Eve’s first day of school

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Eve started preschool today. I had serious empty nest syndrome. Is that possible when your kids are three and five? Anyway, she seems to be very happy. Alan and I brought her in together this morning. She greeted the teachers (a real teacher and four high school seniors), hung up her backpack and hat, and said hello to two kids we already know. When the time came for us to leave she gave us hugs and took off to play. Easy peasy. When I picked her up she said she had fun, but didn’t really convey much of her day (and by day I mean hour and 45 minutes!) She said she likes the teacher and she had graham crackers and juice for snack. That was it. But she was happy and says she wants to go back tomorrow, so I guess that’s a good thing. Lex wanted to be late for school this morning so he could go check out her classroom. Not sure if it was curiosity or protectiveness or what. He insisted I take pictures (um, sure, no problem!) and bring the camera to the bus stop so I could show him the pictures as soon as he got off the bus. I did just that and he was happy. Eve is always happy when the bus comes and drops off Lex. Tomorrow we do it all again, this time adding in an hour (at lunch/nap time) at the gym for me. Hope that goes well!

ready for school

Eve on her first day of preschool

classroom

Her classroom

hanging up her hat

Eve knew exactly what to do when she saw a cubby with her name on it. Hat and backpack on the hook, kitty on the shelf.

playing at the sand table

Eve was excited to see the sand table full of beans! The girl next to her is a sibling of one of Lex's prek classmates, and Eve considers her a friend.

so sweet

I don't know why, but this struck me as so sweet.

Plan of the kitchen

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While I was making dinner tonight Lex decided to do some drawing. He got out his paper and new twistable colored pencils (which he LOVES!) and said, “I’m going to draw a picture of something I see.” He looked around for a minute, came over to me and told me that a map of your house is called a plan (knowledge gleaned from the book “There’s a map on my lap,” which they both love!), then said he was going to draw a plan of the kitchen. After a bit Alan came in and said “He’s doing perspective drawing!” and I replied, “Yep, and just because he wants to.” Amazing.

the artist at work

The artist at work. He even let me take his picture!

plan of the kitchen

Plan of the kitchen, with "stove," "frige," and "cabanets" written out. The gray box is the sink.

hanging up

He asked if we could hang it right there and I couldn't say no. Interestingly, if you look close you'll see he has the plan laid out correctly, except it's reversed from the actual kitchen.

Saturday morning

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This morning we decided to go apple picking. Unfortunately when we got to our orchard of choice we found out that they aren’t doing PYO yet, and possibly not at all this season because of a late frost this past spring. Bummer! We headed to another orchard, but along the way we saw a low flying emergency helicopter and signs for a Fire Safety day put on by the local fire department. The kids unanimously chose fire trucks over apple picking, so we stopped there instead. We explored the fire trucks (my town has an awesome one!) and the rescue helicopter. We watched them burn a small building, but that was scary so we watched from a distance. On the way out we had a nice chat with a fireman who squatted down and spoke gently to the kids and they had a long talk about what to do in case of a fire. He did a great job holding their attention and listening to them and not being too scary. The whole subject is so scary! We came home with a few pamphlets and continued the conversation through lunch. I sure hope we never need that information though!

Eve

My kids are getting so big! I took Eve to a thrift store the other day and we had to pass through half the kid section before we got to their sizes. Eek!

Eve driving the truck

But put her in a massive fire truck and she looks pretty small :)

holding hands

These moments melt my heart.

in the helicopter

"Eve," I ask, "Are you flying the helicopter?" "No mom, I'm just pretending!"

Presents from Mema

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Nothing better than arriving home to find presents on the table.

happy Eve

This is what Eve thinks of M&Ms :)

hugging the pjs

She hugged and cuddled her new Toy Story pjs for a long time.

surly Lex

Lex loves his presents too, but he gets surly when I take his picture :) Won't stop me!

on the porch

We went outside with popsicles for snack and Eve decided to put the new pjs on. She then wore them all over the yard for awhile and only took them off when I told her should couldn't wear them to KAF. Bummer mommy, I know, but I didn't want to get holes in the feet on the first day!

One more from Lex…

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On Thursday I volunteered to be a monitor on the bike path for the “bike/walk to school” day.  Did I mention this?  I’m sure I have.  We all hurried down the hill and Eve and I stood on the path for half an hour watching kids go by, while Alan walked to school with Lex.  Thursday afternoon when he got off the bus, Lex asked me, “Mom, how did you do today?”  I said “With what?” and he said “With watching the kids on the bike path this morning.”  It was so sweet because this is the first time I remember him ever asking about my day.  He tells me about his day all the time, but I don’t think he’s ever asked me about my day.  So sweet!

