Halloween in preschool

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Tessa

Throw flies (marshmallows) onto the spider web (tape). The kids loved it!

I survived my first Halloween as a preschool teacher! It was much less chaotic than I was expecting. The other two classrooms really outdid me in decorations and I felt a little lame in the morning when I saw that, but by the end of the day I thought my room was just perfect. We had five activities that the kids could rotate through as they desired. Everyone had fun and there were no major meltdowns or out of control scenes. Just kids having fun. I was quite pleased, and happy when the day was over!!

Make-a-monster

Pumpkin bowling. It started with the “pins” like this, but the kids quickly came up with many other inventive pin configurations.

Fax machines

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Tessa

Lex asked me tonight if I knew what fax machines were. Apparently they mentioned one in a book he read. I explained how they worked and that they were common in offices before we had email. He has trouble imagining life before email. :-) I gave him the example of sensing contracts to be signed via fax. He then gave me the example of sending a website address, written out on paper, via fax so the other person can go to the website. He has trouble imagining life before the internet as well!

Lost and (hopefully) found

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Tessa

it is October 26th and somehow BOTH of my children have LOST their winter coats! What the heck?! Neither of them seem very concerned about it either. I think maybe a few chilly days will get them looking a little harder! They are new, nice LL Bean coats, so hopefully they aren’t lost for too long! Think LL Bean’s “100% satisfaction guarantee” covers lost items?! 😄??

Enter, if you dare!

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Tessa

Eve decided our house isn’t scary enough for Halloween. Think this will help? 😮👻👻🎃

Dentist

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Tessa

Eve had a dentist appointment today to have a tooth extracted. The big tooth behind is about a quarter way in and almost sideways, while the baby tooth isn’t even loose yet. The dentist strongly encouraged taking out that baby tooth to allow room for the big one to grow in straighter.

Eve strongly disagreed. She disagreed last night and again this morning. She stomped her feet, slammed doors, and yelled “It’s my body so I should get to decide what happens to it!” You go girl! Except when mom says otherwise.

I picked her up at 11:45 today and she amped up her protests. She crossed her arms and stamped her feet and refused to move. When I tried to move her she cried and fought back. I tried bribes (your favorite smoothie from Panera!), and rationalizing (painful braces for years!), and eventually resorted to threats (no field hockey game tonight!) before she got in the car, with much gusto, yelling, and door slamming. Repeat process to get her out of the car and in to the dentist’s office.

There the nice lady at the desk said the dentist was running about half an hour late. Ugh! I asked if Eve could at least eat her lunch while we wait and she went back to check on the specifics of the procedure and see if eating would be ok. She came back a few minutes later to say that they were going to open another chair, she was going to assist, and the dentist would run two procedures at the same time. Sure, I guess that’s better then fighting with Eve in the waiting room for half an hour!

As it turned out, we have a new dentist now. They sent out a letter several weeks ago saying the practice had been sold to a new guy and the transition would begin. I was not excited about that when I got the letter, shortly after our awful last visit to the dentist, and dreaded even more change in the office. Turns out it was change for the better!

It took me, the hygienist (lady from the front desk), and the new dentist all working together to convince her to get into the chair. He PROMISED he was just going look at her teeth and assess the situation. She very grudgingly got into the chair and even more grudgingly opened her mouth. He took a look and then started telling us that the new research shows its better to leave the baby teeth in and let nature take it’s course a bit longer. He said that new studies have shown that when you remove baby teeth all of the other teeth loosen up a bit, taking up more space then they should and not allowing the others to come in properly. I think that’s what he said anyway. Basically you end up with the opposite result than you expected. He also said that studies in the past didn’t take into account growth and the extra space that creates. All said and none, this new dentist recommended NOT taking out the tooth, at least not yet. He said we should let that new tooth get at least three quarters of the way in and then reassess, assuming the baby tooth is still in the way.

And just like that Eve was right back to her old self! Chatty, smiling, happy. She ate her sandwich in the car and I brought her back to school. Now I’m home, recovering from the emotional beat-down, and she is enjoying the rest of her day with all her teeth still intact!

Also

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Tessa

Also, I told this kids this morning that I joined karate and they were super excited. All thoughts of embarrassment apparently forgotten. Eve offered to teach me the first kata and Lex said I would be great at it. They were so sweet. When they got home from school Eve asked how my karate class had gone and, when I told her I had trouble with one of the blocks, she demonstrated it for me and had me try it with her. So sweet. Lex did ask, hesitantly, if we would be belt testing together, but I reassured him that grownups test at different times than kids. I asked if he would come to my belt tests and he said “yes, definitely!”

Blue/white belt! (part 2)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Tessa

Lex finally got his belt test tonight. They took him from the regular lesson and brought him into the small dojo for a private belt test. I really appreciate how understanding they are and how willing they are to work with the kids. Lex was so disappointed that he missed the belt test two weeks ago and he was worried he’d have to wait for the next one. It was so nice of them to do this private one for him.

They invited me in to watch. Lex did great. He was worried that he was rusty on a few of the katas, but he did them well anyway.

He rejoined the class after the test and at the end of class they gave him his new belt while everyone watched. There was lots of cheering. Sensei said that to earn a striped belt you need to demonstrate that you know all of the moves for all of the katas up to that belt, and to earn a solid you need to know them solidly with sharp movements and defined motions.

