Glasses!

We made a last minute stop at the eye doctor’s to pick up Eve’s glasses yesterday. She was excited and happy and bouncy at the doctor’s office. They adjusted the glasses and Eve said they were great. Puppy got to come too.

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That lasted all of about 15 minutes. Then she said they hurt and took them off. For the rest of the day, and today, I’ve been reminding her every half hour or so to put them back on. She’ll wear them for a few minutes then take them off. I don’t think they make enough of a difference to really motivate her to wear them. It’s definitely a learning experience. :) She gets smiles from everyone we pass though. I mean she normally does, but now with the glasses she gets even more looks. Some old lady yesterday commented to her old lady friend that Eve’s curly hair and blue glasses were so wonderful and adorable. She didn’t say it directly to us, but she wasn’t exactly quiet either :) I, of course, agree!

All about Lex (or why I love Fridays)

Look at this awesome book Lex made at school this week. I wasn’t sure of the best way to show it, but hopefully you can see the details here. Click on the image and it will get bigger. I LOVE it.

Lex's book

I love that he drew himself as a smiling sunshine. I love that he likes playing games with mom. We are lying on our bellies playing Trouble. Notice that he started drawing me standing up then erased it when he remembered that we usually lay down when we play that game. He even drew a house around us. I love that he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. He even drew the safety line. I love that he drew Eve with big curly hair and that he drew me taller than Alan. When we asked him why he said Alan was bending down. I love that his favorite food is oatmeal. We share the same breakfast every morning. I love that he wrote his name down his arm. I just love this little book. It makes me smile :)

This is a dorky thing to say, but I really look forward to Fridays during the school year. For the obvious reasons, of course, such as the impending weekend,but more so because of the folders of papers that come home from school Friday afternoons. I love the little notes home from the teacher about what they did this week and what to expect next week. I like seeing all the projects and worksheets they do. Sometimes they are many and boring (Lex brought home a slew of color recognition worksheets this week. Really? In 1st grade?) but other times you get a beautiful painting from art class, or a fun book like the one above. This week we were supposed to get information about reading groups in Lex’s class. They did reading assessments this past week and his teacher said she would send home group info on Friday. I was disappointed to finding nothing about it in his folder. Next Friday he won’t be in school so I’m going to have to wait two whole weeks to learn more! The other disappointment in his folder was the photo order sheet. Class photos will be taken next week when we are away. We can do make-up photos in October, but he won’t be in the class picture this year. Bummer, I know!

Good thing this adorable book came home to make up for the downers. I’ll just keep reading his All About Me book and smile every time. :)

My afternoon in photos…

chess

Alan played a game of chess with the kids then they decided to play on their own.
I love it!

apple cake

Apple bundt cake!

cookies and bread

Cookies and bread

silly dinner

Silly boys at dinner. Alan had the kids laughing sooo hard!

soup

Zero point WW soup to balance out the cake and cookies.

bad men

What holds up a train?
(Lex was a little quick to take the picture and Eve was too giggly to participate. She also had trouble getting her "guns" up. She kept using her thumbs instead. So the answer to tonight's riddle is "One silly mommy!" Like I said, silly dinner!)

cake

Lex took a few more pictures while he had the camera in his hands.

flowers

My pretty table decorations always get pushed to the edge of the table.

me

Me! Can you tell I have a mouth full of cake? :)

me and eve

Silly girls at dinner.

The day actually started with Alan getting up with the kids so I could sleep in. I woke up at 8am and found that he had taken them out to breakfast! I ate, then exercised and went for a run. The kids played super nicely together all day. Overall it was a lovely day. I’m hoping for more of the same (well, less baking!) tomorrow before we start another busy week on Monday.

Back to the eye doctor

If you remember our first trip to the eye doctor you will wonder who the little girl is I’ll be talking about in this blog post. This morning I somehow managed to find me a sweet, cooperative, almost, dare I say it, eager little girl to accompany me to the optometrist.

waiting room

Playing in the waiting room.

