Thursday, September 22, 2005

Memories

Today I scrapbooked with a group of women at Treitsch. I have two words. "Free Childcare." for 3 1/2 hours!!! I couldn't believe it. It was so fabulous to drop the kids off and go have some grown-up time without having to bother John to "watch the kids". I got all organized. Whew. I even got two pages finished. But you should see some of these women's scrapbooks. I'm talking ribbon, metal embellishments, tags, paper galore. It looked way too stressful to me to have to buy all those things. I'll stick with my paper and stickers.

Jack had his first day of kindergarten yesterday. Of course I took pictures and I didn't even cry one bit. He chose to wear his green uniform shirt for the first day of school. Gosh, he was just so big. When I picked him up, one of the teachers opened the door and he just climbed right in! I couldn't even believe how easy it was. It was about a zillion degrees outside and when he got in, the first thing he said was, "whew!!!". And then he talked my ear off about Octopuses all the way home!!! The letter of the day was "O" and Mrs. McMullin read a book about octopuses and so is born a new obsession. "Mommy, did you know that octopuses have a mouth underneath them? Mommy, did you know that an octopus has suction cups on its tenticles? Mommy, did you know that when an octopus feels threatened it stretches out its arms??" Oh my, what an education. So, Jack loved school. Even though he was a little worried about being gone all day. On the way home, he said, "Mommy, was that all day?" When I replied, "Yes, honey, it was! Can you believe it?" He said, "Well, how many hours was I there?" "Seven," I replied. He said, "But a day has 24 hours! That wasn't a whole day!" Then I realized that he must have thought that Kindergarten was a morning till night kind of thing. He has heard me talk about "all-day kindergarten vs. half-day kindergarten". Geez, no wonder the kid had a bit of anxiety. He probably thought he was going to have to sleep at school!!!

Friday, September 16, 2005

These children of mine

Mitchell (11 mos.) woke up from his nap crying and crying. Not just crying but really more screaching and howling. After a diaper change (which I suspect was the root of the problem, but we'll leave it at that), he calmed down and I stood in his room, bouncing him up and down, rocking back and forth, as he discovered how good Mama's shoulder feels on a plump, wet cheek. I savored every moment of holding his unusually snuggly self, and then sank into bliss as his left arm crept up around my neck and held on to my back. Ahhh.

Speaking of Mitchell. I'm pretty sure he's the smartest baby ever. I've been giving him a sippy cup to mess around with for awhile now, usually at lunch, filled with water. Today I stepped out of the room for a moment and when I came back, he was slammin' them back! Really, he had figured out how to tilt the cup up and get the water down to his mouth. Genius! The other two didn't figure out that sippy cup thing until well after a year. Perhaps it's my superior parenting. Or maybe not. Also, tonight, John was taking him up to bed and he blew me a kiss. "Um-mah!" he says as he moves his hand away from his open mouth. Ooooh, I could just eat him up.

It was a right of passage tonight in our house. Jack (5 1/2), John and I watched "The Wizard of Oz" together. John and I had both been "scarred" by the Wizard of Oz as children. My parents claim that they'd already seen it 20 times. Maybe that's why they forced my brother and I to watch it in the living room alone while they enjoyed two hours of coveted adult time. Now that I'm a parent, I understand. But really!!! Could those monkeys be any scarier? And how about the witch? She was green, for crying out loud! John agrees. So, we made it family movie night and watched it all together. And we prepared Jack for the scary parts. Sheesh, it's amazing John and I turned out halfway normal with all this emotional scarring.

And here it is...


My new "blog". I'm on my own right now - one's napping, one's playing at a friend's house, and one's "on vacation" (can 3-year-olds go "on vacation"?) at her grandparents' house. What do I even do with myself for the next hour and a half? I'm sure this blog will evolve over time, should I choose to keep up with it. For right now, I'm not even going to tell anyone it exists. We'll just see if anyone finds me here. :)