This is Cleo and Sidney at 3 and 5. My little squishy cuties. I say that to them sometimes and when Sidney is being affectionate to Cleo, he touches her cheeks and says, "Oh my little squishy, I love you," just like I say to him. Cleo and Sidney also love doing the Maori warrior greeting which is touching your forehead and nose simultaneously to someone else in order to indicate that you come in peace (or something like that). I saw Prince William doing it to a Maori fellow during Prince William and Princess Kate's visit to New Zealand.
Look at those cheeks!
Little cuties making Halloween cookies.
Enjoying some fruity snacks on the porch before we started planting something or playing hopscotch.
Cleo and Sidney are doing great. They're both doing well in school. Sidney was accepted into a really good charter school, Wesley International Academy, in Grant Park which is the area of Atlanta that Roger and I lived in when we first moved to Atlanta. Wesley goes kindergarten through 8th grade. Cleo did not get in but we are trying very hard to get her in. Kamau Bobb, he graduated from Midwood with Gabriel, lives here in Atlanta. He's on the board of directors for the school. His daughter used to attend Wesley. We see Kamau at Adamsville Recreation Center where our kids swim and his daughter swims. It's been nice reconnecting with someone from NYC. We are due to visit him and his family one Saturday this Spring, we just need to find a mutually convenient date.
Both Cleo and Sidney are still taking swimming lessons. Cleo is really enjoying her dance lessons and Sidney's ambivalent view toward karate has thawed. He actually seems to like it now.
We are starting to spend more time outside which is nice. They both like to go to the backyard and kick balls around. We spend around 5 minutes kicking balls, then we spend 20 minutes hunting for ladybugs. Cleo likes to let them crawl on her hand. Sidney likes to find a stick and hit our trees or poke around in the dirt. When it's nice on the weekend and we are home, I try to take them outside. One time we saw a chubby white bunny. It was nibbling away at the greenery on the slope in our backyard. We must have watched him for 15 minutes. When I saw him I said, "Look at the cute, fat bunny." Cleo said, "Mommy! It's not nice to call him fat! You will hurt his feelings." I explained that the bunny does not mind being called fat, it is people who mind being called fat.
Last year, we didn't plan anything for the kids' summer. We were so shell shocked in April and May worrying about Cleo's surgery scheduled for May 31. Mind you, we were freaked out about the minor surgery where they ran a catheter up her femoral artery to place a patch over what we thought was only one hole. I often shake my head or laugh at my pre-May 31 self in a tragicomic sort of way. If I could have known that I would have so much more to worry about after May 31, I wish I could go back in time and tell my pre-May 31 self to just chill out! But, I don't want to sound crazy or sad in what is supposed to be my lighthearted blog about Cleo and Sidney's adventurous, happy lives.
Ah, I digress. So, last Spring, we didn't have the mental space to make summer camp plans for them - and for a lot of places you need to commit to a slot on March. The camp at Kids R Kids is adequate but they're not stimulated there. It's like a safe place to store your kids during the summer.
This year, we switched things up and were very organized. Yay, us! For some weeks they will attend arts (including drama) camp at Southwest Arts Center. For two weeks, Cleo will attend Xanadu, a gifted kids camp run by the Atlanta Public School system. (One of the weeks that Cleo is at Xanadu Sidney will be at Kids R Kids and the other week he will be at Southwest Arts Center.) We have heard good things about Xanadu. For all of July, they will attend Camp Cascade. It's a truly hidden gem in Atlanta. Roger and I took a tour. I fell in love with it. The camp is held in a state of the art building around 10 miles from us that looks like a modern, performing arts facility. There's a great indoor pool, huge yard that is more like a meadow, garden, computer center, reading room, and basketball court. It's very well funded by Coke and some other Atlanta based corporations. Alexandria and Quintin will be attending some of the weeks that Cleo and Sidney will be attending. All of the camps I have mentioned are day camps. I wish I could attend the camps with them. They are going to have a great summer.
Sidney's graduation from pre-K is May 22. The celebratory luau is May 23. Cleo's progression ceremony from first to second grade is on May 19. Sidney is so excited and proud about his graduation. One of his little friends, Kaylee, is the grand-daughter of the assistant director of Kids R Kids. We haven't' received word that Sidney is valedictorian so we suspect that Kaylee was selected. We know Sidney is the smartest child in his class, I just hope that he doesn't notice or care that Kaylee gets more attention than he does. I may ask his teacher about it so that I am not caught off guard.
A camp mate injured Cleo's left hand during Cleo's spring break the week of April 7. Cleo was on a slide at Fun Junction (a rinky dinky amusement park in Atlanta) and a bigger girl sat or fell on it. It happened on a Thursday. Cleo couldn't move her fingers. We hoped it was a strain. It got more swollen and puffy on Friday so I took her to the emergency room that evening. After taking x-rays, the ER doctor said it was definitely broken. No cast was put on because her hand was too swollen Roger took her to a hand specialist and the doctor said it wasn't broken. The doctor explained the bone was creased but not broken. Cleo had to wear a brace for 10 days. Day 10 was one day this past week and she was so excited to take it off. She appears as good as new but we still being careful with her left hand.
