Writer's Notebook #4: Carly

(grrr... I keep trying to fix it but every time I publish this, it puts weird spaces in... it's supposed to just be line after line)

Carly

I’m the one

who came first

opening her eyes and heart as mother

who shops with her, advises her, dreams and laughs with her- 

no subject too big or too small for us!
I’m the one

who reads and thinks and reads again

who values strength, intelligence and independent thought- 

outside the trend
who wants all the answers- Now!

but waits for the quiet whispers that illuminate

who recognizes truth and won’t turn away

even when it hurts, even when it’s hard

I’m the one

who makes plans decisively, ventures boldly,

who falls hard when dreams crumble at my feet

and yet

I’m the one

who rises from the rubble- a phoenix

with greater understanding and new direction

hesitant at first, then vision clear- I soar

I am Loyalty 

Catching up: June Birthdays

Rachel turned 17 in June...

Again.... 

birthday celebrations were overshadowed by wedding and school. 

It seems like there were 10,000 things going on that week and we tried to fit in some celebrating and 

why we ended up with 2 lone pictures is a mystery...

I am losing my bday celebration touch.

She had more than that little cupcake-- 

We actually made a strawberry bottom cheesecake but it's hard to stick candles in that.

she is always my nontraditional bday cake girl.

We've made rice crispy treat sushi with gummy worms...

fruit bouquets...

and strawberry pie

All hard to stick a candle in.

She's been busy since turning 17~

She had a couple weeks off in between track season ending and cross country season starting but starting in June she would leave the house at 7ish to go running, get home between 10:30 and 11:00 with enough time to shower and get ready and hopefully get something to eat before heading to work from 12-4 at Response (a telemarketing place)  It wasn't her favorite job but it was the same time every day and not too long of a shift and gave her mornings off for cross country and evenings off for YW, family stuff and hanging out with friends. The first month she pretty much hated it.  Carly worked there too until she got marrried and so they drove over together during June but after she got the hang of it, it wasn't so bad.  It will never be her favorite job but she'd do it again she said.  She quit when school started because it is just too hard to work and train.

Her hard work in cross country has paid off.  She is better than ever this season.  I think staying in shape for track helped and she learned some other techniques for shorter distance that have helped her build up speed. She's been placing in the top 5 at most of her races.  She is the 2nd fastest girl on her team.  She is currently ranked 16th in the state on a website that tracks all high school cross country runners according to race times.  There is a University xCountry coach talking to her and trying to get her to join his team for next year-  but it's not a school she had on her "I wanna go there" list but maybe that will change.

She is crazy busy and its hard to find time to even say hi to her sometimes.  We're all way too busy over here!

Carly got the best birthday celebration of the season and it was her wedding causing everyone else's birthdays to be lackluster.... 

Hmmm.... Something seems a little weird here....

I guess we were all feeling sentimental and wanted to send her off with a big Happy Birthday Bang.  She turned 19 in June and wanted a "Little kid birthday party" since it was her last kid birthday.

She chose a dragon birthday cake to reminisce about her 5th and 6th grade "dragon phase".

We're all pretty grateful she came out of that one unscathed-

Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon phase but you know... 

I have just seen too many adults who never leave it and walk around the mall with giant pewter dragon necklaces and when I see them- I just thank my lucky stars, that's all...

She really got into the cake and helped me shop for the candy accessories and besides the gold covered chocolate coins, we had purchased a bag of those Hershey Treasure mini chocolate bars and chocolate w/ toffee and Chocolate with almonds that are wrapped in Gold and Silver foil wrappers but...

in between the purchasing and the actual dragon cake I had a few of those "I NEED CHOCOLATE BECAUSE I HAVE A TEST TOMORROW AND MY KID IS GETTING MARRIED WAY EARLIER THAN I EXPECTED" moments...

You've had those right? 

and pilfering your daughter's birthday chocolate is totally acceptable right? 

She wanted party hats and party blowers and all the trimmings

So- That's what she got

It was actually pretty fun-

She wanted the quintessential  kid party party game....

"Pin the tail on the donkey"

They didn't' have it at the dollar store- 

but they did have pin the skull on the pirate ship

so we played that instead

A good Time

was had

by all!

it's also been almost a year since I started this post....Leaving the nest.....

*written 10/2012*

This post has been a long time in coming.

This was us packing up in late August. 

I've been a bit busy lately and posting is hard.

We wanted to take our natural gas car to save money but we weren't sure we could fit it all in.  She was an amazing packer and although we couldn't see out the back window or use the rear view mirror (which unnerved me)

We got it all in!



Mark delivers down in Delta area so we talked to him as we drove hoping he'd be in an area we could meet him without taking him out of his route too much. 

Perfect Timing!

Then we were off..

2 women on the road to her future!

Documenting every moment...

Even the silly ones



My mom and dad live a 30 minute drive from her school so we stopped there the first night.

Grandma had all kinds of groceries and supplies for her so we needed to take 2 cars to SUU the next day!

She's stuck with the top bunk...

Her roommate is a few years older than her and from Norway.  Carly is excited to get to know her.

This is one of the campus dorms but a REALLY old building.  Nothing matches furniture wise and the kitchen is so tiny for 5 girls. There is NO counter space.  NONE!  There are 2 showers but only ONE TOILET!!! 

But-- it was super CHEAP housing... Now we know why.

She said "well, I don't mind this being my first 'on my own' apartment because anything will be better after this! "

Way to think positive CarCar!

It's a really beautiful campus and I hope she loves it. I hope she makes lots of friends and loves her classes and has an amazing year.

