The graduate

Amelia graduated kindergarten on Thursday. I thought I would be a mushy, crying mess, but I held it together very well. My sweet girl had a speaking part in the program and aced it. She also earned a certificate for making "A" honor roll all year and won a free ticket to Six Flags for having read so many books this year. 

I am so proud of her and am amazed at how much she has grown physically, academically and socially this year. We feel fortunate that Amelia will be attending this school until sixth grade because she loves it so much and because the teachers, administrators, staff and students are all fabulous. 

We are also very excited at the news that the gymnasium, where the end-of-the-year programs are held, will be air-conditioned by this time next year because we all just nearly melted while sitting through the festivities on Thursday.

 Our brand-new first grader!

 Amelia with her teacher Ms. Callahan, who, I think, is the best kindergarten teacher ever. Amelia is holding the autograph dog we got her for graduation. She had almost all her classmates and her teacher sign it. I feel confident she will be very proud to have this memento in years to come.

  The class of 2022!

Our limber little lady

Amelia showed off her skills Monday at the end-of-the-year gymnastics show. She has learned so much since class started back in August and has become as pliable as a rubberband thanks to this class as well as her ballet class. 

 

What a lovely knee scale, Amelia!

Look at that candle stick! Way to go Amelia!

Amelia climbing atop the bar to execute her next maneuver.

Getting ready to do a split jump onto the trampoline.

Publish Post

That's a lovely bridge, if I do say so myself.

We'll be taking a brief break from gymnastics and then start back up with summer camp at the end of July. Regular classes will resume in August. Amelia is already excited about getting to take another year of gymnastics, but I am grateful for the break as I am sure are all the other parents who spent one hour a week shuttling their progeny to and from class. 

The author at work

Amelia recently wrote and illustrated her very own book. Her sweet teacher, Mrs. Shara Callahan, sent home a paperback book she found while cleaning up her classroom that she thought Amelia would love to have.

Although Mrs. Callahan said Amelia could work on this at her leisure and it was not an assignment but rather a fun project, my little student immediately put pencil to paper and set about creating a book in which she penned two stories: one about riding a bicycle up a hill and another about learning her alphabet.

I would love to show you excepts from her masterpiece, but Amelia opted to give it to her teacher rather than keeping it at home. I have to admit I was immensely disappointed she gave it away. After all, I am a writer, I even I have degree and clips to prove it. So I really wanted to put her book away for posterity.

However, Amelia's love for her teacher won out and now Mrs. Callahan will be the keeper of her first "published" work. I can't be too upset, though, because Mrs. Callahan truly loved Amelia's gift and promised in her thank you note to cherish it forever. 

While I can't share the book itself with you, I did have the foresight to snap a few photos of Amelia while she was working on it. Check them out:

Every good author needs a well-sharpened pencil.

"Hurry up, momma! I need to get back to work."

Just look at that concentration.

Just throwing a bunch of randomness at 'cha

I am having a hard time producing a well-thought-out post today probably because I stayed up later than my usual 8:30 p.m. (why, yes, I am getting old) bedtime to watch "Lost," which, by the way, was so good I may watch it again today while Lola is napping.

Because of my struggle to write in complete sentences today, I will just toss some ramblings out here with the hope you can make sense of it.

1. Lola is 23 months old today. I am sad about this because I want her to still be a baby even though, in a decidedly "unbaby" way, she told me something was "amazing" a little while ago. I'll just have to get over my baby-ache, though, because my plumbing was disconnected after Lola was born. 

Even if I hadn't had a tubal ligation, Jeff informed me last night that he is in no way sad that Lola is growing up and doesn't want another baby at all. So even if someone left a baby in a basket on our front porch, Jeff is so over the infant years that he would likely not allow me to touch it while he waited for the folks at the department of human resources to come get it.

2. Because the girls and I were in a car accident last week, (We're fine. Thanks for asking.), I've been perusing the local used car websites to get a handle on what's available. I haven't heard from the insurance adjuster, but we're figuring my car is totaled. 

For some folks I am sure the idea of shopping for a new, or pre-owned, vehicle would have them chomping at the bit; but I am already over it and I haven't even stepped foot on a lot. I love my 11-year-old Ford Taurus and my only complaint with it is that it doesn't have a CD player. I would be okay if it could be repaired so I wouldn't have to shop for another vehicle.

Plus, bless his heart, my husband considers car shopping a competitive sport so I do not relish the idea of having to undertake this endeavor with him.

3. Amelia cracks me up on a regular basis. For example: I recently wrapped her hair in a scarf before bed in an attempt to keep it from tangling into a mangled mess that would cause us to nearly rip each other's throats out when it came time to brush it the next morning.

Upon looking at her new headdress in the mirror, Amelia proclaimed, "Momma, I look like a maniac!" I burst out laughing at her remark because she was dead serious. She wasn't pleased at my reaction, but I couldn't help myself. That's just not something I was expecting my 6-year-old to say.

She also recently announced that her teacher told her she must be part "hound dog." Wondering if Ms. Callahan had determined Amelia to be lazy and loud, as most hound dogs I've known have been, I questioned her about this turn of events.

