College is coming

In the midst of Christmas break, the first college materials have arrive for our sophmore. I asked her to look at them and consider. She says she did but isn’t interested in either. She’s not super thrilled about college really. I guess life around here must be better than she thinks. But I do hope she finds some inspiration soon. 

I’m excited for her. I hope she finds the excitement too. 

Sweet 16

This week we celebrated Ellie turning 16. She was excited,  but not about the driving piece. I think she was excited about the presents piece of it. 

She asked for a lot of tight simple clothing and a couple baggie sweatshirts. She also got a couple nice pairs of earrings including one from us of her birth stone. Grannie sent her a cool keyboard she is enjoying at her desk. 

I think she wants to have a couple friends over for a sleepover next weekend. She’s not very good at planning things. 

To celebrate the day we sent her off to school with donuts to share. The family decorations greeted her on the morning. After school she enjoyed opening her presents. She asked for goat cheese salad for dinner, so k made salads. Then we had the Latimers and Gramma over to hang out a bit and enjoy her ice cream cake with her. She enjoyed their gifts and visit a lot. 

There wasn’t much emotion or sensitive talk. She wasn’t in to pictures with us. She is 16. 

As she leaves the crazy 15 I see she’s more settled into high school with friends she enjoys, good grades, a mostly responsible outlook on life, and some level headed thoughts now and again. She’s still enjoying Jiujitsu as her sport and listening to music instead of playing it. She’s really enjoying Young Life events and relationships which I’m happy about. 

My prayer for her is to allow God to lead her today and always. 

Happy birthday to my first born! I love you!

Cleared for Jujitsu

I’m really proud of this girl. She has worked so hard to recover from her OCD repair of the ankle in February. She has had months of growling PT and hard work to get to the point where she was cleared to return to full physical activity finally. 

She started back to Jujitsu this Wednesday and it was such a great feeling for me and her. 

I started to see glimpse of my physically strong Ellie at the beach with surfing and boogie boarding. It makes my heart happy to see her able to be active and do what she wants again. 

Yes, I miss watching her play softball but apparently that’s not where her heart is. Most of all, I want her following her heart and finding her place in this world. 

I snapped this photo right when she walked back in the house. 

Ellie has ankle surgery and is a trooper

A few years ago it was discovered, after a long time with ankle pain, that Ellie had a small bone fragment that is chipped in one of her ankle bones. It’s referred to as an OCD. At the time the local doctor said just watch it. Fast forward over two years later and she sees a new orthopedic surgeon for joint pain in her wrists and knees. He says he doesn’t see any structural issues in those joints but revisits this OCD. After imagining he recovers a surgery to repair it. The surgery is simple but the recovery is long- 6 months. Ellie says no but David and I believe that this goves her the best future and stability as an adult. So Feb 3, 2022 she has her first surgery. 

It takes place at JohnHopkins and she makes it through the day well. She was really nervous about it, especially the needle. But they give her the gas mask and then the IV so it works out for her. Doctor says surgery went well but he is not clear why this happened to her originally. 

It’s been 4.5 weeks since surgery. Ellie was home for a week and returned to school on crutches. She’s been managing like a champ. I’m really proud of her. She hates her crutches and that she can’t practice jujitsu for a while, but she has kept up with her school work and navigating the world on crutches very well.

She has started light physical therapy ans has a long road of Recovery ahead but she’s taking it day by day ans step by step. Her patience are surely a great virtue!

She sees the Doc on the 21st and hopes to be released from the book then. We shall see. 

I didn’t want to skip documenting this big part of Ellie’s teen years. I know this is hard for her and I’m really proud of how she’s managing it. 

Fourteen years of parenting

14 years of parenting started 14 years ago today. It has been a wonderful journey and it has surely changed my life. This morning I sit here having woken up at seven as the first one in the house the week and I’m downstairs heating the oven to cook cinnamon rolls for Eli‘s birthday because that is her tradition as she calls it. The girl likes her traditions especially when they’re associated with sugar.

Each year and Eli‘s birthday I reflect on the night before she was born. David and I went out for a nice dinner because I knew it be the last table to go out like that without a babysitter for a long time. It was a nice meal and I enjoyed at the time and ended up regretting after the C-section. The day Ellie was born what is a exciting and terrifying day. I had no idea how that baby was coming out. I knew I was ready to meet her though.