I LOVED my first year of college and my 2nd... My 3rd was my hardest and it was in Hawaii... but that is where I felt the most alone.  I hope she doesn't feel alone.  

I hope I've prepared her enough.  I hope she is sure enough of who she is.

I hope her room-mates are nice.

I hope, I hope, I hope.......

(and hello... we found her a purple bike... That has to be a good omen right???)

*********************************************************************************

August 12, 2013

That's what I had written and it sat for a year while I wrestled with how to find x and y and planes and functions.

I expected to be doing this again.... taking Carly Bocanegra back down to SUU to start her 2nd year of college.... but she's really off on her own now.  Married.  Part of a new family.  A little less mine. I expected her to be a little less mine, I suppose, as she tested her independence.  I just didn't expect the little less mine to to become someone else's.  I thought the little less mine would be owned by her and her alone.

A lot of the things I hoped for her didn't happen.
She hated her classes.  Somebody stole the handlebars off her purple bike and cut her brake line. She didn't have great roommates.  She forgot for a little while who she was and what she was capable of.  She was lonely.  She had different lessons to learn than I did at her age, harder ones and I don't know why.

She changed her major and her name and has a very different outlook on life and different priorities than the girl I drove down to SUU a year ago.

This post is not about the changes being wrong or right- it's about expectations; the expectations I had as I began to write this post & the feelings I have as I finish it a long time later and the disparity between what I thought then and what I see now. It's very strange and I had a lot of emotion I didn't expect.  Writing does that I suppose.

In the end... Carly Forsyth is incredibly happy.  I'm glad that she's happy.

But...
I don't know why she had to grow up so fast.

18 eighteen 18 eighteen 18 eighteen 18

When Birthday's roll around we have a tradition of decorating the front room on birthday eve after the birthday boy/girl has gone to bed. I started doing it alone but somehow it became a thing Carly and I did together.  She wanted to help and I gladly accepted as I was usually tired from wrapping, frosting, preparing, etc.

We put the cloth runner made from a dark green fabric with colorful birthday presents all over it on the table, choose and hang a "Happy Birthday" sign from my small collection of assorted colors and styles, hang streamers and blow up balloons and set the birthday cake on the table.  

Every once in a while, Carly is too tired or out on a date or something and I do it alone or grab another kid but usually it's her. However,  on her birthday, I enlist another child to help because.... HELLO... it's her birthday and she likes to be surprised too!
But.... 

this year she and I decorated for her birthday together.
Once again everyone else had gone to bed and she wanted to help...
It was fun and somehow poetic as her home all the time- time is winding down.
Crap.  I'm crying.  It's started now...
The random crying.
I didn't cry at graduation.
I didn't cry on her 18th birthday.
A couple weeks ago in church, sitting next to her, her head on my shoulder-
I cried.  I didnt' know where it came from.  The almost out loud sob that I had to squelch.  So obvious that she noticed something was wrong but not so obvious that the her dad, up on the stand, noticed anything was wrong.
I hate being surprised by grief.
If you know it's coming it's easier to handle.  When it surprises you, it's harder to put in it's place.

Back to birthday #18. 

 June 11.  

The day  I became a mother-

10 agonizing days past my due date in sweltering Palm Springs, California 120º weather-

but at 6:06 a.m. all pain and discomfort forgotten. 

Joy- in a tiny blue fist wrapped around my finger,

in a doctor's exclamation, "It's a girl!"

I'm obviously very nostalgic tonight... 

sorry. This is supposed to be a birthday post not a sappy, sad, she's leaving for college post.

okay!

Shaking it off, shaking it off...

I can do this.

 She decided she wanted a party but a pretty low-key, backyard, roasting hot dogs and S'mores and maybe some games, maybe just hanging around talking kind of party.  

She planned it, put an announcement out on facebook and was not at all stressed like she was on her 16th birthday when she was just sure that no one would show.  She knew the most important ones would be there-

She chose a cool stacked cupcake cake that required much scouring of candy bins at Winco and then much candy sorting by color which we started after everyone else went to bed the night before her big day.

We baked 2 funfetti cake mixes into cupcakes

carefully frosted them.  It took intense concentration as you can see..

Stacked and decorated them and made fake candles from pirouette cookies, orange frosting and banana runts.  It was fun and we liked the way it turned out.  We went to bed pleased with our night's work.

Then it was party time and the guests arrived....

One hairy-legged boy (as my dad likes to call all suitors of his girls ) In Duct tape flip flops!

Her favorite people arrived and celebrated with her.  She wasn't much help the actual day of the birthday.  She took off with friends when I thought she was going to help me set up but it turned out okay.  I powered through!  She has 2 guy friends with the same exact birthday as hers so they went together to 31 flavors and bought each other ice cream for their birthdays.  I thought that was pretty fun.  They both showed up at her party as well which I thought was pretty generous seeing as it was their birthday too and they let her be the star.

We got so many "oohhs" and "aaahs" & "that's the coolest cake ever" on her cupcake tower which made her very happy.

Hot dogs were roasted, cupcakes devoured,

lots of laughing, talking, water dumping and goofing around til very late.

It was a Summer night but also a Monday night and her dad had to work the next day so we said it needed to end at 10 and most left about then but there were some stragglers that I had to shush and remind... You can stay  if you're QUIET!  

She said it was the perfect party-

fun and low key

with (almost) all of  her favorite people

Earlier that day when she'd been at work... yes! she had to work on her birthday!

Her friends Drew and Laurie snuck into the parking lot and decorated her car.

which made her very very happy

She kept it like that for about a week, enjoying the attention of it all and then invited the 2 of them over for dinner and a carwash.  

She said it many times the day of and the days following...

Best.

Birthday.

Ever.