Claudia is Cancer Free!!!!

When I read the update of Claudia's mom on Claudia's Clause Facebook  page last Saturday, I could not stop  the tears.

I could not believe, Claudia is cancer free!!! This came not without a cost, Claudia is no longer registered as terminally ill, but she's registered as blind. Chemotherapy fights cancer, but, at the same time, is a poison for your body. Still, after having heard around 3 years ago that your daughter has about 2 weeks to live and hear 3 years later that she is cancer free makes it all worth while.

It is a miracle, a miracle of the medical science coupled with a lot of faith and the love of this mom that never gave up on Claudia.

I am overflowing with joy, so very happy for this family that went through so much and for us moms that want to believe that our  kids are invincible. Maybe they are indeed...

 

Of Love and Little Girls - An Update

Do you see a trend here? Yes, that's the new boy in town.

And here's the most recent conversation we've had on this while we were looking through her 1st Grade yearbook I put together for her class:

"Mommy, I love Brendan There's no one else like Brendan.... " (she sighs)

A couple pages and many sighs later:

"And Brendan, I gotta say,  I love him!"

I can't stop myself from giggling. She gets annoyed.

" You don't know what's like."

To be in love she meant? Hahaha, yeah of course I don't, right?. Oh B...

Note that all the while, she comes home saying she loves wrestling with Ian and Ian tells his mom about playing Cops and Robbers with her.  Oh, B... 2!

So far I've been luck, she's been falling for the good boys. May that trend continue. Will it last through Summer while school is out? My guess is... not! Next!

The Game Before the Game

With what happened this past week, I have learned a great deal about bringing up a kid. I have learned about letting her make her own choices, in spite of what I thought was best.  I have learned to admit to my kid that I am wrong (there was no escape!). I am sure this will come handy in the near future as she becomes more and more able to make her own choices.

Last week B had a swim meet scheduled for Saturday and because of the thunderstorms a lot of the practices were cancelled. She had practiced only once that week so I suggested she went on Friday.Only that Friday swim practice clashed with soccer and she did not want to miss soccer for anything.

 It is becoming evident that soccer is her real passion.  It was a tryout, but I was told by the coach that she did not need to attend as she was in already. She insisted she wanted to play soccer over swimming. I was against it, but finally gave in  but not without warning her. I told her that if she didn't do good at the swim meet that it may be a direct result of her lack of practice and that I did not want to hear any crying if it was the case. She looked at me in the eye and said: "Mommy, I won't let you down!". I told her that it wasn't me who she was letting down, but her team and herself. I emphasized that because I want her to understand that she did not need to impress me. I want her to want to excel at school or in her life for herself.

With that, we went to soccer practice. She was so excited! In the tryout,  she played with 7 and 8 year olds during scrimmage. She was the only one kicking towards the goal, stealing the ball in the defense, where she was supposed to be positioned,  and running all the way up to the front.She kicked  5 or 6 times towards the goal. She ended up scoring the only two goals of the scrimmage, something of a rare feat for her that has never been that much of an offensive player. Maybe this was the best I've ever seen her play! She played her heart out!

I think it was her way of telling me: " Mommy, and this is why I wanted you to bring me to soccer." She was right about that part, but would she still be right about it the next day when the swim meet rolled in the next day?

Well, well, indeed she was.  She improved her time in all 4 styles and I'm talking really improved! Some of the styles she took 5 seconds off (which is a bid deal for swimming)! She got one second place, two third places and one fifth place swimming against 7 and 8 years old of both her level and some from the level above hers. She swam her best swim meet ever!

After a tryout of Friday evening, a swim meet duting the hot morning on Saturday, she insisted she wanted to go to the second round of tryouts that same afternoon 1 hour after the swim meet. My girl loves soccer, knows what she wants and goes after it. She has an endless source of energy, I called her my Energizer Bunny.

The entire weekend spoke volumes about her ability to take responsibility (when she told me " I won't let you down") and about using that as her fuel, her motivation.

