Choir

We decided to try choir this year. I was hoping Rebekah would have a long time with the group to gain confidence and friends etc before that moment when she would be required to get on stage but I hadn't considered Veterans day. 

Rebekah does not want anything to do with that type of thing but I continue to support and even push the issue in the hopes that eventually this would be a good thing. 

And so I emailed the director of the choir and explained Rebekah's anxiety. I suggested that she is not emotionally ready to do that but I would like to keep her in the group in hopes that she one day will be motivated to work through her anxiety. For this performance I asked if I could walk the rehearsal with her and get her use to sights and sounds, then come to the performance so she could see what that is like as well; all this in the hopes that next time we would get further. 

He emailed me back and said just bring her and we'll see how it goes. 

I was NOT happy. However, to his credit, he emailed me a few minutes later saying he responded without reading the entire email and now that he has read it he is ready to try my idea. Ha! 

I had to take a quick class on how to chaperone. One of my favorite lines from the class: if it's wet and it isn't yours, don't touch it. Words to live by.

The day of the performance finally came and Rebekah looked the part.

But inside she was a mess. Seriously. So emotional. I got her in the room and tried to get her to stand by a boy that is in our ward but it wasn't working so I took her to the side. Another adult introduced Rebekah to her little girl and she was able to stand by her for a little while.

As soon as the group started moving Rebekah lost it. I walked with her and got her up to the stage but she couldn't go any farther. At that point we went to the seats and watched the practice. She wanted to go home but I wasn't letting her quit, telling her all we will do is the back stage rehearsing and walking into the room. Then we'll find a chair and watch.

The boy in our ward, Grant, finally was able to get to where Rebekah was and helped her out a lot. He's a year and a half older although they are the same height.

We went home to a nice hamburger meal Don had cooked for us. So nice to not have to worry about food!

Even knowing she wasn't going on stage, Rebekah was not wanting to go back at all. Don saved the day by giving her something of his to hold on to during the rehearsal.

The whole trip back to the school I talked about how she is full of great things but the adversary doesn't want her to see that so he tries to stop her. Our goal is to not let him win. I suggested giving the anxiety a physical presence like a little mosquito and swiping / brushing it off when she feels it. I also suggested when that doesn't work she do math. 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 4 + 4 = 8 etc. Once she gets to 64 + 64 = 128 she is usually not thinking about her worries any more.

It was so much work to distract her from her fears and worries but we were successful. Grant helped too. Here they are hanging on the wall while waiting to walk into the performance.

Everyone got involved. Apparently I'm not a good influence. But hey! She's not crying.

Once we got into the auditorium the rest of the group kept going up to the stage while Rebekah and I stood in back. I couldn't resist recording a little. She knew her songs. Also, you can see in her face and her eyes how emotional she has been. Poor little thing. 

She wanted a break so we stepped outside. Good thing too: her tooth came out. She must have bit on it wrong and it was hanging crooked. "Get it out mama..." sigh. Seriously, where's dad when you need him? But I got it out. 

The rest of the group came out and prepared for the second part of the performance. I was exhausted by then as well as Rebekah, so we left soon after she showed everyone her tooth hole. 

To sum up:

To Sum Up

Oh, to be a mom of this glorious little girl. Daily I am overwhelmed by my insecurities as I watch her grow up from baby to toddler to little girl to big girl. But, as my husband would say, "at the end of the day" she is so beautiful inside. I know Heavenly Father loves her so much and He is able to overcome any of my failings. 

Rebekah has tremendous anxiety. The good news is according to the school counselor as well as her teacher, it's not interfering with her school work. It does make mornings traumatic with the whole "I don't want to go to school... I'm scared...." We were recently able to convinced her coach that swim meets are out of the question, and now we recently showed her choir director that choir performances are a long way off too (more on that later). Long story short, there are some things that Rebekah just cannot do yet. Having said that I want to share a text I sent to my mom last weekend:

I wanted to share an experience I just had with Rebekah. She was invited to a birthday party for a boy in the ward. She was a little nervous but with me around it went okay. Another little girl was invited too but she ended up being very shy and pulling away from the party. I tried to include her as well as the host. Pretty soon she went and sat by the front door. At that point I texted her mom. Rebekah, however, went over to where the little girl was sitting and apparently talked to her and told her she would sit with her until her mom came. She gave her a little bracelet to wear while they waited. Then she remembered that the little girl perked up when she saw the household cat and went to talk to the hostess to see if she could get the cat to make the little girl feel better. Long story short - Rebekah may not be able to stand up on stage or get through a whole swim meet or even go to gym. But tonight she showed me she has what really matters.