14 years later that baby has turned into an independent, smart, caring, thoughtful, self thinking, artistic, artistic person. She’s still my baby but surely is not a baby anymore.  

Over the past 14 years of things that I have cared about and worried about have changed dramatically. The personal adventure of the world has subsided greatly, and the adventure of parenting has taken me on journeys of caring about things like ounces of milk consumed and pumped, number of wet diapers, schools to pick and choose, number of calories to eat a day, bones to have x-rayed, physical therapy to do, how to teach a child to be on time, how to learn how to healthfully feed a vegetarian, How to help a child through without having a friendship she needs (when I myself don’t have them), Coaching sports (instead of playing them), A lot less happy hours with colleagues and a lot more home to cook dinner, learning how to be a better cook, trying to cook things like tofu and beans and lentils, trying to balance a vegetarian who loves cheese and has been who hates cheese, how to plan the perfect family vacation instead of self adventure, had a balance my vacation days for meeting all the children’s needs instead of the most traveling I can do, how many vials of sunblock and how many layers of protective clothing to five people need to spend a week at the beach instead of the right alcohol to bring, are the children reading the right books instead of am I reading write books, trying to teach my children how to enjoy boardgames which I love so much, focusing on their friendships instead of my own (probably a parent failure quite honestly but I’m trying). All of these things represent a huge shift that you go through when you become a parent, and I honestly believe my life would never have been complete without these wonderful changes.

They say the days can be long but the years fly by. I know this is true. It wasn’t that long ago that I remember celebrating the birthdays of the Perrotta boys and thinking they had grown up fast. It’s amazing how much of a blur the parenting years and life as a whole can be. 

So, the decorations are up. The signs have been hung, the balloons have been blown up, presents are wrapped and placed under the birthday tree which is standing erect in the family room. The plans for the day have been made. The birthday meal has been ordered. We will celebrate and we will try to make it a wonderful day for Ellie. 

I hope as she ages she has fond memories of her childhood. I hope the same for all of my children.

The oven has beeped and I’m off to put the cinnamon buns into the oven so my daughter wakes up to the smell that makes her happy. I’ll probably wake her with the kittens in my arms.

Here’s to a happy 14th my dear darling daughter Ellie! 

Love you always and forever!

Mommy

Ellie’s first 15 u rec season

Today was the last game for our spring season. We played in the gold bracket tournament game one against the fourth Place team. We played in Middletown on a hot Saturday afternoon. The game has been rescheduled due to storms earlier in the week and we were two girls down. Sadly, one of the primary infield girls wasn’t able to make it. I think this really hurt us. 

The game started out well and we held them to a tide one - one game until the third inning. In the third inning they got fired and open the game up for themselves with a good lead. In the fifth inning we lost two girls to heat. After that, there wasn’t much opportunity for rebound. We just couldn’t get our bats going today. We ended up losing 10 to 3. Ellie was our only picture and pitch the full game. The first five innings she really did an awesome job. Once the heat started to get to her and her headache set in, it started to get hard to keep her focus. I totally understand. Eli and heat don’t mix.

We played this season in Arbana because liberty couldn’t get enough girls together for 15 you team. I didn’t have a whole lot of expectations for the season. I’m quite pleased with where we ended up at the fifth Place out of 10 teams. I think almost every girl learn something new and really improve during the season. I had some great assistant coaches. Most excitingly, I think Ellie really made some good friends on the team this season. I’m really happy and how much she enjoyed the camaraderie of some new girls on her team this year. I hope they’re able to keep in touch and keep their friendship up.

Pitching under pressure

Today was the fourth game of the season for our 15 u team. Ellie is the most experienced pitcher on our team. She has had a rough couple past games and has been trying to work on her pitching with the pitching coach this week.

The umpire was also very inconsistent today. This made it really hard to be a picture today.

I really thought that we would easily beat the team we were playing but it turned into a really tight game. In fact, it looks like we were going to lose at one point.

We only played five innings. Eli pitched the last three of them. We went into the last inning knowing that it was the last inning because time have been called by the umpire. We needed to hold them to win the game. It was 11 to 10 us.

