P.R.O.U.D

I'm sitting on the couch (working from home rocks!) listening to Fiona do a word search at the table. She recites the letters she is looking for over and over until she finds them. "N.O.O.D.L.E, N.O.O.D.L.E" etc. She's doing awesome. Have I mentioned lately that she is FIVE?! Maybe I'm out of touch, but it seems to me that being able to do a word search in Kindergarten is pretty cool. Speaking of Kindergarten, report cards came home Tuesday and that girl got "Achieving above grade-level expectations" in EVERY subject except physical education. She is so my kid :)

Birthday Update

Fiona and I had a great time on her birthday. I had to start the day with a presentation for work, but was able to take off after that. Fiona got to open one present in the morning with papa and sister; I got her a "Friendly Fionna" doll from Troop Groovy Girls. She adored it and has been hauling it everywhere with her ever since.

Fiona took cupcakes to school which was a big hit, and since it was the annual trike-a-thon on her birthday she also took her bike with her and got to ride around with her friends before I picked her up. I picked her up at 11:00 and took her out to her requested restaurant for lunch; IHOP. She was wearing her birthday crown from school, so she got a lot of attention in the restaurant. Some lady even sent over a dollar to her via the waitress. It was sweet. Then at the end the whole staff came out and asked everyone in the place to give her a round of applause. They sang for her and gave her an ice cream Sunday. She was kind-of freaked out by the attention, but she enjoyed the treat.

After IHOP we went home and I rested on the bed and she played with her new doll for a while. I had asked her what she wanted to do: go to a movie, go rollerskating, bowling... she picked the park. So in the afternoon we headed out on her bike to the local park. She met two girls her age there and they played an hour. It was really nice, and made me REALLY miss the freedom of a stay-at-home mom to just do fun stuff in the middle of the day if we want to...

Paul came home around 5:00 and Fiona tore into her presents. She wanted pizza for dinner (urgh, so much greasy food in one day!) and afterwords we had the pink cake that Paul had baked at her request. It was Yummy! The rest of the evening Fiona and Saskia played with her new toys. It was a great day.

Fiona's party was on Sunday. It was an underwater theme and I spent far too many hours cutting out sharks, fish, seashells, crabs etc and pasting them to the walls with green seaweed streamers and blue wave streamers. I don't think the kids even noticed them. I also made a couple of games and set up a craft for when the kids got there and Paul made an awesome cake. We got those chocolate molds that you see at the holiday's in aquatic shapes and made fish, starfish, turtles etc out of green, white and orange chocolate. (Pictures will eventually be published).

Fiona invited 8 kids from preschool and all but one showed up. It was cool, the kids were really well behaved! I wish my Girl Scouts could listen that attentively. The craft and games were a big hit but as usual I WAY overestimated the time it would take them to do them so we ended up with about an hour to kill. This started off okay as free play but quickly degenerated as fights broke out over the toys. When I couldn't take it any more we went outside to play "sharks and fishes" (aka tag) but that quickly was ended when Fiona wiped out on the cement driveway. At least it wasn't someone else' kid. Mostly I was desperately trying to keep them off our playset as I didn't want some parent suing me if their kid fell off but I was a miserable failure. Luckily, no one got hurt so it all worked out in the end. I have to say, I love birthday parties and I think I'm pretty good at throwing them, but they wipe me out! I'm glad they only come once (we'll twice, two kids) a year.