In the end she told me: " Mommy, you know, you were wrong." I did not even try to deny, I acknowledged my mistake, but not without patting myself on the back for, for the first time,  letting her make tough decisions and backing her up, even when I did not agree with them. So in the end, I was very, very happy about the mistake I made.

P.S: Decided to title this post after watching this fabulous ad:

She made it the Yearbook!

I was the homeroom photographer mom this year. As such, I had to submit many pictures to the year book.

I knew some of them would make it into the Yearbook but little did I know my Miss B would be right on the first page with a picture I took! And then other pictures were included in her own 1st Grade page.

Sweet memories to keep forever!

 

No To Racism

We are not born racists, we become racists, most of the time by influence of our parents, friends etc.

One of the greatest gifts my parents gave was to learn to love someone regardless of color, religion  and money. This way, I had a black baby as a toy, my sister has a black Barbie equivalent (Suzi). The first close friend I can remember was an Indian girl named Anupama.

As we grew up,  we had friends that were not as privileged as us, that had different religions and that had different colors too. We never stopped to question, we looked at their hearts instead and chose our friends this way.

It is this very set of beliefs that I have passed onto B. 

Last year in Kindergarten she had a friend who was from India,  a vegetarian  and a non-Christian. She came to tell me that her friend would not eat and meat and she believed in different Gods. I went on to tell her that it was ok to be different and that we had to learn from their differences and be tolerant about them. I also told her that the world would be very boring if we were all the same. We would not learn anything new with the other.

She actually embraced the idea that being different is cool and says that she does not want to be like everybody else, because she wants to lead others! I just hope she will not be that kid that will dye her hair pink!!!!

The incident with the Brazilian player during the international game was the perfect scenario to re-introduce the discussion we once had about being tolerant towards the others and their differences. When she arrived from school I told her about the player and asked if she wanted to take a picture eating a banana. She was fast to agree and the result is the picture above. 

In my view, Neymar's campaign is not about ignoring racism, but telling the offenders we don't care what they think because we know we indeed allcame from the monkeys. We are all monkeys, we are all the same! Raising above it and not exacerbating the difference is in my view a lot more effective. 

Mother's Day

My heart grows bigger every year and almost bursts every Mother's Day.

It becomes more and more interesting to read what she writes, to know what she thinks and what she thinks about me.  And why not: to see through her drawings and read through her notes and cards of her love for me, even though she still doesn't think that I love her a whole lot more! To the moon and back...

This year was no different. 

I learned she thought I am smart because I figured out her Summer camps.Yes, that is true, it's almost a science given that she is doing so many different things (to be honest with you,  I wish I could do them myself!) ! She did see my excel grid and must have thought I was a smart Scientist, like her. I learned she actually realizes where I work and she thinks I'm great at it, which I was surprised she knew. She remembered our fun runs together and when we ordered pizzas! Finally, she says I like her because she's beautiful, cute and she does nice things for me. There, she has no clue.

No clue that my love for her is unconditional, infinite and not tied to one or two simple reasons. I love her for a lot of reasons that I could be listing forever and have done so in many other posts. But deep down, I love her because she exists and is part of me, of my body, of my heart and of my soul...And forever will be this way, my Lolinha. Love you to the moon and back, to the infinity and back.

Becoming an Athlete

Although swim meets are fun, I'm glad it's over. I'm ready for an afternoon under the AC. For a first meet after a month of practice after her short lived hiatus and in her new U8 category, she did well time wise. 

Frankly, overall better than expected. 

I'm very proud of her on how she handled not swimming for medals or ribbons this time and actually wanting to be in this meet regardless. 

She is all cool and focus during the meets, a very different kid from her usual social butterfly. She just wants to out her headphone on and play in her tablet between the events. She took the initiative and went to warn up on her on in between events, what I rarely saw in kids her age. 