I love this picture because it looks like Eve is cheering for him. I don’t know if she was or if she was just jumping around (I was focused on him at this moment), but in the picture she looks like she’s giving him a big hooray! :)

Funny angle and zoomed. There were so many kids in the group today that I couldn’t get a good shot. Oh well. He’s got a blue belt with a white stripe now and a huge smile!

Socks

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Tessa

Run Eve, run!

“I HATE socks!” said Eve, growling in the mudroom. “I can never figure them out!!”

Karate

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Tessa

Straight-jacket? Giant marshmallow? Michelin man? Nope – just me and my new gi!

I signed up for karate today. That’s my big news of the day. They offer a buy 2-get 1 free (BTGO?) deal and since I’m already paying for the kids to go, I started thinking maybe I should try it too. It has been so beneficial for the kids and I’m at a point that I really need to do something with this body. I know a few other parents who have joined recently and I’ve been chatting with them. They promise me it’s fun and they promise the Sempais won’t yell at me ’cause I can’t do proper push-ups. :)

On the drive over today after work I was SUPER nervous. For no good reason. I almost backed out a dozen times or more. I even had to turn the radio off and have a serious chat with myself. What if I don’t like it (stop going). What if it’s too hard (it won’t be). What if the kids are better than me (they will be, at first) and I’m embarrassed (I will be, at first). What if I don’t have time (I don’t). Why am I being so lame (ummm…) I’m at a point where I really need to do something though, because my mind/body connection is out of whack.

I eventually talked myself in to going, or at least prevented my self from turning around and going home. Everyone was glad to see me and one of the Sempais that we know well gave me an hour long intro class, just one-on-one. It was embarrassing, and slightly uncomfortable, and just fine. Before and after we watched a bit of the adult class that was going on and we talked about how it was similar and different from the kid classes I’ve been watching for the past two years. When I was in the changing room at the end, a few other women were there too and they were all so nice and encouraging. One of them is someone I’ve seen around because her three kids do karate too, but I had’t ever really met her. Now I have.

It was a good decision. I’m going to go back again on Wednesday for the next adult class. If I don’t chicken out! Wish me luck!

PS. I haven’t told the kids yet. Shhh….. When I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was thinking about it, Lex said, “Mooom, that would be so embarrassing!” I told Sempai Spencer the story today and he said, “Just tell Lex that my dad does karate too and it’s not too embarrassing!” For those who don’t know, Spencer’s dad is the owner and Sensei of the dojo. Big boss! I will tell my little bosses soon enough. I’m sure they’ll be happy for me, eventually. :)

Pumpkin picking

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Tessa

It was a beautiful day today so we decided to get carve pumpkins. I had planned to take the kids to the local farm stand and pick out a few, but Eve wanted to pick her own right from the pumpkin patch, so we turned it into a lovely fall outing. Things got a little dicey on the drive down when the skies opened up and everything got soaked, but by the time we got to the pumpkin patch it was blue skies again. Thankfully!!

When we arrived Eve saw a horse drawn wagon ride and decided we should do that first. The wagon brings people up into the apple orchard, but we weren’t much in the mood for picking apples so we just road the in the wagon for the full round trip.

Grandpa Tom and Eve, enjoying a lovely day at the apple orchard.

Seeing dad and Eve in the wagon together reminded me of a picture from when she was a baby (I just spent ten minutes reading baby Eve posts, cracking myself up, but can’t find the picture. I think I have a hard copy I’ll try to add here later). I tried to recreate the picture, but Eve would have no part of it!

I mostly just got a lot of this. She’s not very cooperative with the camera these days.

I had to settle for this. Not quite the same, but the memory is there anyway. :)

These two were happy to cooperate with the camera! :)

After our wagon ride we took a run through the corn maze. I was surprised that Eve so eagerly agreed to go, after she was so grumpy about the last corn maze we did! Fortunately this one is much smaller and only took us half an hour.

Then we passed through the pumpkin patch and Eve decided she’d rather get one from the pre-picked pile. Crazy girl! I thought it would be lovely to take a picture of them in the pumpkin patch, but we are nearing the end of the season and the pumpkin patch isn’t really very lovely anymore. Oh well. We moved on to the pumpkin pile and made our selections. The usual rule is to pick a pumpkin you can carry, but Eve chose a HUGE one and Grandpa Tom happily carried it for her. She’s a lucky girl. :)

Weighing our pumpkins. We had 63lbs of pumpkin! I love this scale.

We also picked up some apple cider and dried corn to decorate the house.

Back at home Lex decided he was too tired to carve pumpkins right away, but Eve was raring to go. She also was eager to do it herself! She quickly decided some help with the scooping out the guts part would be ok, but she did most of the carving all on her own. I sat by, watching and hoping we would not see any blood! (Speaking of blood, while this was going on Lex was at the table and suddenly said, “Hey, I lost a tooth!” They are so much less eventful these days!)

Ready to go!

Scooping out the guts is hard work!

She drew a bunch of sample faces on the white board (I should have taken a picture of that!) and eventually decided on a basic pumpkin face. There may have been a bit of persuasion in there as we all told her how tricky it is to carve curves and details. She learned pretty quickly herself once she set to work carving the face!

It is a very chilly night, but we slipped out quickly to light the candle and put Jack on display for all to see. Hopefully he’ll have a friend join him soon when Lex gets inspired to carve his pumpkin.

Two little pumpkins sitting on a porch. She is also making a scary Halloween face, or so she told me.