Same time, same place, six months later we went back to the eye doctor. A few days ago she decided that she was going to “look into the big tube!” and since that announcement she has been quite agreeable to the discussion. When we went to the first room she happily looked into the big machine and told me there was a picture of a farm in there, “but it had no animals at all.” Then she giggled at the next machine that put little puffs of air into her eyes. I thought for sure that one would be the end of our trip, but nope, giggles instead.

the long tube

Looking into "the big tube." Like her curly pig tails? I think they are so adorable!

In the doctors office she climbed right up into the chair, helped the doctor, answered all the questions, sat still, and did an phenomenal job! She didn’t even fuss when the doctor put drops in her eyes!

crazy girl

Crazy girl!

The results… astigmatism in her right eye and less than perfect vision in both. Apparently the left eye is less less than perfect, so her vision is unbalanced. I have the same problem :/ I can’t say I’m surprised, but I am bummed.

We read a few books after the doctor left, then ventured out into the eye glass area where Eve picked out a new pair of glasses. And a case. She is most excited about the case. So far she is surprisingly amenable to the idea of wearing glasses. I tried to get her to pick a cute pair of wire rimmed ones (like this cute little girl in Lex’s class), but she wanted the thicker plastic frames that are very similar to a pair of sunglasses she wears. I think maybe the nose-bridge pieces bothered her on the wire rimmed glasses. I figured that since she was the one who was going to wear them every single day (we hope!) then she should be able to pick whichever ones she wants.

trying on frames

Trying on frames. She had that overbite going on the whole time. I think it's a nervous thing. I liked these pink ones...

 

blue frames

She likes the blue ones....(I could not get her to smile without the teeth!)

She was a little bummed to leave without them, but mostly sad she had to leave without the case. She picked a pink and black case and was quite happy about it :) Silly girl.

Since she did such an amazing job at the doctor’s office, and since the appointment took so long I had to scrap my grocery shopping plans anyway, we ended up walking around and killing time for awhile. She wanted pizza, which was great, but it was only 10am so we walked to the nearby pizza place but they were closed. Then she asked for ice cream so we walked the other direction to the ice cream place but they too were closed, for the season of course. We ended up walking back again and she picked out some crappy candy from the gas station. It was an awkward period of time to fill, not enough time to really do anything, but a little too long to just do nothing, especially on the side of the road :) After all our walking we got back in the car and headed to a pizza joint near her school. She was thrilled.

running

After almost two hours inside, she was ready to run!
Good thing there was a wide open lot nearby.

 

pacman

Eve played her first game of Ms. Pac Man today. Turns out she prefers the game when it is in demo mode better :)

 

pizza

Pizza!

Next week we go back and pick them up. Now begins the journey on teaching a 4yr old to properly wear and handle glasses. The tech said that Eve was the first young child she ever saw that knew how to put on glasses properly. I guess all those years of wearing sunglasses paid off there.

Welcome to a new journey in parenting.

Food awareness

The longer I follow the Weight Watchers plan, the more aware I become of my eating habits and the effects food has on me. I know it’s been over three years… what can I say, I’m a slow learner. One thing that has really come to my attention lately (perhaps I’ve noticed this in the past, but clearly I never did anything about it) is the immediate effect my food choices at dinner have on my evening. When I eat a reasonable portion of healthy food I feel great. Bath and bedtime go well. Everyone is happy. However, when I don’t… ugh!