Ellie struck out the first batter. Then Ellie walked about her. Then she struck out another batter. Then a batter her got a hit off of her. Then she walked another batter. They were bases-loaded with two outs in the bottom of the last inning. I kept trying to cheer her on and tell her that she could do this. I was also praying to God to give her strength that no matter the outcome she could handle the situation.

She pitched a good first pitch and the batter had a swing and a mess. Then she pitched a ball. Then she pitched another good pitch with a swing and a mess. Then she pitched two more balls. It was a full count bases-loaded bottom of the last inning of the game. I was so nervous for her. I wanted her to come out successful. I also wanted her to come out with Grace.

She did a few air drops into her glove and took the mound. She threw hard fast and high. By the luck of grace for us, the batter swung and missed and the game was over. And we had dug out of a very very tight inning.

We came away with the win. What I’m most proud of is Ellie. It was a tough game and that umpire made your mind go crazy if you were a pitcher or pitchers parent. She did really well under pressure. She told me she was really nervous and still replaying it in her head is nerve-racking. We are both glad the game is over and we came away with that one.

Ellie is quite the softball player. She also had quite a few good hits tonight. I enjoy watching her play the game. I really enjoy watching her be successful at it. I most enjoyed when she’s enjoying it.

13 years of parenting

Today we celebrated Ellie‘s 13th birthday. I think the day worked out almost exactly as Eli wanted. I’m happy that she got to have the day that she wanted at the relaxing pace that she wanted. She decided to open her presents first thing in between enjoying her homemade cinnamon buns. After a lazy morning and her getting present she really really wanted including two big beanbag chairs and AirPods from granny, she started baking the most elaborate cake ever. 

After lunch grandma came for a visit and brought her a cake decorating set that came just in time as she put it. She quickly proceeded to use that to icing the cake and was very proud of the job that she did. His cake was a magnificent heavy sugary peanut butter and chocolate delight. She was very proud of this. 

In the afternoon she got to go for a walk with two friends and play in the trampoline for a while.

She got to have dinner from one of her favorite places, just as she requested. Her daddy dutifully ran off to Frederick to get exactly what she wanted. After dinner and cake, her and I went downstairs to watch a fairly grown-up movie that she had set her eyes on for her 13th birthday. It’s called 5 feet apart. I know it’s time to start letting her grow up and be exposed to more grown-up topics. It is not easy. I know I need to try to embrace it and enjoy it. I always knew I would be a better parent to a young kid than a teenager. Now the teenage years are here and I pray for the strength and wisdom to be a good mom to my teens. I pray I can point then in the right direction to fulfill all God intends them to be. 

I love you Ellie Grey. I’m so proud of you and so very blessed to be your Mom!

These black-and-white photos are some pictures Ellie took of her self on my phone today. It’s interesting to see the way she wants to capture herself.

And here is the cake in the end of our day. 

Birthday countdown

For the past two weeks Kelly has reminded us how many days it was until she turned 13 every day. She has been excited looking forward to her birthday. I know she enjoys gifts gifts. This year she’s also very much looking forward to making her own cake. This is the first year I’ve given him and let her do that. I always said birthday cake making with a mom‘s job. But, that’s what she really wants so I’m giving up my privilege of cake baking for her joy.

She’s already made herself in the family fresh homemade cinnamon buns to start the day with. She has plans for things she wants to do throughout the day as well.

This evening when I was putting her to bed she asked me if the birthday tree would be coming out for her. It was 1015 before I had put Clair to bed and had everybody in their bed. I was exhausted and I told Clair I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get up and put together all the birthday stuff for Eli. She says mommy you have to get up. I said I was really tired. She looks at me and says “mommy if you’d like I can get up and go take care of it so you can sleep.“ She was serious. She was concerned for her tired mommy and she was concerned for her big sister. She’s super sweet.

So I made my way quickly out of her bed and started wrapping presents, decorating, making sure all birthday birthday traditions were in place. I hope that Eli is happy tomorrow.

As I think about the fact that the baby who made me a mama turns 13 tomorrow I have so many mixed emotions. I wanted to be a mom all my life. I was so excited to have early. The years have flown by. I honestly don’t know where they’ve gone if it weren’t for pictures that remind me. I want them to slow down. I want to spend more time with my kids and appreciate your thinking and their joys and their challenges. My work is really intense and I do not get the pleasure of giving them all that they deserve. I will probably never forgive myself for that. I only hope that they know how much I love them and that they do have positive memories of me spending time with them, and me listening to them, and me loving them.

