Lyssa Castellanos and the Great Impromptu Pool Party and how it made me a better mom

Last January, I got a text from one of the moms in my posse. It read: Henry told me that Annabelle is having a pet show at her house on Saturday. That she is passing out a sign up sheet and is having a meeting for decorations and that he needs to be at your house on Saturday morning at 9 to help set up. Just thought you should know.

Yeah thanks, because I did not know.

And it made me chuckle because it reminded me of my family's favorite Lyssa Castellanos Story, a story that 30 plus years later still makes us laugh. And it goes like this:

My parents get a call one Saturday. It is Lyssa. She is about 7. She says that her family is having a pool party and that we are invited. For some reason, my mom decides to call Magda to see what time and what to bring. Turns out, Madga did not know, but told us to come at 6 and to bring chips. We did, and so did everyone else she invited and it was an awesome party.

As a kid, I went to the party and had fun. As an adult child, I thought this was funny. I though--that's Lyssa, always so social, always the life of the party. But as a parent I think of this story in a different way. Here was a child who was confident. Here was a child who was comfortable enough with her family and her place in her family, that she felt she could invite people over to her house. She didn't need to ask. Of course it would be ok. Here were parents who knew their child and valued their child for who she was and decided to throw a party.

For who she was.

So with this as our guide, we decided to go for it. They made signs, we bought trophies, there was a set up meeting and then-- the pet show. Goldfish and animal crackers were served. We had a few dogs, a hermit crab, a beta fish, and one kid who brought an oragami eagle. Henry was the emcee and judge and it was clear to everyone that he is the next Chris Marrou. There was a parade of pets and everyone had to introduce their own pet and tell fun facts about it.

The decision was easy. It took me about one second to text back, yes come on Saturday at three. And I thought of Lyssa and her family. I thought how social Annabelle is, and, not to brag, but I gave ourselves parent attaboys for this.

What a joy childhood is, to live it and relive it. Through the prism of memory and through magic of your daughter's eyes.

Minor concerns, irritations and triumphs

1. I feel that I may have lost my mosquito immunity. And in houston, that could be devastating. You see, I am. Someone who can be outside, especially if I am outside with hyphen or Tallulah and not get one bite. You read that right, I am not above using my toddler daughter as bait. They land on me and fly away. But then last Saturday I was bitten and have been continuously ever since. I am deet-ly troubled over this.

2. We have an insanely busy day on Saturday, which includes, but is not limited to celebrating my friend's 40th birthday at some dreadful 80s club where grown up people decide to wear fishnet gloves and midriff t shirts that say Frankie says relax on them. Our friends are excited about this and to me this means I need new friends. Because at 930 I want to be in bed or watching outlander on the starz network with a glass of wine. My mother has accused me of being boring. That's fine. I will own that. I just won't own a big neon bow on my teased out hair. Grrr...

3 we just came back from Annabelle's open house where we got to know her teacher a little more. She is amazing. We really lucked out in getting her. She gave us homework. To write am essay about our daughter. Each of us has to do it. Hieu has to write something. Cue run on sentences and prepositional phrases. For him. For me the use of the word "and" to start a sentence and typos. But you knew that already.... Elipses...

Mi gente

Today at church, when they asked if there were any guests or visitors, I noticed a lady waving like she a local celebrity in parade and I chuckled about it. After mass, Father Clint invited us all over to the West hall for a BBQ sandwich and fellowship. Free lunch after church? Hells yeah!

So when we went to the hall, I got my family their sandwiches and then I saw the lady and I went over to say hi. And as soon as I saw her smile, and heard her accent, I knew she was from San Antonio. She was turning 94 on August 27 and was so happy to be in Houston and with her family. Happy to be alive, happy to be a child of the God of love.

So I introduced her to the other San Antonian ex pat who is turning 40 on August 27th. And there we were, three San Antonians who somehow managed to find each other in the crowd after mass.

If you were to ask me to describe my hometown, I would say that San Antonio is a place where if you are standing in line for the port-o-potty at the battle of flowers parade, someone will say "here, mija," and give you toilet paper.

I think it was Dan Cook that said if you lived in San Antonio for 6 months, you would never leave, but somehow, for some reason, that I can't really remember any more, we did.

You get to love Houston, you really do. It's green, it's beautiful and there is so much to do and see and eat. You get to know and love your neighborhood and your friends, and some days, it even feels like a small town. But you have these moments, when things are very clear, when you see what you are missing, and it is more than a raspa in front of the Alamo on a hot day--it is the spirit, the heart, el corazon. It is almost ineffable.

Almost.

It is the people, mi gente, that make it a place you never leave.

Scrapbook of a meal and a sewing project, and a friend and summer desserts

What Tallulah thinks of a dinner of broiled salmon, Carmelized zucchini, and wild rice with kale, with our customary glass of water to drink.....