A few weeks ago we thought Cleo had pink eye but it turned out to be severe allergies to pollen. Her eyes get pink and puffy. We give her Zyrtec and prescription strength eye drops. They both help a bit. Sidney has allergies too. We give him Claritin. We are still trying to find the right medicine for both of them. Claritin does nothing for Cleo.
Work has been incredibly busy the past month and I will be busy in May as well. I am trying to make myself more visible this year so that I can show my boss that I deserve a promotion to Senior Counsel, which is a director level position. The new title doesn't carry a salary increase but I would be eligible for a bigger bonus and I would be given a company car.
I have been working on my visibility by visiting our subsidiary in Lawrenceburg, KY in January and March of this year but I will have to do a lot more travel in order to achieve the level of visibility necessary to demonstrate my deservedness for a promotion. I have talked this over with my boss so I am not just guessing at what I need to do.
Accordingly, I will be attending one of my company's subsidiaries' (YKK AP) annual sales meeting on May 5-6. It's at a hotel at Stone Mountain which is around an hour away from our house so I will be staying overnight May 5. On May 6, I will be giving an hour long presentation that will cover a number of topics including safe communications, i.e., don't say stupid things in email, human rights requirements (this is a mandate from our parent company in Japan), and document retention.
Then, May 7-8, I will be in Nashville, TN attending a vendor's annual eDiscovery symposium. This is my 4th year in a row attending it. I am responsible for litigation in my department and eDiscovery is an essential aspect of litigation. In early August, I will be traveling to Houston, TX to attend YKK AP's grand opening of its new facility. Also, this year, I will be providing document retention training to YKK AP's 9 branch offices. Unfortunately, there is no NY branch office. The offices are in Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, Orlando, Greensboro, NC, Atlanta, Houston, and Cincinnati. I am working very hard on developing a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation of the document retention program that doesn't put listeners to sleep.
At 6am on Easter Sunday my glasses broke; one of the arms came loose then came off. I tried taping it back on but it made my vision all warped. I did not have a back up pair. None of the glasses shops were open because it was Easter. I wanted to go to Lenscrafters on Monday but there was no slot open to see a doctor. I had not had an eye exam in over 3 years. Thankfully, I was able to get an eye exam at 10am at Vision Works. My near vision has worsened and they recommended bifocals. I am not ready for those (emotionally) and I have heard mixed reviews about those. I opted for a reader pair and a distance pair. On Tuesday, I selected a back up distance pair and arranged to have the lenses replaced in my sunglasses. So, now I will have 4 pairs of glasses. I am getting used to switching out the readers and the distance pairs. I picked up 3 of the glasses today. The only pair to get is my main distance pair. They will be ready Monday afternoon at Vision Works.
Tomorrow, we are going to Debbie Siegel's jewelry show at a hair salon in Atlanta. Debbie is one of Vivian's friends who lives here in Atlanta. I have met Debbie a few times and she's super nice. She is an attorney and recently retired. She makes jewelry as a hobby. Vivian stayed at Debbie's when Vivian was in Atlanta for Cleo's July surgery. She's having a show and serving wine and chocolate tomorrow from 1-4pm. So, the four of us are making an appearance. I am looking forward to it. After that, we are going to visit Roger's friend Wendy. On Friday, Wendy had fibroid surgery. Wendy's mom and sister in law are visiting from CT. Wendy and Roger attended college together. Wendy lives around an hour from us. So, tomorrow, we will be spending a lot of time in the car. Thankfully, I have my sunglasses because the sun is beaming these days. I am so ready for the Spring weather. This winter has been challenging (I know you northerners don't want to hear it from me but it was cold, snowy and icy here too).
On so many levels I am approaching this coming summer very differently. Last summer was a blur. There is so much that I cannot recall leading up to Cleo's surgery on July 19. I was just going through the motions in many aspects of life. I am so happy to have Cleo's surgery behind us. I don't take any day for granted and I am so thankful that she's doing so well. I know that the weeks leading up to the anniversary date this year will be a challenge. It will be a difficult time because I know I will be reflecting on everything that we went through and just the incredible relief that everything went so smoothly. It was unimaginably hard and I am so appreciative that she did so well.
Cleo's little scar used to pain me when I saw it because I knew it would always be a reminder for her. It was puffy and pink for a while but it's lightened significantly and is not as raised as it once was. She doesn't seem too troubled by the scar. She still remembers everything about her recovery and recently when I asked her if she wanted to talk about it or if she had any questions, she said she didn't. I hope that having the surgery at such a young age was good for a few reasons because the scar will #1 be a badge of honor one day when she's older and #2 by the time she's older, she will be so used to having it that when people ask her she will be all, "Oh this? I had open heart surgery when I was a kid. No biggie." At least I hope that's how she views it.
We are going to Hilton Head June 1-8 and I am so excited. I am not sure I fit into the same bathing suits that I wore when we went in the Fall of 2013, but regardless I am really looking forward to it. Ahnya is flying down May 31 and returning to NYC June 9. We all cannot wait.
Thanks for all of the love! Have a great week!
