Hedging Our Bets

We have not had any real conversation about Santa Claus. Do we think Meghan suspects. Yes and I am sure that she is trying to make sure that she does not get "short changed". Realizing that she was probably not going to want to do the Santa thing, I did not push about going to see Santa this year.

While we were at the mall on Friday, Meghan asked when we would take her to see Santa. I shocked that she wanted to go. I promised to take her the next day that I opened. Well that Monday. As soon as I was off, we left for the mall. Even that close to Christmas, there was a line. We waited in line close to 30 minutes. We get up to the point were we are next in line and Meghan says she does not want go right now - she wants to come back later. It turns out that the photographer had brought her daughter who happens to be in Meghan's lyrical dance class. This class is the class with the girls that are Meghan's age and a little bit older (a year or so). Once Meghan realized that we were serious that we were not going to come back, she looks me and says she still wants to go see him but she is going to tell the girl from dance class that I made her do it. It took a few tries to get an ok picture but we did manage to get one.

Meghan did prove to be somewhat uncooperative with the taking of a picture. So the girl's mother was making Rudolph talk to me and walk up my arm. By the time we left, I am sure that the girl will not even mention seeing Meghan because I am sure that she was equally embarrassed.

Hope you enjoy the photo.

Meghan's Solo Away in a Manger

Meghan had the first of her school concerts today. They played carols for the school as they left for the day.

New Picture of Meghan

Both pics taken today in the car

while we out running errands.

Meghan's school solo

FINALLY - the long awaited video of Meghan's solo in her school concert.

This was only the third time that she played with the piano accompaniment. Due to the fires that we had the week before she and the music teacher missed rehearsing together as much as was planned. She is performing Angel of Music from Andrew Loyd Weber's Phantom of the Opera.

Meghan and the Air Show

Those of you that know or have been around Alan understand that he really likes airplanes; and therefore he enjoys going to air shows. We went to the one in Titusville on Saturday. This was Meghan's first Air show. To say she was less than in impressed might be an understatement.
She did like the part where she got to get inside some of the planes but the rest of it simply bored her to tears. Another words for her after the port-a-potty experience it went downhill from there. We believe she got about a 2 hour nap during the air show.

Port-a-Potty

We went to the an air show in Titusville Saturday. Meghan gained her first experience with a port-a-potty while we were there. To say she did not like it is an understatement. She found it to be horrible. Of course, now maybe she will understand I encourage her to use the restroom before we go somewhere.

Last Holiday Concert

Originally posted on my AOL Journal 12/13/2007.


Tonight was the last of Meghan's holiday concerts. This was the 7th performance that she has had since Dec 6th. The last four performances, including tonight's, were sing alongs so the strings group did not get to perform that much; however, we still enjoyed getting to see Meghan perform the few songs that they did play for the concert.
Now that we have the proper cord to feed video into my laptop, we purchased Alan a tripod so that he can become the true cinematographer that we all know he was born to be. This means that in addition to having to play the proud parent, he must also play the on site cinematogher. I have been busy trying to get as many of the videos fed into the computer possible before I go back to work on Monday. (Work - oh what joy) The video's take a while if they have any length to them to load into the computer. I usually start it and return later. The creation of the DVD is slightly faster but not much. One day we will begin mailing out Meghan's various performances. Sorry to those of you that get copies, biut we think she is great.
Saturday, she will perform at one of the retirement communities in the area with her tap class. They will be dancing to "Who Let the Dogs Out". Definitely not your "grandma's" tap class or tap routinue. This will be the last of her performances until spring I think.