Today I ate well until afternoon snack when I prepared a plate of cheese and crackers and veggies for the kids. We all sat down at the picnic table to eat and I ate the cheese and crackers and veggies! Oops. I ate a piece of cheese sort of mindlessly, then it was all down hill from there. The kids wanted nothing to do with the veggies (buggers!) so I ate most of those, but I also ate 8pts worth of cheese and crackers. At dinner time I had 6pts left for the day, which isn’t a lot, but it is do-able. I had a healthy meal planned in my head, but we got caught up in outdoor afternoon chores and the kids dug in the garden. When we came in at 5pm I scrapped dinner plans in favor of getting the grubby children cleaned up before our house looked like our garden. Shortly after 5:30 they were both clean and we were in the kitchen talking about dinner. I was mildly annoyed at having a PYO dinner instead of cooking something healthy. Eve wanted PB&J on toast with mandarin oranges and Lex wanted grilled cheese and yogurt. In the process of preparing their dinners I ate a handful of peanuts (while opening the cabinet to get the peanut butter), half a slice of PB&J toast (Eve wouldn’t eat two whole slices anyway), a piece of bread/butter/cheese (while preparing Lex’s grilled cheese) and then half of his grilled cheese sandwiches. He’d asked for two and I made them, but it seemed like a lot when I put them on his plate so I somewhat mindlessly ate one half. I love grilled cheese! By this point I had more than blown through my six remaining points for the day, but I hadn’t actually sat down and had dinner. I was tempted to say to hell with it and make a huge bowl of cereal (NOT point friendly!), but instead I went for yogurt and granola. That was about six points. Had I just had the yogurt and granola for dinner I would have been full and felt great, but instead I ended up headachy, nauseas, and sluggish. And of course angry with myself and therefore short and crabby with the kids. Poor kids.

When will I learn? Awareness is the first step, right? Someday I’ll be able to stop myself before I blow it, instead of realizing it a little too late. Someday. Sigh.

Afternoon artwork

Earlier this week, after a busy first day at school the kids made themselves comfy on the floor for some quiet art time.

eve on the floor

Eve drawing a "Toyota chocolate caramel factory."

 

lex on the floor

Lex drawing a Crayola Factory.

 

crayola factory

The early version of Lex's crayola factory. This makes me laugh because the brown chute is "sending extra wax from the crayons into the river." Hmm... we had a little talk about factory pollution.

 

eve

Eve brought the little table into the dining room to make herself more comfortable. Then she drew a picture for another classmate at school. You would think it's a picture of the two of them together, but really it is a picture of the other little girl and that girl's mother, in a house. The girls grandpa drops her off at school and I'm not sure Eve could even pick her mother out of a crowd, but she drew a lovely picture anyway. :)

 

final factory

Lex ran out of room on the little white board so he expanded to the big one. Then he was wishing we had another white board so he could draw the warehouse!

 

Eve’s first day of Pre-K

happy kids

Lex decided today would be a good day for a
"first day of school" photo. OK!

This morning went MUCH better than yesterday. Both kids were happy in the morning and eager to go to school. Eve had her backpack packed and ready as we headed to Lex’s school. She was disappointed to find out we had to go back to our house for the morning. She wanted to head right to school :)

right for the puddle

Guess where they are heading... right for the puddle, of course!

 

eve outside

I love this girl!

Eve and I spent the morning at home, exercising, reading, playing Starfall, eating lunch, etc. Good times. Then back out in the rain to bring her to school. In her classroom I asked if she wanted me to stick around for a few minutes and she said, “Nope, you can go!” At least she gave me hugs and kisses before kicking me out. :)

 

eve

Eve at her school.

 

artwork

Eve's best friend is in morning Pre-K and Eve is in the afternoon session, but we discovered they can leave things for each other in their cubbies. Eve colored a picture so her friend will have a surprise when she gets to school tomorrow.

 

sand

I left her in the sandbox, of course. Happily playing.

Now I have a little less than two hours to tackle a MOUNTAIN of things that have been building up and slowly creeping out of control. So what do I do first? Hot tea and a blog post, with a little FB and blog reading tucked in as well. It’s no wonder I don’t get much done. Gheesh.

Seriously though, I’m super proud of my kids. They are both growing up so fast and becoming such sweet, happy individuals. Lex’s teacher told me he had a great day and she was impressed with how honest (her word) he was. Apparently during his crying yesterday he kept saying, “I just miss my mom. I’ll be ok soon, but now I just miss my mom.” I think she was surprised by how articulate he is. He gave her a big hello this morning and she seemed happy to see him. Eve is comfortable and confident in her new classroom. What more can a mother ask for?!

PS. Did you notice my sidebar came back? I knew it would. Vacation must be over for it too! —>