"The only thing I like about this dinner is the water."


Tallulah on sewing:
Mom: Annabelle come here. I need your help. I am confused about what the lining is (Annabelle and my mom are working on Barbie sleeping bags for her first sleepover this upcoming Friday). Aren't we confused Tallulah?

Tallulah ( quietly cutting a piece of scrap fabric). Yes. Well, you guys are confused, I'm not.

Tallulah's new friend Penelope:

"Where is my friend. You know, pinnochio?"

Tallulah on frozen treats:

"Can I have a popsy-ble?"

Three and a half is a delightful age.

If I could only choose one picture to tell how much fun we had yesterday....

It would be this one

The following is a true story, although I wish it wasn't....

Yesterday, I got in the car and I needed to get my spare house keys out to get into the house. And they weren't there. And they are always there. And since some one recently broke into my car, and since I had them the day before, and since my car was open for a long stretch of time when I was unloading everything from our all day pool trip, and since I suffer from an occasional case of what I consider to be healthy paranoia, I had a vision of the girls being kidnapped and sold into white slavery as I slept, so I decided to change the locks. I called my neighbor to do it, he came over, took them off, I dashed to lowes to get new ones, but before I did, I let the chickens out.

I tried to be super cool about it to Annabelle, but the house was open and I was envisioning it being raided as we tried to find the right locks. Annabelle said, " why are we hurrying, mama?" So we can go home and have fun.

Yeah, right. If fun involves my neighbor trying to change the locks while almost being eaten by my lab, who turns into an attack dog when she is around someone she doesn't know, that is what we had. So I let the dog out.

The thing is, the dog turns into a chicken eating shark when the chickens are out and I realized that about 2 minutes after she had been out. So I ran to get her, but it was too late, one chicken was dead and in the dog's hiding place, the rest were hiding in the coop.

I put the dog inside, and am feeling absolutely horrible when my other neighbor stopped by. She brought me a Starbucks and her daughter and son ran upstairs to play with Annabelle.

So to recap, inside I have a crazed chicken eating barking dog who is trying to eat one neighbor who is fixing my locks. My fairy godmother neighbor whose house is always clean and whose life is always perfect who has stopped for a visit and three kids upstairs. (T was mercifully at school) and a dead chicken in the yard. And this was the time when the little girls decided to crack open the science kit and make potions, and not read the instructions, because one, they can't and two, if they could they would have seen that the toy required "adult supervision." I hear "mom, it's overflowing!!!" I run upstairs to find that test tubes are over flowing with purple foamy water and a very bad
smell.

And I feel like I might be raped murdered by a possible bmv person.

This was the time I felt I should tell h everything that was going on. Calf rope. I was done.

Now text or call? How about both? During lunch. His busy time.

Awesome. Day.

Where kinder left us, kick off to the summer of fun 2014

We just finished our first week of summer. We went to the beach. We went to the art museum. We stayed home. We did things around the house. We decompressed.

Kindergarten had left our entire house exhausted. Especially it's victim. I sent them in the beginning of the year, a happy go lucky child, excited about school, and along about December, I stated to get complaints about going to school, by the second to the last say she was screaming," I can't go, not even one more day! ". Part of this, was probably my fault. She was in a lot of extra stuff this spring, but in my defense, the extra stuff is so much more fun than learning fractions, nouns and verbs and synonyms. Every night we were encouraged but not required to read an ar book, do I-station and dreambox, practice our spelling words, work on math facts, and do our homework. Things I didn't learn about in kindergarten and a workload I didn't have until high school. Now ask me if she can add? No, not really, but that didn't stop them. I don't really blame her teacher, I think it is just the culture of the school, which is well regarded in Houston. We are not zoned to it, but it is a school for gifted and talented kids, and i nought she would do better there than the Montessori magnet by out house. I think on the whole, she thrived there, she didn't really care about what they were learning. She could keep up just fine and she loved her teacher and her friends.

But by the end of the year her tantrums outnumbered her little sister's. I think h summed it up best when he said, "she has gone to twice as much school as we did at this age, but she is at the same maturity level we were." And it it crazy. They talk about the "race to nowhere" but clearly, they want us to go somewhere. And then there are all the parties and field day and teacher appreciation and recitals and then to top it offTallulah crashed into the coffee table and we had ER drama.

We were all just done.

So now we are doing our fun things. And a thing she complains about but is freakishly good at (swim team).

We will have more beach trips

We are looking forward to visiting our aunt in michigan.

And we are going to chill. I explained to her what camps are--which is what upper middlish people do to their kids in the summer, all in the name of enrichment. "No mama, I just want to be with you every day."

Yes, I am that lucky.

No bucket list to check off this year. We are just going to enjoy every day.