Fiona's birthday and other news

I think we'll go with a bullet list today:

• Fiona's birthday is coming up in a little over a week. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a good theme that 1) is appropriate for girls AND boys 2) we haven't done before (last year was circus) and 3) is something Fiona is actually into. Last night the girls were helping me brainstorm and somehow we came up with an underwater theme. Yes! Fiona's really into the ocean, sharks, jellyfish, boats and all that good stuff (thank you Spongebob) so this will be great for her. And we've already come up with a ton of good ideas. We're going with a blue and green color scheme. The living and dining rooms will be decorated with streamers to look like seaweed going up the walls, with lots of fish, crabs, and jellyfish pasted to the walls. When the kids arrive, they will make "seascape" pictures. We will use these for a fishing game by dumping fish on top of the pictures and having the kids fish them into their goodie bags. Then the pictures will be taped to one wall, together, to form the seascape. Next we'll do a craft, either building boats or perhaps a sea creature mobile. Then we'll play "stinging jellyfish" (aka "hot potato") and learn the "Fishies in the water" song and swim around the living room for a while. Next come cake and presents, and we'll finish it off by moving outside for the "shark and fish" game (aka tag). It should be a blast, I'm so excited!
  



• The Girl Scout year is coming to an end, and we're planning our closing ceremony for two weeks from now. I'm wrapping up financials and reports and getting ready for our camping trip the first weekend of June and our summer party at the end of June. One of the co-leaders is stepping down for next year (although she still plans to help out where she can) and I'm stepping up the the leader position. I'm very excited as I've already got a lot of great ideas for next year.



• The girls are doing really well in the theater troop they joined. They are preparing for a "Series of One Acts" play for the end of June. They will be doing a scene from Annie, Jack and the Beanstock, Rapunzel, and a shortened version of The Wizard of Oz. Saskia will be playing Molly in Annie and the giant's wife in Jack and the Beanstock. Fiona is an orphan in Annie and the cow in Jack (she's going to be SO cute). They will both be munchkins in the Wizard of Oz. It should be a great show! Saskia is doing really well and has memorized all her lines. She's definitely got a future in theater!



• I've been spending most of my time on the weekend working outside. Our yard has SO much work that needs to be done. We've dug up the front lawn and reseeded it and the grass has started to grow. I've also cleared a lot of lily of the valley and ivy from various flower beds. Next weekend I hope to have the bed running along the driveway, next to the house, totally cleared out and replaced with river stones. I love seeing progress being made, but I sometimes wish it was going faster (and that it made my back, shoulders, legs and hands hurt less!)



• I'll be going to see Blue October in concert with a friend on May 16th, woo-hoo!

That's all for now. Take care everyone!

Concerts and kids

As most of you already know, my two daughters and I attend an Indigo Girls concert last night. It was a unique experience. I don't regret having done it, but I know now that four is too young for a formal concert experience. Boredom or tantrums I could've handled better than the emotionally distraught and disappointed. But first things first...

The concert was set to start at 7:30. Being a very anxious person (an anxiety which I unfortunately seem to have passed onto my youngest to a high degree) I was worried about parking, lines, etc, so we left the house at 5:30. It was an easy 30 minute drive to the town where the concert was held, and we found parking right away in the garage next to the theater. With 90 minutes now to kill, we decided to look around town. This was easy, since we were smack downtown with a Borders across from the theater and a Biggby Coffee next to it. We spent 30 minutes in Borders and each of the girls got a new book. This turned out to be a great decision, as Fiona's book came with one of those cheep magnetic drawing boards and this kept her entertained while waiting for the Indigo Girls to go on.

After Borders we went over to check out the theater. There was no line at all, so we went to Biggby's for hot chocolate for the girls and a much needed cappuccino for me. It was much needed mostly because the girls were practically having panic attacks as they were so worried about being late for the concert. My reasurances that we had an hour to wait fell on deaf ears though, so we ended up going into the theater and finding our seats a little before 7. The girls were still being really good, if anxious, and sat playing with and reading their new books.

We were in the fifth row from the front, great seats. We were also right in front of the speakers, good thing I had ear plugs for everyone! Actually, a really nice bouncer offered to give us all ear plugs, but prepared mama didn't need 'em.