Ellie is an amazing young lady. She has a heart of gold. She is smart. She is very artsy. She’s very athletic. She’s a great big sister. She’s working hard on being organized. She has a heart for God. She has a heart for those that are weaker and need help. I want her to know how special she is. I want her to know all her wonderful talents. I prayer for her tonight as I put her to bed for God to help me and her always see all the wonderful talents he’s placed in her, and I asked God to please help guide me in guiding her to bring out and recognize and use these talents. I want her to have confidence in how wonderful a person she really is.

I love my Ellie Bean!

Celebrating 13 with friends

During this time of Covid and trying to show some respect for the risk of the virus, I struggle with social interactions even more than normal. We were trying to figure out what we could do to celebrate Ellie turning 13. After much debate we decided to roll the dice and schedule a fall swim party in the new pool for the first weekend in November. I let her invite six friends around and we prayed for sunshine. 

She made special cupcakes and took point on stuffing the pin yada. 

Boy did we get lucky. It was a gorgeous fall day and got almost 80°. We were able to get the pool up to 95°. The girls played games, had a piñata, giggled, and swam. 

Ellie was as happy as could be to get to start her birthday off early celebrating with friends. I’m really grateful that she got to do something with her friends Tamark such a mile stone is turning into a teenager. 

She is now counting down the days to when she turns 13. She’s enjoying a drawn out birthday right now.

Working hard on her hitting

This winter we’ve invested in upping Ellie’s hitting game. Her hitting coach, Brett, has provided some great tips for her. She’s making good progress. 

There’s still more to do to get the adjustments to become habits. I’m proud of Ellie’s focus and efforts in this area. I’m looking forward to seeing how it helps her this spring. 

Birthday preparations

Tomorrow Ellie turns 12. I think about what we were doing 12 years ago and the expectations I had, some I’ve held true and some are very different.

One of the things that turned out different than I ever envisioned it would is the expectations of my children have for what happened tonight before their birthday. Apparently I spoiled them so much when they were children at a young age that now they expect birthday tree, a special birthday breakfast, two cakes – one for the birthday and one for their party with friends, too many presents, birthday banners to be hanging, and there was even a mention of expecting balloons in the morning. David says it’s time to start disappointing them. Of course he’s sort of joking, and sort of not. I enjoy spoiling my kids, but I wish they didn’t expect the same exacts spoils for each birthday. 

That said, kick number one is made, birthday banners I’ve been home, the birthday tree has been pulled out of the closet and decorated, presents are wrapped and under the tree, cards are downstairs, a birthday menu it suits the birthday girl is prepared, and there’s probably more things I want in it trying to squeeze it in tomorrow.

 I’m so grateful to be able to give the kids are with they have. I hope you’re finding a balance and not giving them too much but they truly are spoiled. I do think we are good kids. I also think it’s important for children to not get everything they want, otherwise, it’s the encouragement to work harder. 

Ellie’s point of view- The Outter Banks 2019

I think this is a story Ellie wrote for school. I enjoyed reading our vacation from her point of view. She is 11 now. 

   During August, 2019, I went on a vacation to the Outer Banks with my family. We were renting out a beach house that was a nice size, and a really

 pretty color. It was on the ocean side, so we had a private boardwalk leading up 

to the beach. We were going with my mom’s best friends from college. They were 

both married, and one couple had a 5 year old son named Jacob. We had gone on 

the same trip last year, in September. This was going to be a really fun trip.

          August 2:16 am 

In the morning, I was so excited to be going to the beach. I had been 

waiting months for this vacation! I knew we were going to be waking up at 4 in 

the morning to leave for the vacation. I was so excited.

        August 4:21 am

I had been awake since 2:16 and couldn’t fall asleep. But where was my 

mom? She was supposed to wake us up! I could hear people downstairs, and I was 

pretty sure it was my parents, but my mom said we were going to leave as early 

as possible to escape the traffic. I wondered if my mom had locked the door 

before going to bed that night. Then, I heard heavy footsteps coming up the 

stairs, and it didn’t sound like my parents footsteps. I knew the sound  of 

everybody in out house’s footsteps, and those didn’t sound like my moms. Maybe 

my mom hadn’t put her indoor shoes on? I pretended to be asleep. The footsteps 

got closer to my room. I half shut my eyes so that anyone who came into the room 

wouldn’t see I had my eyes open. The door was slowly pushed open. And a 

shadowy figure stepped into the room. . . . My mom! I was probably so tired it   

heard the sound of her footsteps differently. She walked over to my bed and 

“woke” me up.