She's definitely growing up and becoming an athlete!  I so admire her!  Her determination, focus and confidence is even a lesson even to me as a grown-up! #biasedmom

  

#FrozenProblems

In my ever complicated quest to find awesome Summer camps for Miss B while trying to synch up with her friends' camps, I told Miss B that I had found indeed an awesome Summer camp for her to go to: a week of musical theater!

 

 

She was already very interested. Then I told her that the musical they would perform would be Frozen! I knew she was going to go crazy about it. I love cartoons and I loved Frozen but I can't really explain why this cartoon is the biggest Disney hit of all times! B sings Let it Go all day long. She has memorized  all the songs and some parts of the movie she's watched at least 5 times  in less than 15 days! Then we make it to Target and you hear other kids singing songs from Frozen too! You can hardly find any licensed merchandise either. It's a Frozen Fever!

 

 

No wonder she screamed of excitement when she heard about the Frozen performance. And then immediately said: "I want to be Elsa, I want to be Elsa!"

 

I  readily explained to her that there was no guarantee which part she was going to get and that there would be at least two Elsas (child/grown up).  She pondered and said: "Well, I wish I could be both Elsas this way I could  be on stage all the time." 

 

 

OMG, I stopped... Whose kid is this anyway? A little actress in the making? Drama skills I do know for a long time now that she possesses! Will see...

Truth To Be Told?

 

One of the hardest things about parenting is explaining children the grey areas of acceptable behavior in the eyes of a complex society.

 

Since they are little,  we teach them to always tell the truth. However, there are limits to that truth that needs to be told and in some instances needs to be silenced or omitted. How then are they supposed to know when it is ok to really tell the truth?

Not once, but twice recently I’ve had to lay out the rules of society when it came to omit the truth to a beloved friend to avoid hard feelings. Not an easy task!

 

A couple of week prior to Valentine’s Day, B had come home talking about a friend at school that had difficulty with Math.  She asked me if it was still ok to hang out with her in spite of her trouble at school. We had in the recent past talked about not hanging out with friends that were troublemakers at school all the time. Only that I later realized I had not defined what “ trouble” really meant  (again another grey area!) . I then explained that I did not mean " that"  kind of trouble, but rather someone that was disrespectful with the teachers or mean to other kids. And further, if she had a friend that was behind in Math, she actually could show how to be a good friend by helping her friend. It was because of this conversation that she decided to write the note below.
 

It was arduous but I finally convinced her not to send the Valentine card as it would likely hurt her friend’s feelings. " Hope you do better at Math" was a well wish no one needed to be reminded at Valentine's!

 

More recently, she sat next to a Kindergartener  named Maggie at the school bus that had lost a lot of blood through her nose. The situation was serious enough to awarrant the removal of the little girl  from the bus. This was rather impactful to B as she was sitting next to the girl and was the one who alerted the bus driver. B had been shocked with the amount of blood she had seen. This story was recounted and digested throughout the entire weekend. Finally, she decided to write a get well card to Maggie. She wrote her beautiful card with thoughtful words to comfort Maggie, but chose the margin to color entirely indicating the high amount of blood she had lost!!! Oh no! When I told her it was not a good idea, she argued that at the top of margin she had put a positive note. Regardless of that, I explained that her friend would certainly not want to be reminded that she had lost so much blood!!!

 

These two are only recent examples. Have a kid  always tell you the truth regardless of the consequences is a hard task in itself. Now, teaching a kid when it is ok not to tell the truth is nearly impossible. I hope that at least she processes the bit taught that it is oknot  to tell the truth if you are going to hurt someone’s feeling unnecessarily. Still a grey area even when hard feelings are involved, but we will leave it to the next lesson hopefully at a much later time!

Miss Bs Fairytale

There was a little girl named Miss B...She wished for snow...Only that there is no snow in Florida.

On her birthday she chose to go to New York City, the city that never sleeps and hardly ever snows much. Because nothing is impossible, her dreams did come true...