Waiting for the opening act Fiona got more and more wound up, until she was in a frenzy of impatience. Thankfully the show started on time, and the opening act was nice, but Fiona wasn't into it at all. So we abandoned our seats after a few songs to go and get snacks and drinks. I should mention, at this point the theater was less than half full. I couldn't figure out where all the people were, as clearly the seats were sold... that is until we walked into the lobby. It was packed, you could barely move. See, there was a BAR in the lobby. Everyone was getting toasted, and it was not a cool vibe with kids. About half the women had that "mom" air about them, and smiled kindly at us. The other half looked at the kids as if they were dirt on their shoes. That sounds harsh, but it was a pretty clear attitude from a large number of people we encountered as we wound our way to the kiosk.

Another thing I'll throw out here, several people came up and asked me at various times how old the girls were, did I think they could handle it, wouldn't it be too loud for them, etc. Honestly I was surprised by the negativity. My memories of Indigo Girl's concerts on the West Coast in my twenties were of lots of happy, smily, girl power types. I don't know if it's a Michigan thing, or if it's just that we've all aged and the fans that were hippies back in the day (a whole 12 years ago!) are hardened now, but the vibe was not the same.

So, back to the story line, the girls and I got our snacks and headed back to our seats. Of course, right then the opening act ended, and we had to sit for 20 or 30 mintues waiting for the Indigo Girls to come on. At this point Fiona had enough of waiting and was starting to get vocal about it. Don't get me wrong, she was still doing fantastic for a kid who'd been waiting for something for 3 hours and was now at her bed time. Finally they came on and started playing songs off their new album. Uh oh. This is where the disappointment comes in. More like total heart break. Fiona started sobbing uncontrallably because they weren't singing anything she knew. Even when they played older songs, they weren't her songs. She was crying so hard she was shaking, it was awful. Consequently I didn't get to pay much attention to the show. Saskia at this point was polite, but also I think disappointed that she didn't recognize the songs. Still, she was interested and enjoying herself. But Fiona... after 6 or 8 songs, I'm not sure, I took her to the bathroom to calm down. Thank goodness, as we came back in they started playing her all-time favorite song, "Get Out the Map." She grooved to that, but started crying again when the next song was unfamiliar. At this point I pulled out my secret weapon, a massive bag of M&M's. Unfortunatley she just kept sobbing as she ate.

I guess we were at least half way through the show at this point, maybe more. This drunk guy kept screaming at them to play "Chickenman", so they did and Emily went into this really long, really awesome jam seassion on her guitar. It was so great. Everyone was standing at this point, so I went out into the aisle and started dancing with Fiona in my arms. Finally, she stopped crying. After the song the nice bouncer made everyone else go back to their seats, except us. He asked if I was okay and said we could stay there as long as we liked. The guy must have kids.

So that's how we watched the rest of the show. Me standing in the aisle, rocking Fiona. Towards the end they played two of our other favorites, "Shame on You" and "Closer to Fine" and Saskia got up and the three of us danced in the aisle. It was great, and just the experience I had been hoping for with them!

We took off after "Closer to Fine", it was 10:30, the show was clearly winding down and we were all exhausted. Driving home was awful, I was so spent emotionally and physically that I wasn't sure if I could get us home. In fact, a couple of times I seriously considered pulling over and calling my husband to come get us. Somehow we made it home.

To wrap it up, if you've made it this far... I don't regret taking the girls. Yes, Fiona was too young. I feel bad that the experience ended up being painful for her in some ways. I feel bad that Saskia got nothing from me during the concert, no girl bonding, because I was so focused on Fiona. But if we hadn't have gone, who knows? I've regretted not doing too many things in my life to have passed up on this opportunity. Hopefully it will come again, when they are older (and know more songs!) but if not we will always have their first concert, with me and a band that has been very influential on me. I suspect this entry reads as being very negative, but really it wasn't. I cherish this experience and I think that both the girls and I will look back on it fondly in years to come.

Retail and music therapy combined!

