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Monthly Archives: September 2009
First barrettes
Hair!
Participation
Lex happily casts his vote for the wolf!
We were a few minutes early to school today and had to wait in the lobby until 8am. While we waited I pointed out to Lex the daily question that the principal posts each morning. He writes it on a whiteboard in the lobby and the kids all answer or vote as they come in. Lex read the question (“Should there be a wolf on the new school sign?”) and said, “Yes!” Then he grabbed the marker and wrote “YES” (see it it blue with a red checkmark in between?) Then he danced around with the open marker for a bit while I gently (sort of ) asked him to put the top on the marker before dancing. He said, “I’m not done yet. First I need to make an exclamation point to say that I’m excited!” So he added the ! and then put the marker down. I was bummed that I didn’t have the camera with me at the time, but I brought it at pick-up and took this picture. You can see that lots of people added their comments in the meantime, and in-between his letters :)
Crying Eve
I’ve been thinking lately about the effects of preschool on Eve. We didn’t do anything to prepare her for it because, well… what’s to do? We got Lex all prepared and figured Eve’s routine wouldn’t change much anyway. Now I’m wondering if that was the right thought.
She has been a fussy mess lately. I know she’s two and it comes with the age, but I really miss my sweet, good-natured baby girl. She cries, a lot, and fusses, and whines. I think a lot of it stems from her not sleeping well, but I’m not really sure why she isn’t sleeping well. She often wakes up crying at night. I think she might have bad dreams sometimes. She wakes up much earlier than she used to and is harder to put to bed.
What prompted this post however is her daycare fussing. When we started daycare she loved it. Lex cried a lot, but Eve was always super cheery and happily went off to play. Since Lex started school though Eve has really started to protest daycare. The past three or four days we’ve gone, I left her in a ball of tears. This morning she begged to come with me to drop Lex off (normally I drop her off first on daycare days) and she was happy until we got to daycare, then tears, tears, tears. I left her standing by the door crying that she wanted to come to work with me. The teacher was right next to her and I know it doesn’t last long, but it’s rough! She even suggested we drop me off first, before taking her to daycare :) She said she would carry me into my office. Silly girl! I wonder if she misses having Lex with her at daycare?
Lex also cries everytime I bring him to daycare after school. Sigh. The hardest part is that I started the work/daycare thing to give her more social interaction (since it was so hard to get him out the door for playdates) and to get him ready for school. Now he’s happy at school and Eve and I have mornings for playdates… so the need to work is no longer there… which makes leaving them in tears two days a week really tough :(
Beautiful children
Lex & Eve
The Sunflower Garden
Our sunflower garden didn’t come out quite as planned this year, but we learned some lessons and will try again next year. In the meantime we are enjoying the sunflowers that did grow!
Why I stay home.
This is a beautiful post by another blogger. I wish I was as eloquent. One of my fears when leaving either kid in someone else’s full-time care is that no one can love them like I do, especially in the rough times.
Where will you be next Tuesday?
I will be at the dentist with a drugged up little boy having a tooth removed. Yep, removed! Poor boy. Remember awhile back when I was doing daycare and Lex and a little girl were wrestling and he cracked his chin on her head, resulting in an emergency trip to the dentist (his first trip to the dentist!). At the time they thought the roots were damaged, but it seemed to get better over time. Well, I guess not.
Lex woke up Saturday morning saying his tooth was sore and he’s been on a self-prescribed “soft foods” diet all weekend. This morning I dropped him off at school and came home to call the dentist. I was hoping for a nice afternoon, post-nap appointment, but no luck. Apparently during the school year their afterschool hours are booked months in advance. My options were 10:30 this morning or sometime next week. This morning we were also expecting a Sears service guy and we had Eve’s first day of gymnastics. Busy! Alan skipped out of work to pick up Lex, we swapped kids in the parking lot of the dentists office and I took Lex for his appointment while Alan and Eve went home to meet the Sears guy. Lex did an AWESOME job at his appointment. He opened his mouth for the dentist, sat still, and even let them take an x-ray! I was very impressed. Then the dentist showed me the x-ray, which showed a clear Y-shaped crack in his tooth. Bummer! The dentist gave him some antibiotics to reduce the swelling and infection and schedule us for extraction next Tueday. So far Lex is pretty cool with things, but I can’t imagine he really understands what’s going to happen. I think he’ll be a little surprised to find himself missing a tooth next week.
The dentist also gave me a preview of the grown-up teeth queuing up and he said most likely we’ll be facing further extractions to make way for them. Apparently Lex has large teeth and small jaw. Hmm… sounds familiar. I think everyone in both side of this family has/had dental issues, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if Lex and Eve find themselves with less than perfect teeth. Sigh. I’m not ready to think about dental work yet. What happened to my babies?? Where did they go?!
Quick weekend update
I’m super tired and have 6 loads of laundry waiting for me in the living room, but I wanted to do a quick weekend update. We had a busy one! Saturday started early with a WW meeting (lost 3.6lbs!!) and then I came home to a tired, fussy Eve so we did early lunch and nap while Alan and Lex ran errands (recycled a ton of old computer equipment from the basement!) After Lex had a nap we went downtown for “Glory Days of the Railroad.” This is a whole day event with vendors and music and food and entertainment, all centered around the railroad station. The highlight, as always, was a ride on the train. We got there towards the end of the day so we mostly just did the train ride and climbed around on a few old fashioned trains. We rode up to the science museum where more people got on (including our neighbors) and then back to the station. Afterwards we decided, fairly impromptu, to get tickets for “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” at Northern Stage. The ensemble is all kids (8-18yrs, I think they said) and it was great! We had dinner at a local pub (french fries for all!) and then went to the 7pm show. I was worried about the kids being up so late, but they were awesome! Lex laughed hysterically at a few parts (he seems to love slap-stick stuff) and Eve got a little scared (by the same parts Lex laughed at!) but they both did great all the way until we got home at 9:30pm. Luckily the meltdown was short and bedtime wasn’t too rough.
Today we spent at home, hanging out, doing some craft projects, and playing outside. This afternoon we had a new babysitter come visit and Alan and I snuck out for some dinner. The kids barely noticed we were gone and were having blast with her when we got back. Yay!
Ok, now I’m off to do the laundry and finish off that wine from the other night! Tomorrow it’s back to routine. Actually, we’re introducing a new component to the routine as Eve starts gymnastics classes tomorrow. Fun, fun.
Reading
The fact that Lex can read is funny sometimes. Here is a situation that often occurs… When we leave him with someone new (teacher, babysitter, etc.) we tell them that he can read and that he settles himself with books. They nod and say ok. Sometimes I try to emphasize that he really CAN read, but other times I just say it and move on. Invariably, when we get home the person says, “He can READ!” :) We always laugh and say, yes, we told you he can read. I don’t think people really get it until they hear him read. Sometimes I wonder if people think we are exaggerating, or just don’t fully grasp the idea, or what, but it’s funny how impressed people are when they actually see it!
This post was prompted by the reaction from our new babysitter. Our old (and only) sitter went away to college a few weeks ago so we had to find a new one. Always a scary process, for me. Luckily the kids are awesome! They were pretty obnoxious for Alan and I today (overtired from yesterday) but apparently put on their A-game for her tonight. At dinner Lex was flipping through a magazine and apparently read something that shocked her. She said she figured he could recognize words, but was amazed to hear him sounding out big words. I think her example was “vinaigrette.” That’s a big word to hear a little boy sound out :)