Amelia said her teacher told her this one day after Amelia was able to determine just by sniffing the air in her classroom that it was pizza day in the lunch room, which is way down the hall. This explanation led me to discover that Ms. Callahan thinks Amelia is part blood hound not hound dog! Some would argue blood hounds and hound dogs are one in the same, but I am sticking with my belief that it's better to be thought a blood hound than a hound dog.

4. Please pray for my husband that he does not come completely undone over the fact he is having to move to a new office in which he will be stationed in cubicles with, horrors, 4-foot walls! He's also completely bent out of shape because his drive to work will now be longer and more complicated and he will no longer have the use of a company gym in which to work out at lunchtime. 

I gently reminded him last night that he needs to be grateful he has a job to gripe about and that, in the grand scheme of things, these are minor annoyances. He acknowledged that he needs to dial his dissatisfaction back a bit, but, having been married to him for almost 12 years, I know I've not heard the last about this impending move.

I am just grateful he didn't get moved to Spain as did two of his office mates. I would be the one griping up a storm had this happened.

5. Lastly, take a gander at my painted lady. Amelia discovered on Sunday a box of leftover favors from her birthday party in which was about 50 removable tattoos. She proceeded to apply 14 of them. My little attention hog was thrilled I let her not only wear them to school the next day but also to gymnastics class. She reported her friends we very jealous of her body art. Check it out and see if you find yourself green with envy. 

She wanted to apply a tattoo to each side of her face, but I convinced her that would be tacky. I have to set some sort of limits, don't I? LOL!

Sharing our secret

Not too trendy, not too popular, but just right

 

Amelia meets Lola for the first time

When I was in eighth grade I just knew my future girl child would be named Kaitlynn Brianna. However, by the time I got around to having my first baby 16 years later, both Kaitlynn and Brianna as well as all their various spellings were so popular they made me retch. 

I knew I didn't want to give my child a trendy or overly-popular name so early in my pregnancy I began combing through the Social Security Administration's lists of popular baby names and plowing through books and websites dedicated to naming little ones. 

Jeff and I chose not to find out the sex of out first born so throughout my pregnancy we called the baby "Hickey." Even though the ultrasound technician didn't clue us in as to whether we were having a boy or a girl, I knew deep in my soul I was having a girl, which is probably why my list of boy names was so short.

Had we brought home a boy he would have been called John Russell Lance Poole. John was after Jeff's grandfather, Russell after my daddy and Lance after Jeff, who has this for a middle name. Other names on our boy list were Marshall Douglas, Tanner Nathaniel and Sawyer James. 

Top of my list for girl names was Millicent Amelia; however, Jeff about vomited all over his shoes when I suggested Millicent. He also pointed out that Millicent can be easily shortened to Millie and reminded me of my disdain for naming a child one thing and calling them another. While I loooooved the name, and still do, I knew it was out of contention because of Jeff's hatred for it and because I didn't want to spend a good portion of my time reminding people to call her Millicent and not Millie.

Jeff was crazy, madly, deeply in love with the name Savannah Magnolia, but I nixed it very quickly for three reasons: You can't swing a dead cat around these parts without hitting a girl named Savannah, the name combined with Magnolia conjures images of a Southern belle relaxing on a veranda sipping mint juleps so I was afraid a child with this moniker would be judged harshly because of it; and, lastly, I just plain hated it.

We agreed Millicent and Savannah Magnolia were off the table, but both of us liked Amelia. At the time, six years ago, it was very uncommon, but not so uncommon to be weird. We also agreed it couldn't be shortened, but have since learned of people whose given name is Amelia but they are called Amy, Ami, Mia and Millie. Go figure.

Anyway, we finally settled on Amelia Bridget should Hickey be a girl. I  suggested Bridget and Jeff agreed it went well with Amelia. On April 20, 2004 our little Amelia Bridget was born and I haven't regretted naming her that for even one instant, although I am not too happy about how many other people are now using Amelia.

Three years later when I got pregnant again we decided to find out this time whether we were having a boy or a girl, but, once again, I knew even before the ultrasound I was again carrying a girl. I lobbied hard once more for Millicent and was again shut down by Jeff.

Just to be safe we went ahead and chose a boy name, which was Sean Weston. We just liked Sean and Weston was the maiden name of my maternal great-grandmother. 

My instinct proved correct because we learned at my 20-week check-up that I was having a girl. Jeff and I tossed around girl names like Lydia Evangeline, Catherine BetsAnne, and Stella Janelle, but couldn't come to an agreement. One name, Celeste, stuck out for us, but we couldn't decide what to put with it. 

However, one day Amelia was watching the Disney channel on which the cartoon "Charlie and Lola" was playing. Jeff looked over at me and said, "What about Lola?" I said, "Lola Celeste? I like it." And, just like that, easy as pie, our second child was named.

We won't get to use any of our other names because I got "fixed" after Lola was born. People often ask if I am sad we won't get to "try for a boy," but, honestly, we are thrilled with having two girls and cannot even picture our family with a boy in it. 

For more baby-naming fun, head on over to Kelly's Korner for Show Us Your Life Friday.

Textless Tuesday: She's got some big shoes to fill