I could bore you with tales of all the stress I'm under, the emotional rollercoaster I've been on and the number of people who've ticked me off lately. But instead I'll just tell you about my latest bout of retail therapy: I just bought tickets for me and my two girls to see the Indigo Girls in concert! Ever since Saskia was a baby, I have dreamed of being that cool mom that takes her kids to an Indigo Girls concert. I've seen them live three times, and each time was an amazing, energetic experience. To be honest, the idea of taking an almost five year old and seven year old to a concert where they are expected to sit for many hours is daunting, but the recent death of my Aunt is reminding me that we never know when a postponed opportunity is our last opportunity to do something. Every time I've skipped something I really want to do for reasons of money, inconvinence or whatever I've really regreted it. So this time I'm taking the chance, and taking my girls to see one of my favorite bands ever perform live! Wish me luck and lots of fun. Regardless of what happens, it will be an experience to remember and surely a balm to my troubled spirit.

Camping, pirates, and other fun stuff

We've been busy lately so I thought it was time to give a little status update...

Today Fiona went to see a pediatric opthamologist(which is apparently better, or at least snootier, than an optometrist, at least if the Doctor's reaction to being called the wrong term is any judge). Despite the snooty factor, I liked this Doctor and her staff. They were very nice and great with kids. Happily, Fiona doesn't need glasses yet, although with a diagnosis of "nearly normal" vision that may change eventually.

While discussing the family history, and in particular Saskia's vision problems, with the assistant I found out that her one really bad eye is actually a treatable medical condition... if it's treated before the eye stops developing, which happens around the age of 7. Shit, she IS 7. Sure wish that optometrist at Lenscrafters had mentioned this before. So Saskia has an appointment in late February (this woman is so overbooked) to see if there is anything that can be done for her. Of course I'm kicking myself for not finding out about this earlier, when her vision might possibly have been improved to the point where she wouldn't need glasses except for reading. The worst bit though in Saskia's opinion is that the treatment involves wearing an eye patch over her good eye. Can't imagine much worse for a self-conscious pre-pre-teen than going to school looking like a pirate. I can only imagine how awful the tantrums are going to be if she does need to wear a patch. Argh.

In happier news, yesterday we booked our first REAL vacation since 2004 (not counting weekend camping trips with friends). I am so excited, we rented a cabin up near Traverse City, in the Sleeping Bear National Forest area in August. We are going to be right on a lake, with canoes, boats and swimming a few feet away as we step out the door. Some very good friends went there last year and had a great time, they went to a different place each day and all were gorgeous (trust me, I've seen the pictures). Oh yeah, and the best part? OUR FRIENDS RENTED THE CABIN NEXT DOOR! I'm so excited, and so are the kids. The thought that they can get up each morning, run outside and jump in a lake with their best friends has got them screaming with glee. And that they get to spend a whole week with their friends is better than any present I could come up with. I can't wait to sit out in the morning with my friend and watch the kids play, or watch the men barbecue something while we toast our toes in front of a campfire. Vacation here we come!

Let's see, in other news, we celebrated the induction of 3 new girls into our Girl Scout troop last Saturday, and rededicated the 11 girls who were with us last year. I must say, I grow to love Girl Scouts and in particular MY scouts more each time we do something like this. It's great to watch our girls grow up, becoming more thoughtful and more patient. It's great getting to know them and know that you are an important person in their lives. I truly care about and enjoy the company of ALL of my troop members and I'm so happy to know that the work that my co-leaders and I do for these girls is valued by them and their parents.

Lastly, I joined a "small group ministry" at my church which had our first meeting this past week. It was very interesting, a little intense, but thought provoking too. The best part was carpooling with a neighbor and getting to know her better, I'm very happy to find a kindred spirit close by and look forward to more thoughtful conversations with her and other members of my church.

That's probably more than enough for one post, besides, the nasty, messy kitchen is calling.

Mommy, you should never mail an elephant

and other random cute sayings by Miss Fiona:

Thank SkippyJon Jones for these two endlessly repeated phrases:
*Holy Jalapeno!
*Mr. Beans, in your dreams.

