Somebody put me on a stage, quick!

I think I can identify with skydivers.

A skydiver does something absolutely terrifying, something that few other people would ever choose to do. He does it, and he takes pleasure in it. I am certain that being a skydiver must carry with it a great sense of pride, to know that you are one of the few who can fly in the face of such fear and choose to do it again and again.

Well, does it make me a total nerd to feel similarly proud of my enjoyment of public speaking? I have always loved being on stage. I was on the speech team in high school, and I absolutely loved it. What a rush! To stand up in front of a group of peers and judges, knowing the the slightest slip-up could both humiliate and disqualify you. The way time slows down and you fight to keep from speaking too quickly, to put emotion into your voice, to look out at the individuals in the audience and convince them that you mean every word. There are few times that I have felt more alive. More capable. More exceptional.

But life as a mother of two babies doesn't provide many speaking opportunities, and it's been awhile since I was on the stage. Last time was as a freshman in college, 2 years after my last NFL (National Forensic League) competition, when I won second place for Dramatic Interpretation, competing against Communications majors, sophomores and up. That felt pretty good. But it was 3 1/2 years ago, and that's a long time not to do something that you love.

Dan's taking a speech class this semester. Yesterday, he gave his first prepared speech. I definitely enjoyed helping him prepare, but every time I listened to him recite it, it was hard not to think about how I would say it, what words I would emphasize, how I would stand... and how thrilling it would be if I could be the one back in front of the class, taking my turn, facing my fear, proving myself all over again. I told him that I wished I could go give it for him. He said he wished I could, too!

Last night, Dan and I went to a seminar in which the speaker asked two people to come forward and do a role play. I raised my hand excitedly, and he called on me to come up. As I stood up and walked around our table to go to the front, a girl in the front row popped up, apparently unaware that he had called on me. He welcomed her up and gave her the role. I sat back down. It felt so juvenile to be jealous, and yet I was. I was so very, very jealous. And I still am.

If somebody doesn't put me on a stage soon, I'm going to scream.

Okay, first the good news, then the bad news.

Good news: Felicity slept 10 hours last night. Woohoo!

Bad news: Our camera is broken. Apparently, it was not a battery problem, because the battery arrived today and the camera still doesn't work. So... I may not have pics for all y'all for a little while yet.

Copy Cat

So, Rae Ann signed up for a challenge to blog every day during the month of November, and, like any good younger cousin would do, I am copying her. I should have a working digital camera sometime this week (the new battery is in the mail - hopefully the battery is the problem), so that should make it easier for me to provide entertaining and crazy-cute posts for all y'all. In the meantime, you'll have to put up with text-only musings from yours truly. I'm excited about it, though; I think it will be a good opportunity to exercise my long-dormant creative writing skills and express myself thoughtfully. I hope so, at least. So, get ready for a month of super blogging fun! And if a day goes by and I DON'T post, be sure to leave plenty of berating comments on my previous post so that I will feel really bad about myself and my horrible inconsistency. Ok? Great! Ready.... Set.... GO!!!

Counting

Dan has been teaching Ariel to count. He says each number, 1-10, and she repeats it. They both enjoy this a lot, and it has become a special game between them.

The other day I opened the cupboard and told Dan, "We have SEVEN cans of tuna!"

Dan turned to Ariel. "Ariel, there are SEVEN cans!"

"Eight!" she exclaimed. That was pretty cool.

Then in the car yesterday, Dan was counting with her again:

Dan: "One"
Ariel: "No" (that's how she says "one")
Dan: "Two"
Ariel: "Two"
Dan: "Three"
Ariel" "Four, five, six, TEN!"

Wow, I thought. She's learning fast.

Tonight, I gave her some kitchen utensils to play with. She was banging them around a minute ago, then turned and looked up at me, excited.

"Spoon!" she said, holding up a wooden spoon. "Spoon," this time holding up a teaspoon.

"Yeah," I said. "They're both spoons!"

And then came the words that blew me away: "Two spoons."

Dan and I looked at each other in amazement! She really is catching on!

A little songbird

We've been having the pleasure of listening to Ariel sing today. I heard her mumble something while getting her down from her highchair, and she followed it with "hey, hey, hey." The "hey"s were evenly spaced, which made me suspect that she was singing something.

Then again - "Uh um uh-bar, hey, hey, hey."

"Ariel? Are you singing the umbrella song?"

"Hmm. Uh um uh-bar..."

For those of you who haven't spent a lot of time around Ariel lately, "hmm" means "yes." I think she learned it from me, I'm sorry to say. And the song in question is Umbrella by Rihanna, or, in this case, covered by Marie Digby, because that's the version that we listen to on the radio in the car. "Uh um uh-bar" is her attempt at the words "under my umbrella." Apparently I'm not the only one with this song stuck in my head, because we caught her singing it a couple times.



We were also able to prompt her to sing it to us this evening as we drove home, and it was far more lovely than listening to the radio.

I wish I had a video for you, but our camera isn't working, and, even if it was, there's no way that she would perform for it. I wish I could catch each precious moment and save them forever, but Ariel keeps me living life instead of recording it, because I know that pulling out a camera always puts an end to the special moments. She touches my heart a hundred times a day, and all I have to rely on is my already fading memories of each moment. It makes me feel sad and insufficient, knowing that I am incapable of preserving something so precious. Her life runs like water in a faucet, rushing down the drain of time, and though I put my hands out to catch it, I can hold so little and it slips through the cracks in my fingers.

All great joys are bittersweet. I guess that's what keeps us hoping for heaven.

Smarty Pants

I just turned to Dan and said, "How about I nurse Felicity and we watch some... whaddayacallit." From her perch in his arms, Ariel called, "Office?" I have no idea how she knew that.

Honestly, I am kinda creeped out by this. I mean, we had only mentioned a couple of times this evening that we were going to watch it. We said it to each other in passing, and we hadn't said it immediately before this incident. Also, it's not like all we do is watch The Office, or like Ariel usually watches it with us. Furthermore, she is only 20 months old. What the heck??? I feel how you might feel if you had a foreign exchange student in your home for a month before one day finding out that they understood English perfectly. Um, how much have you understood all along?


Here she is reading Green Eggs and Ham with her daddy. She like to read this to herself, too. The first three pages (which say, "I am Sam," "I am Sam," and "Sam I am") are "I Sam!" "I Sam!" "I Sam!" Then they all say "[mumble mumble] Sam!" The last page, which reads "Thank you, Thank you, Sam-I-am!" is read "Tanks!"

She's so cute! Dang!

A little reminder...

...of why I'm still reading every label in the store, and why I don't mind the inconvenience all that much:

Review No. 5: Almond Breeze Chocolate "Milk"

Finally something that tastes almost the same - and almost as good - as it's dairy counterpart! Chocolate Almond Breeze is slightly thinner than real chocolate milk, and it has a light aftertaste that it took me all of 30 seconds to get used to. It's actually good to drink plain! I haven't tried it in coffee, yet, but I'm optimistic! A+