“Time to get ready to go!” She said softly. 

August around 4:50 am

We were all in the car, with the stuff, and ready to go. We drove for a 

little bit, and around 6:57 we stopped at Mcdonalds for breakfast. I had 

pancakes. They were warm, fluffy, and delicious. Several hours later, we arrived at the Outer Banks. Our house wasn't going to be given to us until 4 pm, so we had lunch. We ate at a bagel place and I had a bagel, with cheese, lettuce, and tomato.  Then, we met my mom's friends at a beer garden. we stayed there for around 45 minutes, and then my family went and played Putt-Putt. Finally, our house was ready for us. We got there and it was amazing. We wanted to go out to the beach, but we didn't really have time. so me, my brother, my sister, and Jacob the five year old boy, played in the pool.  we ate dinner, which was frozen pizza, and then went to bed. The next couple days, we went out on the beach, and it was really fun. But on the second day, something not so fun happened. I got stung by a jellyfish. A lion's mane jellyfish to be exact.

Picture from  Beneath Cold Seas: The Underwater Wilderness of The Pacific …  on Google (That looked like the ones we saw)

It felt like being poked with hundreds of needles while getting slapped extremely hard. The sting was red, bumpy, and from my knee and on the underside of my knee up until the top of my thigh. I was done with the beach for that day. The next day in the morning, we went out and found the best thing we could that would cover me up so I wouldn’t get stung, and my mom ordered things for us to wear online. For the first 2 days, the water was quite warm. We saw lots and lots of fish, we saw skates, which are basically smaller stingrays, and less harmful. On the day we went out looking for bathing suits, the water was colder, and less clear.  But it wasn’t too cold, and I caught a fish. I caught a Mino: with my hands. It was being chased by another fish, bigger fish, on the surface of the water. I took one look and scooped it up in my hands. I named it Big Guy, since it was being chased by a big fish when I caught it. I put it in a bucket and watched it. The next day, we bought a fishing net. With the net, over the span of several days, me and my dad caught 2 more fish. They were smaller, black fish. One was named Dad, since my dd caught it. The other one was named Jellyfish, since I didn’t go out to far in the water to catch it, because I was afraid of being stung by a jellyfish. I spent the rest of my vacation boogie boarding, digging in the sand, playing in our pool, and skimboarding. It was an awesome vacation, and I would definitely go back. And I am pretty sure that next year, we will go back, as it has now become a tradition.

By: Ellie Cummings

To daddy on Father’s Day

A few years ago Ellie made this creation for David on Father’s Day. It sat on his dresser for years. She really put a lot of work into creating a very interesting sky. He really has appreciated this piece of art.

Artwork from Ellie

 In another episode of I can’t keep everything forever, below is a picture that Ellie drew me for a Christmas present of the Arch Angel Michael.  You’re very detailed drawing of a beautiful angel. It’s been up in my office for a few years. Some stuff up off the floor. I love my children and all their artwork. I love to be able to preserve it in our blog. 

Why Ellie should get the costume she wants

 Ellie and I tend to have a lot of different opinions these days. I know this is the start of the teenage years. One of the things we haven’t really agreed on the past few years is her Halloween costume. She wants to be a lot creepier than I would like her to be. I prefer my little princess returned. This year, she wanted her creepy outfits that look very similar to what she was last year and I didn’t want to spend my money on it. So, she wrote an essay to convince me to let her get what she wanted. Though I didn’t feel the essay was very convincing, the effort was and she got what she wanted.

Middle school is upon us

This is Ellie and Ethan, they are the same age and met when they were infants. I tried to ask them to pose for a picture yesterday, which has happened many times over the years, but yesterday it meant standing 2 feet apart as a starter. I asked them to get closer and this was it. Meanwhile Lori says, “ put your arm around her like your brother and sister.” This laugh that we were crazy was the result!

Actually this one captures Ellie’s reaction to Lori’s ask.