A recent conversation about preschool:

Fiona: Jimmy hurt my feelings today
Me: How did he hurt your feelings?
Fiona: I was waiting for him to go on the teeter-totter with me and he didn't!
Me: Did you ask him to go on the teeter-totter with you?
Fiona: No, he was just supposed to know! But that's okay, he said sorry.
Me thinking: (Poor boy, she's messing with his head and got him apologizing for things he didn't do already!)

And another conversation:

Fiona: Mommy, you fell down the stairs.
Me: okay....
Fiona gets pretend phone, dials 911: Hello? My mommy fell down the stairs and she's not even dead.

And some random remarks:

* Are we still in our world? (meaning city)
* Mommy, you shouldn't wander off, you could get lost.

Fiona: Saskia hit me!
Me: Why did she hit you?
Fiona: Because I kicked her!

I'm sure there are many, many more but they aren't coming to mind right now. I really need to get a tape-recorder!

Next star of the WNBA? Photo heavy

Fiona got a basketball hoop and ball for her birthday about 8 weeks ago, but lame-ass mom that I am I just got around to unpacking it and putting it together this weekend. It was worth the effort, she loved it and played for about for about 2 hours straight. Here are a few shots. If you look closely at the last one you can see the ball going into the hoop, way to go Noni!

Strange child

My kids have always been pretty good about avoiding any of those strange, slightly dangerous activities that are characteristic of children. They never put things in their mouths as babies, never showed any interest in the medicine cabinet or cleaning products, never tried to climb the shelves (okay, Fiona did it once) or pull dressers down on themselves. I thought I had gotten away with pretty low-maintenance kids, at least in this area. Until today that is.

Fiona came asking if I could "get a bogey" out of her nose. I was cooking, distracted and said to just blow her nose already! She replied that she had already tried that... I said she'd have to wait. She starts to walk away, then says the fateful words "What if it's not a bogey, what if it's a Polly Pocket?" WHAT?! Sure enough, she shoved a Polly Pocket magnetic purse up her nose. With quite a bit of fussing and some pain on her part we managed to pull the darn thing out with tweezers. I still don't know what possessed her to stick something up her nose, and I probably never will. So much for my low-maintenance kids.

Just checkin in

I used to write these "Just checking in" posts on MM fairly regularly, to keep my friends caught up on the daily stuff going on in my life, and I figured I'd continue the trend here. As I'm not in the mood for a lot of verbiage (shocking I know) I thought I'd give you just a bulleted list today:

* Yesterday was my birthday, nothing special happened, although I did enjoy a nice surprise today when I dropped my kid's off at my best friend here in town's house and she had a cake and mini-party ready for me. Thanks D, that was so sweet!

* School is going the same as always. Busy, lots of projects to work on and not enough time to do them. I'm currently working on a research proposal to study the usefulness of information literacy programs in technical college settings, an essay on a controversial topic in collection development (I've yet to pick my topic) and generally trying to catch up on readings and quizzes as I'm a few weeks behind...

* The kids are over summer vacation, or at least they are over being with each other 24/7. They are constantly fighting and screaming at each other, and Fiona has a major breakdown at least 3 times a day. When does school start?

* On the plus side, Fiona is back in gymnastics and doing great, and I found a new class for Saskia called "Cheernastics". It's gymnastics with a little bit of cheer thrown in. Since cheerleading is the one sport that she is interested in, this seems like a good way to trick her into doing the workout she'll need in order to gain the strength necessary to one day be a cheerleader.

* That's about it. For the weekend we have no big plans, just grill something and maybe hang out at the park for a bit.

Wishing all of you a great 4th of July weekend, love and hugs, C.

The party

We celebrated Fiona's 4th birthday this Sunday. I'd love to show you pictures, but my camera is off at the Kodak repair center and I don't know how to upload stuff from DH's camera (or should I say, I'm too lazy to spend time figuring it out).

