I have this exact same picture of Christina from when she was 2. Some things never change.
Tag: christina
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August 19
We had planned on going to the pool this morning, but Robin’s body had other plans, so she asked to go roller skating instead. We were told she couldn’t skate along the wall and that slower skaters had to go in the middle of the floor. She was terrified and stood at the edge of the rink for almost 20 minutes in tears before she finally gathered the courage to give it a try. And she fucking did it. And the thing that melted my heart most of all is that her sister sat and waited with her without a single judging word until Robin was ready and then she held her hand while Robin made her way around the inner circle. They actually do love each other. I’m so proud of both of them.
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August 17
I took Robin to the doctor today and Robin told him she’d keep going to cheer, at least for now. My heart hurts for her. And I am just completely burned out. I am drowning in work and trying to keep the house afloat while Billy is at work and at football practice and at the gym. And I’m trying to keep up with church obligations and bills and returning texts and phone calls. I knit for an hour at night and read for 45 minutes in the morning and that’s all I get after pouring my heart into everything else. I have to cut back somewhere. I just don’t know where. Everything feels important. And I don’t know who can do it instead. But something’s going to break somewhere. I’ve got to decide what’s most important and put the rest to the side.
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August 14
Today was the first day of school. It seemed to go pretty well. No one came home miserable, at least. Robin had a panic attack at cheer. She is feeling enormous pressure to do well on her team, which is both in her head and not in her head. I’m trying to help her build up more self confidence so that she can feel the pressure as a form of encouragement rather than criticism. I don’t want her to give up what she loves because she doesn’t feel she’s good enough. Of course she’s good enough. Now to get her to believe it.
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August 13
Christina is both excited and nervous for the first day of school. Probably more nervous than excited. Worried about where she’ll go when she gets to her classroom, whether she’ll have any friends in her class, whether she’ll ever see Kiley again… I tried my best to ease her mind, but you know how anxiety is. At least we have table-top curling to take our minds off things. She was a little exuberant with her stones. This one went flying across the room.
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August 12
Robin’s friend came over for a sleepover, so I felt it was good to spend some extra time with Christina. We went out for ice cream and played table-top curling. That’s right, table-top curling. I spend so much time with Robin because she really needs the extra support, but I need to be better about spending time with Christina too. I think a Christina date is in order soon.
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August 10
Tonight was teacher meet and greets at the kids’ school and boy did the kids run straight for Ms. LaTanya. And boy did she not just stop everything she was doing to embrace them. I’m sure there are lots of great schools out there, but I doubt if any of them could ever feel as much a part of our family as this one. Christina’s best friend isn’t in her class this year (oh the DEVASTATION), but she was off the walls crazy excited nonetheless. Robin’s BFF is in her class, so yay for that! She feels better now that she’s seen all her classrooms and met all her teachers, all of whom seem incredibly nice. They’re both excited for school to start. We’ll see what happens by this time next week.
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August 2
Back to work today. I came back to an overwhelming backlog of work and really big looming deadlines. I don’t know if it’s possible to do all that has to be done without working a lot of extra hours. I’m so frustrated with what needs to be done and what is actually getting done. There is a big divide between those two things.
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July 29
I hemmed and hawed and fretted over whether to take out the SUP and use it at Lake Santeetlah. I haven’t used it much and I’m not confident with it, plus there were a lot of people swimming where I wanted to paddle. I was so self conscious. But I did it (no thanks to the kind gentleman who tried to help with his electric pump but instead of inflating it pressed down the air valve so that after I had finished hand pumping it and I disconnected the pump, all the air shot out of it), and we had a lot of fun paddling around the lake. Robin was a little scared to be out by herself, but Christina paddled all over the place for almost an hour and even stood up a couple times. She was even kind enough to give me a turn, which was nice of her. The kids were just thrilled they didn’t have to hike anywhere today. We also introduced them to disc golf, but oh my god it was way too hot and humid. Thank goodness Brett suggested disc golf first so that we could cool off at the lake afterwards. Robin really liked it. Maybe we’ll get a couple discs and play when we get home too.
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July 23
Here’s the end result of the bedroom door painting exercise. I didn’t love the idea of doing it in the first place, but the joy they got out of it made it worth it, and I love the creativity they put into it.
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July 17
My stress level is at a 9. I’m working through it all, but sometimes it just gets to me. I’m very tired.
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July 9
I had plans to do stuff today, but then somehow I ended up watching tennis, sewing and playing Harry Potter for the whole entire day, except for the 15 minutes I took to walk around the block with Christina, Jackson and Pinot. I really need to do better if I want vacation halo to last.
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July 6
Long drive today from New Haven to southern Virginia. We detoured around a lot of traffic and made it in about 9 hours, including stops. Going between the same two spots in the opposite direction took almost an hour more, NOT including stops, so I call this a win. I’m looking forward to being back home tomorrow, although for what it’s worth, I’d rather still be enjoying some natural beauty instead of Five Guys burgers. I’m not much looking forward to going back to my old routine, which, frankly, kind of sucks.
Year in Photos 