ones that tell a story that’s often more detailed than what you see in the picture. The stories of why I love my Moco.
This past weekend Moco created a “laptop” for Bubba from a folded piece of cardboard. It has Bubba’s “profile” per “grayson.com” on it with some of his favorites:
Food: corn
Pet: dog
Song: Bubbley [Bubbly by Colbie Caillat]
Movie: Elf
Color: green
Person: Memphis (I love you) [I wonder who wrote this...]
Show: Caulliou [Caillou on PBS Kids]
I love her creativity! And Bubba loves his laptop! :)
Today Moco started the third grade at a new school. We have known for quite a while that she would be at a new school, even before we bought our house. (If we had stayed in our apartment complex, she would have been at a new school because of redistricting.) While we have met a few kids in the neighborhood, she really doesn’t know anyone yet. She has been nervous about changing schools, and with every new detail (which school, teacher, school supplies list), she got a little more anxious.
On registration day, I found out that the school secretary is the mom of one of Daddy’s football players. She found us at the football scrimmage this weekend to introduce herself to Moco and to welcome her to the school. This made it a little easier — to have a familiar adult face, who knows a little more about her already.
Daddy did the first day drop-off this morning, and I had to anxiously wait all to chat with her about her first day, about her teacher, her friends, her classroom…
In the meantime, I received an email that I knew would make Moco feel better, in the event that she didn’t have a great first day of school. Her soccer coach (a friend’s dad) emailed with the roster and practice and game schedules. She is on the same team with her friends Hallie, Jade, and Kyra from her old school! (We just moved to another part of town, so it’s not like we’ll never see these girls again, but it feels like it when you’re eight and don’t see them every day at school!) Additionally, Hallie’s mom and I are the troop leaders for Moco’s Brownies troop, so we already knew that Moco would get to see those girls at least once a month at meetings. We opted to keep our troop together, and we now represent four different elementary schools in town. Between soccer and Gir Scouts, Moco will still get to see her “old” friends regularly!
When I picked up Moco tonight, she told me that she had a great first day, and that her new school is “better” than the last school. She couldn’t explain why, but the sparkle in her eyes told me that this is going to be a good year. I can breathe a little easier, knowing that she is more relaxed and excited about school. She couldn’t wait to show me her take home binder and assignment notebook, and with a giggle, she reminded me that we forgot to pack pink erasers in her supplies box. She is perhaps most excited about the fact that her teacher said they can bring a snack each day (but it has to be a fruit or vegetable!) and bring a water bottle. Prioritizing healthy habits = extra points for the teacher!
Tonight, without prompting Moco packed her pink erasers and her lunch and laid out her clothes for tomorrow. I can tell she is excited about this new chapter in our lives, and if she’s happy, we’re happy!
In a few years, Moco isn’t going to want me to do this, so I have to take advantage of this opportunity.
I am often told that Moco looks just like me, although I personally think both kids look like their dad. I put together some pictures for comparison, and I’ll let you be the judge…
First we have the innocent, open-mouthed toddler smile pictures:
Then we have the mother-and-daughter ski-goggles-and-pigtails shot:
Gives you an idea that there are some similarities, right?
But to really compare, it’s probably most appropriate to do the side-by-side school pictures to date.
For our kindergarten pictures, we both wore pink long-sleeved outfits with pink hair accessories. Moco apparently had fewer teeth than I did at age 5. I remember Gamma the Perfect Hair Tyrant being less than thrilled at the state of my hair ribbon and the facial bug bites when my pictures returned. Moco, on the other hand, is looking prim and proper and all kinds of princess-y. She meets Gamma’s standard of nicely combed hair:
Moco and I both had hair down to our butts in early elementary school. However, she asked to cut her hair halfway through kindergarten to donate to Locks of Love. I asked for a haircut between first and second grade because I was sick of The Hair Tyrant insisting on combing/clipping/braiding my hair all the time.
In any event, both of us have respectable looking hair the next year. Her mismatched headband, while a great idea to her at the time, results in a “what was I thinking?” eye roll from the third grade Moco. Rookie mistake, kid. Sometimes we learn the hard way. In any event, we are both rocking the small blue floral prints and slightly crooked smiles for our first grade pictures:
For the second grade shots, our hair is about the same length. Collars apparently were a “must” for both of us on picture day, although I look like a pilgrim compared to her cute and preppy polo-and-sweater-vest combination. Here we get another glimpse of the Perfect Hair Tyrant’s work with the yet-again clipped back (and shorter!) hair for the second grade me. The grown-up me takes a more relaxed approach in parenting on school picture days, thus the “hasn’t-seen-a-hairbrush-in-weeks” look for Moco. (Okay, really, it’s the “What? Today was Picture Day?!” style of parenting, which resulted in the currently most-hated school picture for Moco.)
Perhaps I should show her my seventh grade picture to make her feel better, as this might be FOR REAL most hated school picture around. If the 12-year-old me could fast forward 19 years to see my four-year-old son doubled over in laughter and snorting “YOU LOOK LIKE A BOY!”, I probably would have thought twice about the stylish-at-the-time hair do (which surely required half a can of hairspray and a curling iron) and split-collar mock turtleneck with shoulder pads and the awkwardly self-conscious brace-faced slump:
Seriously, where was The Perfect Hair Tyrant when I was in seventh grade? Why wasn’t she following me around with her spray bottle, brush and comb, and handful of hair clips, hair ties, and hair ribbons?!?!
While you all recover from the horror, I’ll wrap up this series on a high note — soccer pictures. Not an exact age matchup, but both a little windblown with hands on hips. Moco is standing on a Central Illinois soccer field surrounded by cornfields and a global insurance company. I’m standing on a Northern New Mexico soccer field surrounded by mountains and a national scientific laboratory.
If her cute self is a reflection of me, then by all means, bring on the “she looks like you!” comments.
However, my poor girl is probably cringing at the thought of seventh grade and hoping that she never, ever looks like me…
Today I took Moco, Abby and Keely to lunch at Potbelly’s and then to the local cosmetology college for manicures and pedicures. It was spur of the moment decision, but I’m glad we did it! Yesterday was Abby’s 9th birthday, and Moco only has today and tomorrow left hanging out with them at Sherry’s before she and Bubba head to NM. Definitely a fun couple hours with the self-proclaimed “Queens of New Jersey”!
If you’re hungry for breakfast in la Casa de Moco y Bubba, please be aware of what is and what is NOT available for consumption:
Scene: In the middle of the bedtime routine (potty, pajamas, brush teeth, pick bedtime story)
Moco: Mooooom, where are the Q-tips?
Mommy (preoccupied with who-knows-what): On the kitchen counter!
A minute passes; Mommy is still not fully paying attention to the racket behind her.
Moco: Hey, Mom! Look!
(Insert walrus-nosed children pictures, such as those below, here.)
With kids like Moco and Bubba, I should probably know by now that when the question “Where are the Q-tips?” is asked, the appropriate response is “Why? What are you going to do with them?” rather than divulging an exact location, as the intent is probably NOT for beauty care, baby care, crafts and/or household tasks.
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