Fifteen Minutes of Delusion

Alyssa's school went to Six Flags a couple of weeks ago, and I went along as a chaperone. Because of Alyssa's special needs, and the large number of parent volunteers that went, we were a group of two. We hooked up with a couple of other groups for most of the day. Alyssa would not go get her picture taken with Tweety Bird and Daffy Duck. She barely went over with Bugs Bunny. They rode on the teacup ride. And the Bucking Bronco ride. And the Six Shooter swings. Shown in this picture are Alyssa, Alyssa, and Elissa. Yeah, it was fun keeping everyone straight. The others all rode the recently rebuilt Texas Giant. During that half-hour, though, I sat in the train station with Alyssa laying over on my lap, asleep. She wouldn't ride any of the big roller coasters or the Superman or Batman, but she did want her picture taken with the Batmobile. I think I'll set one of my books at Six Flags. That way I can get a season pass, go back over and over again, and call it research.

Just a quick post to share some pictures of the girls in their 2011 Easter dresses and new shoes. This is Alyssa's first set of heels (1.5") and she's doing quite well with them.

One of our favorite books when the girls were young was Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, about a little bug who ate and ate and grew and grew until he became a beautiful butterfly. Oops--did I just give away the ending? Anyway, we've had our own very hungry caterpillar at the house this year--Alyssa. Take a look at this back-to-school photo of her with Anna, from just this past August. Now compare that to this photo, taken one week ago. Hmm. Maybe it's not so obvious, since Anna's wearing heels. Pardon me for one moment while I make the girls take another picture. She's grown at least two inches; maybe even three. In fact, she's grown so much she's taken over a bunch of Anna's clothes. Yes, our girls are growing up.

We survived summer vacation. Woo! Actually, Anna had a pretty good summer. Alyssa, on the other hand, contracted a serious case of boredom. She also had the munchies like crazy, and grew over an inch since April. Woah! The girls both had end-of-summer swim parties for church, but I was only able to make it to the primary activity. I purposefully did not wear my swimsuit so as to encourage Alyssa to have some fun on her own, which she did - kind of. Actually, she just sweet talked other adults into helping her swim around. But I guess that's okay. In honor of Back To School, we bought Anna an early birthday present - a desk for her to do her homework on. She was almost happy-tears excited. This morning we had a pretty easy time of things. I've been getting up at 6:15 all summer so I can get in some outside chores and do some writing before I buckle down at the day job. Since the girls are both at schools that start on the same, later schedule, that was plenty early for Anna and ...

Alyssa turned eleven this past Monday. She wanted a "pink train" cake - but not just any pink train. She wanted Rosie, one of the Thomas engine friends. In the past, I've done some fancy run sugar cakes. This year I copped out an bought a Rosie toy and put it on top. I would hang my head in shame, but I'm over it now. Alyssa got an extra birthday toy, and I saved a couple hours of work. Plus, we made her frosting pink with guava. Yum! She got some more trains, and a some puzzles, and a Yathzee, Jr. game. It's pretty fun. Happy Birthday, Alyssa!

Part of our busy summer is to have Alyssa take swimming lessons. Alyssa has a love/terror relationship with the water, and we'd like to try and fix that. A family across town offers lessons in their pool, and one of their options is five days of one-on-one instruction for a very good price. We signed up. Here's Alyssa with James after her first lesson. His main goal for the day was to get her to put her face in the water. Her main goal for the day was to keep her face out of the water. Same thing today. Maybe tomorrow. She is enjoying it, though, and I'm picking up some good games I can use with her to help her in the future as well.

Each year, our school district does the Jumpin' Jamboree, a Special Olympics kind of event that Alyssa loves to attend. Here she is with her high school student mentor. And the big parade. Alyssa even had her own cheering section. These kids gave up a special activity at the school to come and cheer for Alyssa. She has a lot of fun every year.

Each year, my mother-in-law springs for new Easter dresses for the girls. When they were small, shopping for dresses was a lot of fun - pile them both in the car and hit a couple of shops at the mall. Now that they are older - especially Anna - the trip has become a bit more complicated. For one thing, Alyssa is still in girls sizes (just barely) while Anna is in misses, so they aren't in the same section of the store. One of them will always be bored, and bored is bad. Yesterday I decided to take them out separately. I made Alyssa go with me during my regular grocery run, and we tacked on the mall. She was very excited to see the Easter Bunny. Fortunately, she didn't want to sit on his lap - just walk by and wave. I found a dress for her at JCPenny, which was only our second stop. Whew! Anna is not one for doing much shopping. It didn't require a headlock or bribe to get her into the truck this time, but I was starting to worry. We also went to JCPenny, where she found a c...

A couple of weeks ago, the girls were out of school for spring break. We were originally hoping for a trip to Utah, but that fell through. In the end, it's probably just as well, as the girls had a different activity pretty much every evening. I decided to take a half day off of work and take them to Dallas on the one night they didn't have anything else planned. So we piled into the van and started driving east. First stop: the Lego Store. Alyssa has really been into building with Legos lately, and since we'd never been I decided it would be a fun trip. They have this wall full of random Lego bits, and you can fill these little plastic bins with whatever fits. We got a lot of wheels - Lego wheels are the best. They also have some bins where you can build your own mix and match Lego people. I was a little disappointed in the selection, but the girls had a great time, anyway. These dudes were maybe not as good of a value as the mix-n-match bins, though. We found a store wit...