Happy Birthday Mama, in Video

Jayla and I made this video Friday evening after we got home. She had sung the song to me in the car after an in depth conversation about how good the birthday cake was going to be. And you'll notice that she is only slightly confused as to whether the Backyardigans theme song or the Happy Birthday song is more appropriate. The whole thing cracks me up. Enjoy!


Happy Birthday Mama on Vimeo.

02-23-1979

My birthday is on Saturday. I'll be 29. For some reason, that sounds just a little older than I think I should be. In my head, I'm not a day over 24 or something young like that. Several things, however, have happened in the past week or so that lead me to believe that maybe I am getting just a little bit older:

1. For my birthday, I'm going to someone else's birthday party. Only old people celebrate someone else's birthday on their own birthday.
2. My child said, "Mama is going to be 29".
3. Last week I had a conversation with my mom in which she went on and on about how LONG she'd been married and 30 years (in March) was such a long time...yada, yada...I explained to her that I have been with my parents all but 11 months of that time. She giggled and said, "I guess I'm calling you old, huh?" Yes, my mom called me old.
4. I had to renew my TX driver's license which, when I got it at age 22, I distinctly remember thinking that it would never expire because 2008 was SO FAR AWAY and I was going to be SO OLD by then (my new license expires in 2014 - on my 35th bithday - something tells me that'll go by faster than I think).
5. In Subway the other day, the guy making my pizza (I'm so excited that the Subway closest to my building on campus sells pizza!) looked at me like I was crazy when I was telling him all about how it doesn't seem like it's already been 10 years since Jared's massive weight loss. He actually said, "But that was like, what, 1998 or something?" Umm, yeah.

Anyway, I'm kind of excited about my birthday because Jayla and I have plans to buy a birthday cake and wear party hats! She's been talking about it for weeks...

Will Dance for Candy!

Ms. Crystal, Jayla's dance teacher, left a message on my cell phone the morning after last week's incident. I, of course, did not get the message until 5 days later but, the general gist was that she wanted to help if she could. She was wondering if something was scaring Jayla because she had gone from seemingly loving dance to absolutely wanting nothing to do with it. Ms. Crystal suggested an "incentive system" if I thought it would help. I, of course, was willing to try. And really this isn't totally about my own desires because it is also largely about my money that I have already invested in this.

Yesterday was dance day again for Jayla. I started working on her before school by simply giving her a run down of the schedule for the day. She is generally curious about whether she is going to school or church or wherever on any given day. So, yesterday morning I told her that she was going to school and then she was going to dance. I tried be very non-chalant, no big deal, "I didn't notice that tantrum last week" about mentioning dance.

Later in the morning, we were talking about dance again and I asked her if she was going to dance pretty? She replied, "No - I'm going to sit in the car!" with a big grin on her face. I ignored her comment and told her that she needed to dance and then we could come home and eat some more of her Valentine's candy. She said, "okay".

I got a little nervous once I picked her up from school, though, because in the car, she kept saying she wanted to go "to Jayla's house, not to dance". Again, I was still trying to play it cool and just told her that Ms. Crystal wanted to see her. I asked her if she wanted to see Ms. Crystal. She said that she did. So, I kept going with that and sparked an entire conversation about Ms. Crystal that got her mind off of talking about going home.

When we got to the dance studio, we were still talking about Ms. Crystal and Jayla cooperatively got out of the car, came into the studio, and waved cheerfully at anyone in her path. We got her clothes changed while singing a song that I made up (about bears not having to use the potty). Then she talked to Ms. Crystal who promised her a lollipop if she was a good girl.

Jayla was so excited to dance after that. And she did really, really well. She listened to the teacher, she participated fully, and it did my heart good. She seemed to enjoy it as much as she did back in the stoneage when she begged me to dance (November 2007). And don't think that the first thing she said after Ms. Crystal dismissed the class wasn't "Where's my candy?". I don't know if it was the candy or just the fickle nature of a 2.5-year-old but, whatever it was - we got over the first hurdle. Hopefully, we are on the road to enjoying dance classes again.

Lapped

The weather was irresistably beautiful today, so Jayla and I went out for a walk. We ended up stopping by some friends' house. These friends are the same age as my husband and I - except they have four children. A 13-year-old, a 12-year-old, an 11-year-old, and an 8-month old! And guess what - yep - she's pregnant again. Last year when we found out they were pregnant, we had run into them in Target and I just kept kidding with them about how close they were to being empty nesters and how they had reset all of their time by getting pregnant again. Well, with this fifth child, my husband said, "Well, they were way ahead of us, then started all over again and have now lapped us."

Happy Valentine's Day!!

We hope that you were also blessed today with an opportunity to spill juice down the front of your L-O-V-E shirt while wearing multi-colored, heart-covered pants!