Girlfriends

REMEMBER THIS? HAHA!!! I was trying to find pictures of Chamina when she was first born (to print for the scrapbook I've neglected to maintain since I became pregnant with her). I suddenly remembered I'd scanned old pictures from my wedding slideshow and downloaded them on Ofoto.com. I went to check out that site, and along with photos of Chamina's birth, baptism, and early months, I found... egads, I found some nasty 80's and early 90's pictures that should've been buried right along with the decades they came from. But instead, I decided to publish them on a blog. I know, I know. Don't kill me.

I think becoming a mom and having a daughter has really made me appreciate the value of girlfriends. I love receiving those "girl power"-type poems and articles through emails! As cheesy as some of them are, they remind me how lucky I am to have grown up with so many women. Bina wrote rather eloquently about this in her blog, and I couldn't agree with her more. I had a kind of "cocoon" of feminism around me in childhood, and really had no idea how difficult it is to re-create in my life now. Running a household, taking care of kids, pets, husbands, and working full-time on top of everything hardly leaves any time for one to breathe. Sometimes I feel like there isn't any part of me that's just me anymore and not "Mommy", "Mrs." or "Teacher". Having girlfriends helps me realize there is still an identity separate from all those titles, because they knew me before I was any of the above (or recognize that we can be more than our titles). I think the empathy comes from the fact that we're all in the same boat, and only those who live it can understand it.

That being said, I can only hope that Chamina Elise has as supportive a core of females around her as I did (and still do). I keep seeing these awful images of 'tween girls all glammed up and looking like college co-eds, and it scares me to think Chamina's going to want to look like them in a few years. I'm terrified she won't develop that strong sense of self necessary in navigating through TV, radio, magazines, and peer pressure. Added to all this is the layer of growing up as a woman of color (which brings with it yet another set of struggles), and it gets even trickier! I guess all I can do is my best, and pray that some lessons stick.

Yes, that's an (empty) Pepto bottle in her hand! Bad mommy!

Rollo

Before Chamina came along, Edgar and I used to worry about how Rollo would react to the new baby. He had already been our "baby" for 4 years before I got pregnant, and it was a high-maintenance 4 years at that. Would he get along with the little rugrat? We weren't sure...

So, we did some odd stuff to "prepare" him for the big arrival. Edgar played baby noises (crying, yelling) around the house at different times. I carried a little doll and pretended it was a baby. Rollo must've been thinking, "what the hell is wrong with these people??" He didn't really freak out about any of it, so we thought, "Okay, maybe he'll be fine."

Haha. When Chamina came, Rollo transformed practically overnight. He was always a tad sketchy before, but became a nervous wreck after we brought the baby home. He would sit next to Chamina's crib and whine if she was crying even just a little bit. He (like us) got zero sleep for about 6 weeks, and though he never wanted to leave her side, he never attempted to touch her either. It was like he was fascinated by her and frightened of her at the same time (just like the rest of us!).

Now, he's kind of resigned to the fact that she's here to stay. He still seems a little scared of her, so he lets her do pretty much anything she wants to him. The other day, she got a hold of some Dora stickers and started putting them on top of his head. Another time, he stole her cracker and she wanted it back, so she stuck her hand in his mouth(!!). Edgar and I can't even do that with him, or he'd take our fingers off. I almost had a heart attack, but Rollo just opened his jaws and let her yank the cracker out. Then we put Chamina on time-out for even thinking she could do that.

Theirs is definitely an alpha-dog/beta-dog friendship, but Chamina really misses him when he's not around. Sometimes Rollo spends a day or two at his Lolo & Lola's houses (both sides). When he's off on one of his vacations, Chamina wanders around the house going,"Rahrah ow-side? Rahrah where?" For his part, Rollo loves catching the (rather sizeable) pieces of food Chamina drops for him from her high chair, and is content to be manhandled by the bossy little girl. Ah, love!