Dessert

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I have been baking too much lately.  How do I know this?  Lex has come to expect dessert every night.  After school Thursday he said that he wanted brownies for dessert.  I said no (too much sugar/chocolate/deliciousness), so he asked for sugar cookies instead.  I said ok, if he helps.  He said, “No mom, I’m going to play outside.  You make cookies.”  Umm… NO!  Ha!  We all went to play outside for awhile and when we came in he said he was ready to make cookies.  Ok, twist my arm.  They both helped me for a few minutes, then retired into the living room to read books to themselves while I finished up.  As the first batch was coming out of the oven Lex walked into the kitchen.  He sniffed the air and said, “Yumm.. those cookies smell delicious.  I love dessert.  Tomorrow night let’s have chocolate chip cookies.”  Not only does he expect dessert each night, but he wants a different dessert each night!  Ha!  Then Friday morning he said, “Oh mom, I notice there a few cookies left.  Can I have one for breakfast.”  This cracked me up because he must think that Alan and I (or maybe just me!) eat ALL of the cookies each night.  Lex and Eve had one each for dessert and he saw how many there were all together, so the fact that he was surprised the next morning to see “a few cookies left” really amuses me.  Sigh.  This was all much funnier in reality.  It’s hard to convey in text several days later.  But the moral of the story is I need to do less baking! (and yes, I did let him have one for breakfast)

Along those lines, I signed up for a “Lose Big” challenge at the local gym.  It starts next week.  We meet 2x week for six weeks and during that time I am a full member of the gym with access to everything.  Eve and I toured the gym this week and she was soooo sweet! The two ladies giving the tour kept commenting on how wonderful she was. Dressed in a mishmash of clothes (boys and girls, nothing matching), she walked along calmly and examined everything they were pointing out. She even picked up some stray tennis balls and put them away, unasked. So sweet! Eve also starts preschool next week so my plan is to be at the gym while she is in school, plus 2x for the meetings (while she goes to the drop-in daycare there), and then whenever else Alan is around to watch the kids for me.  I’m hoping to be a gym rat for 6 weeks :)  I have gained way too much weight this year between the pregnancy, miscarriage, and all around stressful summer.  Hopefully I can get it off again easily enough.  HOPEFULLY!  If only “easy come, easy go” applied to weight as well!

Deep thoughts

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handsome lex

Isn't he handsome? Even with the pouty face. I was following him around all afternoon with the camera, despite his protests.

While we were out riding bikes this afternoon Lex asked me, “Mom, how did the first person come after the dinosaurs if there wasn’t a person’s belly for them to come out of?” Deep questions for an afternoon bike ride! I told him that I would happily explain when we got back to the house. He remembered the question and when we got back he crawled in my lap and asked me again. I explained about the theories of evolution and creationism, and what “theory” means. I told him there are two common theories and some people believe one while others believe the other. When I finished he said, “I think I believe in science.” I never linked one or the other to science, so I asked him which one he thought was science and he said evolution. Mind blowing! He amazes me.

Later, while eating dinner, he asked me why some children are born with autism. I explained as best I could. Then he asked me “Why is the man at school so fat?” Turns out their custodian is extremely overweight, which led us to a long conversation about fat. Personally I’m wondering why the custodians office is always just outside the little boy’s bathroom. Hmm… Anyway, we had a long chat about why people are fat and whether it’s ok to call them “fatso.” Apparently that’s a word he picked up from Encyclopedia Brown. Thanks! :) This conversation hit close to home because I’m feeling fatter and fatter by the day. Damn stress eating! Ahem, but this is not about me, it’s about my extremely bright son and how I hope he does not call his custodian “fatso.” I told him that’s not a nice thing to say and will hurt the man’s feelings. He told me he doesn’t know the custodian and therefore won’t talk to him anyway. I guess only time will tell how this plays out.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures of our afternoon.

Pouty Eve

Eve was singing happily and doing a puzzle, until she saw me with the camera. Then I got this face.

silly on the swings

Silly on the swings

fallen sunflower

This sunflower stalk broke and the flower fell. It was fun to show the kids the seeds and see them understand the link between the flowers and the sunflower seeds they like to eat.

bee on sunflower

sunflower and morning glory

lex again

"MOM! Please don't take a picture of me!"

fall

I think fall is coming. See the trees already turning and the leaves on the ground?

A quick progress report

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I was really pleased this morning when I dropped Lex off at school and his teacher gave me an unprompted progress report. As I was walking out the door she came over and told me that he has been doing really well in class. She said he participates in everything, including the singing (which he didn’t do in pre-k), and hasn’t had any bad behavior. She said yesterday they were doing a “jack be nimble” game and the kids were all jumping over blocks, but Lex (and another child) opted not to do the jumping part. She said he was very polite about it and waited patiently until the other kids were done. I have been hearing from him each day about how much he loves school and it was really nice to hear from the teacher as well. :)

I read a great blog post called Back to School: 6 Things Your Child’s Teacher Wants You to Know and it made me think that maybe his teacher is just shy. Not sure why I haven’t had this thought before. I figured she was just more concerned with the kids than with the parents, but perhaps she teaches kindergarten because she is more confident around 5yr olds. Perhaps. Either way, he likes her and likes the routines she has, and I am happy she reached out to me this morning.