September 2011

They started PreK this year. Their teacher is Mrs. Mazzucca. Here they are on the first day.

May 2011

May is always a busy month with tons of family birthdays and R & K's birthday too!

Pop Pop had a triple bypass surgery at the end of April, so the kids went to visit and make sure he was doing well. Here they are using the doctor kit to examine the patient. Thankfully Pop Pop is doing just fine.

Even an orange needs to have a check up.


Here everyone is celebrating MY 35th birthday. I think this was also Mother's Day. The kids let me sleep in, picked out their own cards ( I got a Rapunzel birthday card. My favorite.) and they helped Daddy make breakfast in bed for me.

May always brings trips to the shorehouse. Feeding the ducks never gets old.

The playground

The bay...

Just a fun licking the beater pic!

The kids had their end of year concert. Kaylie didn't sing a word, but did do some hand motions and shook her maracas. Ryan did some singing and instrument playing.

She found me

Ryan playing the triangle quite nicely

Everyone

Happy Thanksgiving

The kids had a Thanksgiving program at school. They sang a few songs for the audience. Well, my kids didn't sing. I thought they were going to because they were singing one of the songs at home. Oh well, we'll see what happens at the Christmas show.

The show was followed by a feast.

On Thanksgiving Day we stopped at Grandma & Pop-Pop's house to have a bit of their Thanksgiving feast and then headed over to Aunt Amy's house to eat again. Thankfully the meals were hours apart.

Preschool!

Here they are...my preschoolers. It's official. We have survived the first week without incident. There was no crying. They just went into the classroom, began exploring and kissed me goodbye each time. They go on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I am wondering what Tuesday will bring because there will be a 4 day break in there. I'm not really worried about it too much because I think they like it but you never know. Ryan likes the playground and said he had fun there. He has come home with an acorn each day. After the first day, I said, "You go to school tomorrow too." Ryan responded with, "We already went to school." He has no idea that life as he knows it is changed forever. He thought it was a one time thing like going to the zoo or something.

I have no idea if they behave or if they talk to other kids. I do know that they have at least talked to the teacher. She said Ryan talks to her more than Kaylie. It's like they have this other life now...without me. It felt weird the first day leaving them. Hello, I just left my kids in a strange place with "strangers." I wondered about what they were doing, how were they, etc..

I picked them up the first day and the teacher said they needed to practice drinking from open cups. I guess they drink from small Dixie cups at snack time. I'll admit I've only had them do that a handful of times and it's quite messy (x2 I'll add). I usually use straws or straw cups. So we practiced and the next day she said they did fine. There were no spills on the first day--I just think they didn't drink their juice because they couldn't/didn't want spill it. I'm not certain, but their clothes were not wet and I arrived to see them still sitting at the snack table with full cups of juice in front of them.

Trying to get from them what they did that day is hard. They say bits and pieces here and there and who knows if it's the truth. Every night before bed Bob asks them what we did that day and many times the things are made up! So I take what they say lightly. A positive is I am doing a coop with the school, where I will get to go and be the parent helper for the day. This is about once a month. At least I'll get to see a little bit of their "world."

Meet the Teacher

We met their preschool teacher today. We had a short meet the teacher time scheduled with Mrs. Christensen. --a mouthful for the kids to say but we are working on it.

Neither of them greeted her with a hi or anything--more like who is this lady talking to me, I won't look, I won't look and maybe she will go away. Yep those are my kids. Kaylie grasped my hand each time she spoke to her--OY! They saw their names on the bulletin board in the hallway. Then they explored the classroom while I talked to the teacher. During this time they brought me a few things they found in the classroom to show me. They picked a color flower that they will be using in class to identify their name when they arrive at school. I think it is the teacher's way of taking attendance too. They will come in, unpack, and find their flower from the table. I assume whichever flowers are left are the ones who are absent--that's the inside track of being a teacher myself. They did both answer questions about color when asked. This blew me away that Kaylie actually answered.

Something surprising to me was that they actually cleaned up their mess--something I struggle getting them to do. That clean up song really doesn't work for my kids. What does work is me getting a garbage bag and putting their toys in it. Somehow they are more willing to help clean up when they see this coming. I can't do this all the time or the effectiveness will wear off but yep, I've done it when I've reached my limits.

Anyway, they did give her a hug good-bye when she asked for one. So that is my hope that tomorrow goes smoothly. Not the image I have in my head of Kaylie screaming her head off and clawing her way toward me as I walk away. I hope that image isn't a reality tomorrow. I REALLY hope not.