Daddy's Girl

Alas, Chamina's not past the "Mommy" stage yet, but she does grace Daddy with her presence sometimes. Here's a recent shot of her chillin' with Edgar... they like watching the Lakers together, while I scramble around getting stuff done (that I couldn't get to earlier because she was tailing me). She especially loves it when Daddy has his laptop on, and they can visit the Sesame Street website together. She plays the Mr. Noodle Dog-Walking game and Dress-Up Elmo, among others. I guess we use our laptops too often in front of her, because she pretends everything is a computer now. She found a calculator and spent a great deal of time one afternoon just sitting in front of it with her tiny hands on top of the keys, typing on it like we do on our laptops. Every once in awhile she'd look at us and go "Ay!" So funny.

Sillyhead

Here's Chamina in one of her silly moods. That's her panty on her head (it's clean). She managed to open her closet door, she rooted through her sock/panty drawer, grabbed a panty, and shoved it on top of her head. Her actual hat is right next to her, but who wants to wear that boring old thing on their noggins?

Most people think she's a proper "little lady", but she puts on a good front. One of her favorite hobbies is picking her nose. It's almost a nervous tick now, because she seems to do it when she first meets people. She also likes lifting her shirt and going "ding-dong" while pressing her belly button. One of my favorites is when you ask her "Where's your pepe-ching?" and she grabs her *ahem*. Super-hard, like she really means it.

Rainy Day Schedule Sucks!

My kids during happier times.

Rainy Day schedule... on a Friday... when you were supposed to go on a field trip... that got cancelled because it was POURING this morning... third grade sucks! Teaching third graders who are faced with this kind of day sucks even harder! I found out about that stupid field trip cancellation 5 minutes before school started then I had to tell my class, who had been looking forward to this one and only excursion for months. To top it off, half the third grade classes went on the trip yesterday, so they were bragging about having seen all this neat stuff, then we find out we don't get to go. BLEH. It was a miracle they got any work done today.

Lucky thing I've got "The Perfect Class" this year. I don't think I've ever had this great a group ever. They're really bright, funny, super-motivated and for some reason, we all seem to be able to get along. There isn't one person who sticks out as a discipline problem. They're not angels or robots (they still mouth off and are smart-alecky), but they're honest, friendly, really helpful with each other, and original thinkers. It's like I died and went to teacher nirvana. Which makes me very afraid of what will happen next year. This is stuff of teacher urban legend and I think karma's gonna get me back in a few months. Noooooo!

The fun part, meanwhile, is that I get to do lots of extension activities. We learned about hurricanes during the Katrina debacle, so we organized a mini-donation-drive within our classroom for Katrina victims. Then the Iraq war came up, and some of them wanted to learn more about that. So I sent 4 of my top kids to do Internet research, and they came back with a report on the war from 4 different perspectives(!). After their report, all my kids wrote letters to George W. Bush and told him what they thought he should do about Iraq. Very pro-active, this bunch. Now we're learning about habitats, and I'm hoping I can get it together to work on something related to habitat conservation for National Youth Service Day. As long as we don't have any more of these rainy day, field-trip-less Fridays, I think we'll be okay.

P.S. George W. Bush wrote most of them back, and after comparing letters, they were annoyed to find out that all their letters were the same. I think some of them may have written him back about that.

Cuzins Galore

With Leelai at Dizzyland
WSP II: The Revenge
Buddies!
Cham & Boba
We're fortunate to live relatively close to both San Diego and LA, so Chamina can visit with her virtual plethora of tias, tios, and cuzins. But sometimes (a lot of the time!) I feel like she still doesn't see them enough! We've been showing her pictures and hoping she remembers family when she meets them again, but she just likes looking at photos of herself (so vain!). Melon, however, came up with the great idea of showing videotapes of family parties. Marley seems to have taken to it, and recognizes people like a pro during get-togethers. So, don't be surprised if I come to every gathering now with a video camera strapped to my hand. Thanks, Melon!

Cuzins from Manila