Sunday morning was crazy stressful with baking the cake, cleaning and decorating. DH helped clean, which is awesome. I know I am lucky to have a man who helps so much around the house. At least, that is my mantra which I tell myself over and over again when it takes him 5 times as long to get anything done as it would've taken me. :)

My bf irl came over at one to help decorate. Between her kids and mine all of the straightening up I had done for hours before was destroyed in about 20 minutes, LOL.

At two the other guests started to arrive. I had planned out our 2 1/2 hours as following: 2-2:30 make-overs, 2:30-2:50 pin drop game, 2:50-3:10 bowling game, 3:10-3:30 musical chairs, 3:30-3:50 story game, 3:50-4:30 cake, presents and some free play time at the end. Well, it didn't quite go that way! We were done with the first 4 events by 3:00, so then we went into free play. There was a fight between two girls, and one wanted to leave so we jumped ahead and did the story game early, then went back for a little free play until cake & ice cream time.

It was interesting because the girls didn't play together as a group, they divided up into pairs based on who knew each other before the party. The 4 eldest girls were more or less on their own in two pairs for the whole party. Fiona and the other two little girls sort of played on their own. All in all it was a nice party, just a little strange with the dynamics between some of the girls.

By the time 4:30 rolled around I was exhausted! After cleaning up a little I had to sit down and try to get my head together, as I had an e-conference at 6:00. I managed to get through that, then I was DONE. I went to bed at 9pm!

It was a great weekend and a fun party; now it's back to the grindstone. I have lots of projects due this week so I won't be around much. Lots of love to everyone!

Fiona's surgery

Many of you have already read bits and pieces regarding Fiona's surgery, feel free to skip this journal if you like. I'm mostly writing it for myself, as I do not keep a diary or blog my MM journals are the best way for me to remember key events.

We had to be at the hospital on Wed. morning at 10:30. We checked in, then were herded (believe me, this verb is the BEST description of what happened) along with apx. 20 other people to the children's surgery waiting area. This room was horrible. Super loud and overcrowded, with nothing for the kids to do and soap operas blaring on the TV. The receptionist was absolutely apathetic. She refused to get off her butt for any reason. She had no PA, so every time she would call a patient only those people sitting next to her desk could hear her. Things like that are particularly annoying to me, like nails on a chalkboard. As if I wasn't antsy enough!

We had to sit in this horrible room with a hungry, thirsty and bored 3 year old for nearly 2 hours. Then we were called back to the actual hospital bit. The nurses there were very nice and helped me lose a little bit of the anger I was feeling towards the place. We had to wait again for about 45 minutes for the anesthesiologist to come check Fiona out. She had a slight cough so the first one called in a second, who called in a third.... I guess any kind of respiratory problem can be a complication with anesthesiology so they wanted to make sure she was okay. They gave her a clean bill of health and prepped her for the surgery. I got to put on the full gear (mask, head cover, gown) and carry her into the OR. I laid her down and held her hands while she breathed in the stuff to put her to sleep... It was awful, I was glad to be there for her but seeing the fear and panic in her eyes was terrible. Still she was very brave, didn't cry or move. When she was out I gave her a kiss and a nurse rushed me out.

The next hour was very nerve wracking. I broke down and cried when I walked out, it was so awful to see her lying on the table unconscious. She was supposed to be in for about 45 minutes, once that hit I started to panic, "Why haven't they called us yet?!"

After about an hour the doctor called, she did fine. She was taken to a recovery room until she woke up, then moved to a waking room, at which point Paul and I were able to join her. She was sleeping when we came in, looked like a little angel. I felt so happy to see her okay, and also so bad that I had put her through this experience.