We arrived in NY and from the plane we could attest, we were actually arriving in Winter Wonderland. NYC covered with snow.
 

She was amazed big skyscrapers.


 

She wanted to run on the streets  and tried very hard to keep up with the hustle and bustle of the city. 

She fullfilled her dream of iceskating on the outdoors and did so  twice! At Bryant Park and at the traditional Rockefeller Center.

 

She even wanted to play even with the black ice and was like a kid in a candy store when saw snow falling for the first time that Saturday morning.





We promised snow and went to the Central Park so that she could build her first snowman. And then the unthinkable happened. The snow started falling heavily while we were in the heart of the Central Park. That was an unforgettable scene. One I will never forget and nor will she.

We were children again, much like her. Building a snowman, throwing snow balls and simply in awe.

Never mind that her birthday dinner was a disaster at the restaurant that never lived up to the hype.



I am sure she will not remember that part. But she will never forget her first snow man at the Central Park, her first ice skating rink, her visit to the cockpit of the plane and her fabulous time at that restless and vibrant city, much like herself.

And our dreams came true too, to see her happy at her very special day!

 

 

Bloco da Bianca - Ano VII

 

Miss B  is  7! Almost a big kid! (oh no!)

She continues to be the sweet kid she has always been. That sweet kid that gives flowers to her piano teacher, mom and dad, write notes to her loved ones and makes drawings with hearts, flowers, butterflies and rainbows.

It is funny because she has this very sweet and girly side that loves to play dress  up and likes to wear pink and many accessories. Then she has a total tomboy side. She loves the Mutant Ninja Turtles. She loves playing with the boys, she can outrun most of the ones her age. Finally, climbing trees and being active are her favorite things. 

It was after her sixth birthday when Chase (a little BF from school - seen above) taught her how to tie her first shoe laces in Kindergarten.

She gave her first speech during ther Kindergarten graduation and made everyone laugh at her long and elaborated thank you speech.

She tried out and started swimming competitively. She earned many first places, shed tears when did not get first place. She has revealed to be an athlete that is cool, confident, that won't give up  but that does not like to lose.

She likes all sports and wants to try everything. At one point she was doing soccer, was in the swimming team and was at the pre-team at Gymnastics. And even considered doing karate and basketball!!!

At school, 1st grade has taught her so much and emotionally she grew leaps and bounds.

She loves Math and is very good at it. Before getting to 1st Grade she already knew the basics of multiplication on her own.  She is able to read first chapter books (a big deal for her!) and writes very creative stories.

She is confident, persistent and a truth teller like her daddy. Like her mom , she's  caring and much of a people pleaser. Also like her mom, she loves to play host and to make others feel better. She is very clumsy, extremly forgetful and as a result loses everytLhing, her mom's daughter! She is competitive and determined like us.

Some of her fave things:

Fave color:  " Rainbow"
Fave food/drink:  Definitely a picky eater! But has her passions... Meatloaf, Spaguetti & Meatballs, Taco, Sushi, crackers, cucumber, crackers, quiche, pineapple,  watermelon and loves milk, coconut water and passion fruit juice.
Fave Cartoon:  Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leo is her favorite Ninja), Wordgirl
BFFs:  Emily, Mady, Ava & Emily
Fave Toy:  Anything Mutant Ninja Turtles, Charlie (her teddy bear), Legos.
Fave hobbies:  Watch TV,   play Subway surfer in my Kindle, sing, go to the movies, play soccer, run, go swimming, go out for dinner and have playdates. 
Fave Song:  Princess Sofia's songs, Amazing (by Bruno Mars), Trouble (Taylor Swift), Party in the USA (Miley Cirus) and Firework (Katy Perry)
What she wants to be when she grows up: "A Scientist"
Not a big fan of:  sleeping early, taking a shower, tomato, pasta, chocolate or brownies, be laughed at it or losing.