Winning and the Optimism of Youth

Originally posted 11/26/07 on my aol journal

When you go somewhere and see the machines that try to lure you in to placing your money in them to win something like me you probably are thinking yeah right they are rigged to only put out so much. Like me you see drawings and while you might enter, you know that you will never win. All these little games of chance the we see are stacked against us because as adults we know that nothing in life is free. Hard work and perseverance are the things that matter and truly provide reward. As responsible parents we try to teach our children this "fundamental" truth.
The optimism of youth is a marvelous thing to watch in action as those of you with children understand. On Friday we took Meghan out shopping (yes on Black Friday) as this is probably one of the few times that we will be able to go since I picked such a great time to be on medical disability. One of the stores we went to had an opportunity for you to register to win a Webkin. These animals/toys are a pretty hot item with the kids around here. I managed to keep Meghan unaware of them more or less until I arranged for her to have a play date with a friend while I was in the hospital. Meghan's friend has ten of them, and Meghan wants one now (there are two on her Christmas list). Meghan registered in the drawing and then spent the weekend talking about which one she would pick when she won. The responsible parent that I am kept trying to explain to her that just because she entered did not mean she would win. I really wanted to keep disappointment to minimum. The entire time I am trying to keep her from getting her hopes too high she is positive that she will win.
To my great surprise, this morning I received a call from the store that she had indeed been the winner of the drawing and could come by and pick out Webkin anytime between now and Dec 1st. When I tell her, she will look at me and tell me that she knew she would.
This brings to mind other events of the past when Meghan has been positive of the outcome while I have attempted to keep her from getting too excited in order to minimize the hurt later. The Publix coloring contest when she was in preschool was another big one. Meghan began planning what she would do with her prizes, and again I was cautioning her that while I thought her picture was fantastic, there were many other entries besides her beautiful picture. Another example that Meghan apparently knew something I did not because she won!!
Then there was the crane machine at Denny's a couple of years back. Meghan really wanted a gray cat that was in the machine so against my better judgement, I put fifty cents in and tried to win the animal for her. Well of course I did not win it. Meghan was very disappointed and was telling me how I should have done it. Being more than a little frustrated, I gave her 50 cents and told her if she knew so much then she could try to get it. Darned if she did not win the gray cat out of the machine.
I guess I should be the one taking a lesson away from all this; however, I still look at all this and think the odds are stacked against us. How do we end up losing that optimism as adults. When do we stop dreaming of the possibilities and start thinking of only the improbabilities? We lose so much magic when we stop dreaming of the possibilities.

Science Projects

Originally posted on the AOL journal 11/25/07.

We are only a few weeks from Meghan's first science project being due. Really at third grade who do they think is going to actually be doing the project? The packet they send home says the parent is only suppose to provide guidance but not do the project. PLEASE - be realistic. Anyway, the nails have been soaking in the assigned liquid for several weeks. We are taking the final measurements and are getting ready to finalize the board. I will be typing all procedures, research, data, and findings over the next few days. Good thing I am currently on short term disability from work. I suoppose this is my punishment that I never had to do science projects:) Meghan will have oine due each year from now through sixth grade. We will start planning next years this summer.

Tags: science projects, school, Meghan

Running Man

Meghan's dance classes are gearing up for their push to be recitial ready by June 7TH. All three dance classes have finished putting the routinue together but will spend the rest of the time cleaning up the routinue. All the routinues are very cute. However, her hip hop class has added "running man" to their number. It is absolutley the funniest thing to see these girls, age 6-9 trying to learn how to do it. The funniest thing is listening to the moms like me who grew up with this admitting we cannot help our daughters learn the move. Thanks to my 9 years of cheerleading, I am able to help her learn a lot of the things from hip hop/jazz class, but I never did master running man myself. I was able to help her do the pinwheel, but not this. Since I was the only one that showed up for the adult dance class on Thursday night the young lady leading the class helped Meghan with running man which was awesome.

At her dance class this past week she received her dance costumes for the recitial. They tried them one and went through their routinues in them. The cutest was the tap costume. I cannot locate a web site that has a picture of the tap costume; however, if you go to http://curtaincallcostumes.com/, you can see a picture of the ballet and hip hop costumes. When you go to the website, enter as visitor/student and view ballet under the kids heading and locate the Sophia tutu. This is Alan's favorite of the ballet costumes. To find the hip hop costume, you will follow the same process except choose hip hop instead of ballet anf the name of the costume is Power Pop. These are all cute but the tap is my favorite.