I still get watery eyes when I think about that. What a beautiful angel I have been blessed with. I daily tell her I love her and how proud I am of her. I will often use specific actions she does or did to explain of what exactly I am proud. I do it so often that sometimes when I say, "Guess what...?" she quickly replies, "I love you?" to which I always say, "...how did you know I was going to say that..." and she always says, "You always say that." Well it's true my sweet little snuggly girl. I love you more than words can say. 

To close, I once again compiled a picture timeline for your viewing pleasure: 

Birth

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Seven - close up

Happy birthday sweet Rebekah. I can't wait for each snuggly day. 

The After Birthday Party

Rebekah wanted me to bring in a birthday treat for her class. I wanted to get the little mini cupcakes but Rebekah said that wasn't enough. Go big or go home, eh? So I let go of my principles and ended up with these. They go against everything that I find good and decent in the world. Store bought, food colored, loaded with sugar.... Yikes. Good thing it's only once a year. 

I don't do kid parties every year. Rebekah knows it's only 5, 8, 12, and 16. But I do have Rebekah pick something she can do with one friend. Rebekah has talked about getting her nails done for a while, so she picked a friend and we made it happen. I was slightly overwhelmed by as I looked for a venue having never had my nails done. I went to several different salons. and chose this place. It seemed the most friendly and the also the most English speaking. Also, several of the stylists (do you call them stylists?) seemed really pushy determined to have me get what they want instead of what I want. It's a rough, intimidating business out there. But I digress. Back to being girly and getting nails done.

She chose a purple sparkly nail color.

Excited little girl.

This is her friend Adelaide. She is about a year younger than Rebekah but goes to the same church and same school. She chose a bright red.

So much fun!

Happy little girls.

After the nail salon I took them back to our house for play time...

...and birthday cupcakes.

Quite a successful little outing.

Rebekah's Birthday

It is said, "The days are long, the years are quick." Right now the days even seem quick. I can hardly understand how this happens! She was 2 just yesterday and now she is 7. I remember thinking she was never going to crawl, then she was never going to walk, then will she ever talk, then BAM! Now she's 7. 

I asked Rebekah what kind of cake she wanted and she chose strawberry. After speaking with Don I decided to look into to purchasing a cake rather than making one. Turns out they are ridiculously expensive, quite small, and they don't even have a strawberry option. So I looked at smaller cake pans - maybe if I make a smaller version it will be easier...? Then I came back to make sure Rebekah was good with strawberry which was a good thing because we finally landed on Confetti with Strawberry frosting. 

A few days before I baked the cake and put down a layer of vanilla frosting to seal the cake. Good news: the two layers actually stayed together! And the frosting didn't slip off. The planets must have been in alignment or something. Or maybe the smaller cake pan is easier to work with. I then made cupcakes with what was left of the batter. 

That afternoon I had Rebekah decorate the cupcakes. Smile, I asked. This is what I get.

So I very politely asked one more time.

Then I went to work on her two layer cake.

Rebekah decorating her cake. Sometimes her hand gets confused....

That night we packed up the car and headed to Pendleton to have a sleep over at Grammy's. On the way up Rebekah said her birthday wish was for balloons. Good thing Grammy knows Rebekah well. Rebe woke up to birthday balloons and because she wore us down, she also opened one present.

It was the Perler bead set. She played with these down in Evansville with Hannah and I thought it would be a good creative outlet for her on a more permanent basis. Yes, they are that small and yes, I have been finding them everywhere. But mostly they have been a good thing.

Mom went to pick up Frank and we got cleaned up. At this point I realized how much Rebekah has grown. Or maybe I'm shrinking.

Rebekah wanted a picture with Dad too. Now we can compare pictures each year to check growth.

Along with Frank, Mom brought home tenderloins for lunch. Two sandwiches fed all four of us. If you've never had a tenderloin from Indiana, it is truly an experience. After lunch we FINALLY had cake.

Happy birthday little girl!

Then, of course there were presents.

Don wanted to get her a STEM kit to build and play with her. I told him that was fine as long as he was the man. I don't do well with that kind of stuff. Although I assume Rebekah and I can learn together...

She also got generic legos with many doors and windows. She does love to build with doors and windows.

Then she turned back to her Perler bead and made the following creations. 

She also got a an outfit for her doll, a jewelry kit and some money.

We let her play with her toys for a good while before we headed home to find a fun card from Aunt Jackie in the mailbox. 

That night while getting in bed Rebekah expressed her excitement to see how I decorated the house tomorrow. I looked at Don with horror. In my desire to get everything done for the actual party (cake, decorations, gifts, etc) I forgot about my traditional decorating. 