She was groggy for a while and complaining of pain, but they sent us home anyway. Once home, she would have flair ups of pain which got worse as the day wore on. By 9pm she was screaming in pain... she also had a fever so I called the hospital. The doctor I talked to was very relaxed and kept insisting once she peed (which she hadn't yet) she'd be fine. The problem was she was refusing to go. Finally around 9:30pm I got her to more or less fall asleep on the loo and she relaxed enough to let go. After that she was much better.

Before we move on to Thursday, let me say something about how we were feeling. Before the surgery all I had told her was that she was going to go to the hospital, go to sleep, wake up and come home. Because of that she did really well in the hospital and very brave. But afterward she was traumatized. When she saw her scar for the first time she freaked. I told her it was where the doctor fixed her boo-boo and she screamed, "What boo-boo?!" Duh, she didn't even know there was anything wrong. Now all of a sudden she goes to sleep and wakes up with a scar? How horrible.

There were other signs that the experience was traumatic. She would have these flashes of panic and bursts of crying for no reason. She freaked out about getting her first dose of medicine and screamed "Not the mask!" Since then I have to keep reassuring her that "the mask" is only at the hospital.

She's been very clingy, very demanding and very frayed. It didn't help that Thursday she got slammed with a bad sinus infection which made her fever shoot up to 102 degrees and left her with a headache that wouldn't go away. She cried for 3 hours straight until I switched her from the Tylenol with codeine that the hospital had given us to plain Motrin. 30 minutes later her fever and headache were gone and she got out of bed for the first time since she came home. Friday we took her to the pediatrician and he prescribed antibiotics to get her over that hurdle.

Now she is on the road to recovery. She is still emotionally tender, in fact she had a panic attack/melt-down this morning at 6:30am because I had to go to work. She NEVER cries because I'm going to work.

Her physical recovery will also take longer than the doctor led us to believe, in fact everything has been worse than anyone made it out to be, which pisses me off. I understand not wanting parents to worry but they should be allowed to know the truth about what to expect.

I've written a lot here, I'd be surprised if anyone is still with me. Just a few last words on the emotional impact of this minor surgery:

*It wasn't minor to us. It was nerve-wracking, and it was traumatic. Not the same trauma as if, say, your child had a major accident but traumatic all the same.

*It was traumatic for Fiona. Even though she can't remember the surgery, she KNOWS that something happened to her and her psyche is affected. She's nervous and scared and I hate that.

Pffft. I'm sure there is more I wanted to note down about this, I should've journaled two days ago while it was fresh but now my brain is jelly. If anyone has read this all, thanks for listening!

my baby started daycare today

Okay, so she's not a baby, she's 3 1/2. And she's been in other childcare situations before. So this shouldn't be a big deal, right? Then how come I felt like crying when I dropped her off?

Maybe I feel sad because I can't pick her up myself today, I'll be in class and her babysitter is picking her up. Maybe I feel sad because my bright, energetic non-stop talker was wandering around the room like a quiet little ghost before I left. Maybe it's because my baby is no longer my baby but is a big girl now....

I hope she fits in, I hope the kids are nice to her, I hope she has fun, I hope she likes it there.

The best big sister in the world

Today was DD1's school book fair. I only sent $12 with her, as last year that was more than enough for her to buy two books. One for her, one for her little sister (this was her own idea). So this year apparently she picked out her sister's stuff first. A book, a pencil and an eraser. She ended up spending ALL her money on her sister, so she couldn't buy anything for herself. It's so sweet and so sad at the same time, it makes my heart break. I couldn't ask for a more loving and thoughtful child, this girl is always giving to others, sometimes to the detriment of herself.

The first day of preschool

Today is my 3 yr. old's first day of preschool. I'm really happy to get her into an environment where she can socialize with other children her age. Right now all her friends are actually her sister's friends, and consequently 2-4 yrs. older than her. She is great with one-on-one playing, but not with group play. She likes to be the center of attention too much. I am hoping that preschool will give her a chance to learn how to interact in a group and play more age appropriate games. Plus I'm looking forward to two hours to myself! Yeah preschool!