Her BFF Mady

With her BFF Emily

In many aspects, even though I hate the weight of this statement, I have to say:  she is the kid I wish I had been! Extrovert, bubbly, fearless, confident and a natural leader. A great girl I get inspired by day by day. So very lucky and grateful to have been chosen  to be her Mommy and to shepherd her journey through life!

Big Lessons from Little People

I am not ashamed to come forward and say 'mea culpa' when indeed it is mine, which I recognize it is not very often (haha). However, mea culpa alone is not enough. Sometimes, just admitting you are wrong does not necessarily translate into action or correction. Sometimes, you have to be taught a lesson twice so it reminds you not to fall within the same old pattern of bad behaviour. And I had a reminder this past week. This is not about Miss B's behaviour, but my own.

B loves sports and she has chosen to  take on 3 sports, while I actually discouraged her to do so. But being the only child she is, having great grades at school and not a lot of homework, I felt it was ok for this season to take on 3. She went on with Swimming team  (4x a week), Soccer ( 2x a week) and Gymnastics (1 x a week) and she even wanted to take a fourth: Running, which I didn't let her.

She started the year strong but towards the end of the Summer she started not wanting to go to swimming as often and really not focusing during practice. The coach spoke to her and I spoke to her and asked if she wanted to continue swimming.  If indeed she liked swimming herself or was doing only to please me. She said she liked it, but it was a lot of work. Which in fact it is! The team approach seems to discourage those do not want to make swimming their #1 priority. As a result of our conversation, our compromise was to swim twice a week only until the November meet and then rethink whether she still wanted to swim when it was not so cold in February or March.

She started to focus a lot more and swam strong after that. I was thinking to myself that she was going to end her season with a win streak in the U6 category meet at the end of November. When I saw the Swim roster it became even more apparent that she would win it all, after all, she had the best times! What a beautiful ending to her first season of swimming would that be! Only that it did not end up the way I imagined...

Swimmers have good days and bad days and she had never had a bad so far. Well, the last meet was one of these "bad days". She improved her time in only 1 of the 4 styles she swam and, as a result she got second place in 3 styles and was even disqualified in the fly (which all swimmers but one were too, strangely).

You may be thinking,  isn't second place good when you're swimming against 10 other swimmers? I'd say  generally yes, but in knowing what she could have done and that in certain styles 5 year olds beat her, it was for me upsetting, disappointing and at the same time humbling.  I never let it transpire to her I was disappointed.  She wanted to know why she was disqualified, not even I knew. But overall, she was not super happy, but was not too upset. After all, she got medals! As for me,  I felt ashamed of underestimating other  kids so badly that I didn't want to confess my sin till now.

Even after this little lesson, I went on to sort of falling in to the same pattern of  bad behaviour this past week. We had practice, we had this kid that got kicked out of practice by the coach while his mom was not at practice. None of the moms really understood and the kid kept crying in the corner. I did not feel like going to talk to him because I did not want to take the authority from the coach. I did see him giving the kid a warning regarding behaviour so I assumed it was deserved. I felt really bad regardless, but yet didn't do anything about it.

After practice I asked B if she knew what had happened to the boy and she said she wasn't sure. She knew he was upset because the other boys were making up rhymes with his name. I felt even worse. He was being bullied and nobody actually did anything.

Saturday comes and we have a tough a game against an opponent that has mostly 7 and 8 year boys against our young team of 6-year old boys and girls. We were already losing 3-0 when the coach sets up the team with this boy that got kicked out,  two girls and another average player agains the all boys team. In my mind, it was the weakest team  of all, even if my daughter was in it and I told the other mom, that the coach should balance the team better, not having all girls at the same time etc. Right when I was saying that the little boy, the one that got kicked out,  started to make his odd moves and I say to the other mom: " you see what I'm saying, look at that!" This was a horrible, horrible comment from a mean mom. And that was me... Just in the heat of competition. Very mean indeed.