I force myself to stay awake while Rebekah went to sleep, all the while thinking about ideas on what to do. When she is finally asleep I get up and start cutting shapes. I end up with hearts, a princess, and a 7, hoping it's enough to please. (There'll be a picture below.)

Sure enough Rebekah wakes up and searches the house for her decorations. We usually put it on her bedroom door but since she is still having trouble sleeping in her bedroom, I opted for the living room utility door. It took her a while to find it but she was happy with it when she did. 

Once I had the official Rebekah approval of the decorations, we turned our attention to her last presents and we Facetimed my mom so Rebekah opened her gift from her which was....(drum roll please) Fashion Plates. She has had fun designing several outfits. 

Then we headed to church. With her fashion plate purse apparently. I needed to have a birthday girl picture with the decoration (proof for later years) so I had her pose.

After church we played with birthday toys and had an all around fun day. That night my brother Jo called and then Daniel and crew Facetimed with Rebekah. What a fun birthday weekend!

October Book

Okay, so I mostly finished this. I hate to admit this book was beyond my intelligence but I started this book in August and stopped because I wasn't understanding everything like I wanted too. It's very detailed and, for example, and because this was an audio book for me I was having trouble remembering which lesser known generals were Confederate and which were Union because of the lack of actual pages on which to refer back. The author also seems to switch time periods a lot. At one point I was wondering if there were two commanders named Smith because one had just died a chapter ago but he's talking about Smith again in the present tense. I did better when the sections were about subjects I previously read about: Shilo, Grant, Sherman, etc. I loved when he slowed down and gave time to descriptions of leaders like Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. I'm not sure if I will go back to this or not. Also, there are three books in the series. Very daunting indeed. 

I read this because I love Grant and Grant liked Sherman and therefor I wanted to like Sherman. I also wanted to know more about this infamous march to the sea. I liked the book, although I must admit I slowed down during much of the military campaigns and the book took me a while. But it was well worth the read. Not sure I like Sherman any more though, but I do understand him better.

This was entirely different from anything I have read in a long time although it still had a slight Hunger Game's feel. I enjoyed it and may possibly read the next book, however I'm already sufficiently annoyed that it's not due out in March 2019 and already has 5 stars with 60 + reviews on Goodreads, all of which state that they are excited to read the next installment and can't wait... etc. That's not a "review" people. You think readers would understand vocabulary better. 

This was incredible. Wow. Just wow. So well done about such a hard topic. The book and author totally deserve all the awards it has on the cover and more. Extremely highly recommendable, however this does involve some language but it's well done and entirely understandable considering the subject matter of violence and revenge. Seriously so well done.

This was another recommendation from a family member. It had an interesting premise (mother and daughter walk across the U.S. to save the farm) but I didn't attach to any of the characters nor fully appreciate the family dynamics or even the story as it continued, although I did like what the main character discovered about the experience in the end. 

I saw this several times before downloading it. It sounded semi interesting but didn't have great reviews. However, I was waiting for another book and this was available. When I fully realized that it was about the father of Alexander Dumas (author of Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo, etc) I jumped in. The information is good, I would even say extremely interesting: French revolution / Napoleon time period, Dumas is "a person of color" (as the book refers to him) during a time of mass African slavery yet held high position in the military. So, although it was very interesting, the writing is poor and hard to follow. The people in the book don't seem alive and being non fiction, that's disappointing. Not that it's bad - just not up with the great authorship that I have read. 

Speaking of great authorship, I give you the next book. I was half way through the 2 chapter and Churchill had already thrown himself into life and death situations to make a name for himself, but it's alright (as Churchill himself states to his mother) because he knows he is destined for greatness and therefore will not be killed. Got to love the man. This book was everything I hoped for and more; thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining. Highly recommendable.

This was so good and so scary. Truly brings Alzheimer's disease front and center in a close to home and heartbreaking way. Highly recommendable. (Although if you tend to be a hypochondriac you may want to stay away or you will be second guessing every move you make for a while.)

Well this was interesting. As I read all these books I'm amazed at what I don't know. I didn't know who James Comes was but I was interested in the small summary of the book. It was an interesting book, discussing his dealings with the justice department (Bush presidency) through his tenure in as head of the FBI (Trump presidency), although I've read enough to understand that books like this are always skewed, but it is important to me to see things from all points of view so I can make a learned judgement of my own. 

Rebekah's

We've like Fancy Nancy so we stepped it up and checked out the older Nancy. Rebekah liked it a lot and I thought the story was good. We'll read more. 

and

I know I've mentioned these before but we read through the rest of them this month. These were two of Rebekah's favorites, but I thought Belle's and Tiana's story were great as well. Nicely done books: good stories, great pictures - even the pages with no pictures have little inlays underneath the words that have to do with the princess in the book. Very nicely done.