Right after realizing what I had said and thought, I immediately felt awful. This kind of behaviour would be something I expected from another mom I so criticize  for overpraising her kid and thinking every other kid is a moron. This is not me! Or is it?!

Well, we ended up losing to the big boys team, which was not the lesson in itself. The big lesson came from the little boy who got bullied and got kicked out during practice, who was making the odd moves during the game. He, the little boy, was the only one in our team to score a goal right towards the end of the game. His first goal.That right there, was a slap to my face. Wake and up and smell the coffeee. It's great to compete and to see your kid win, but do not ever understimate other kids or let competition  blind you and misguide you from your values. We are all created equal.

The "Who to Marry" Experiment

I  came across the following post on Facebook and found it so adorable that decided to replicate the same interview with Miss B. 

http://dailynewsdig.com/how-do-you-decide-who-to-marry-written-by-kids/

I did not rehearse the questions and just told her that there was no right or wrong answer. The result clearly indicates what I already knew: that she is a born romantic. 

It was actually surprising how well she answered the questions! I guess I was expecting some wilder answers based upon what I read. Instead, her answers were very direct and logical. 

My favorite parts were her answer to the question on what would she do if her date went wrong  (more power to her!) and also how you know who to marry. Two sides of my kid that is a helplessly romantic but also resilient and self-assured! 

Here's her full interview: 

http://youtu.be/kTAfZdBGHlA

The Underdog Rules Sometimes

Miss B has been playing soccer now since she’s 3 years old. Because I see that soccer is her favorite sport (yes,  she has the Brazilian DNA), I thought it was time to move to a new league in which she could practice and not only play for fun. We chose Tampa Bay Football Club as it is a club too.

 

She was supposed to start the new league and have a friend in her team. She and Mady were going to be together in the same team. However, when we found out that our team had 12 kids and only 4 would play I asked her whether she would prefer to be with her Imagine friends and play little soccer or move to another team with no Imagine friends and have more play time. She opted for the later. So she and Mady moved to different teams.

 

In the first practice with the new team, it was apparent that her team with more boys than girls  was much stronger than the past league. Last practice that became evident and Miss B suffered as she was not able to keep up with the boys, who incredibly seem to be born to play soccer. Even the girls were better than her. She was so frustrated when she could not get it right and cried alone out of frustration. My heart was broken but she had to realize she cannot be the best all the time and that she has to work hard. The positive side was that she didn’t come to cry on my lap, she came to me only during the break to tell me sobbing: “ it’s not fair, the boys are showing off!” . I explained to her that the boys were not showing off and that they were better because they had been in the league before while it was her first time practicing.  She left the practice feeling defeated.

 

Saturday comes along and as I arrive at the field for the game, I already feel that the environment resembles more a game than a recreational league especially if compared to her last league. There’s a bench for the players. The parents stay on the opposite side of the field. The coach is not allowed to get into the field and the players need to figure out where they should stay. Miss B was starting the game and I thought to myself, because they don’t want her at the last minute since she is not that good if compared to the others…

 

After ten minutes playing she leaves back to the bench and I felt like going to the other side to stay with her but I see no parents, so I stay on the parents side, but feeling really bad. I wanted to comfort, she’ my little girl!!!!

 

She gets into the game again when the other team had 1 goal lead. To everyone’s surprise she actually goes out there and scores a goal and tied the game! We were over the moon! So happy for her. After the half-time break she comes back in and she scores two more goals, but only one was valid. Her team ended up winning 2-1 with two goals by Miss B!!!! I could not believe, the underdog rules!!!! The coach named her MVP of the game with her two goals. I know she always excels when  it’s  competition day, just like what happens in swimming. But not in my wildest dreams I would think she would be the sole responsible for her team’s victory! That was my lesson for underestimating her and a divine providence. The victory with her two goals boosted her confidence and brought back the joy of playing soccer. Yesterday, it was a practice day and what I saw was a total different kid. Confidence and happy as she’s ever been.

Life is good again for Miss B!