Day Two

Day Two before school. Still smiling.

Did get an email from her teacher that she had a meltdown over the fact that her new BFF, Vada, wasn't at the same "center" as Addie and that pushed Addie into shutdown mode. Five minutes later, of refusing to budge, she calmed down and moved onto something else. When I asked her questions about her day, she doesn't mention it at all, so it couldn't have had such a big impact on her. As her teacher wrote, "Oh the hardships of Kindergarten."

This is a message in response to the packages that arrived today from Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda. This is Addie being Addie, just ad libbing away. Enjoy.

Kindergarten follow-up

She was the first one out of the building!

The look of a very happy kindergartner!

Addie is a KINDERGARTNER!!

Well, it's official. My baby girl is a school girl now!

Posing out front.

Ben is really proud to have a big sister who is in kindergarten! Both of them have bright pink toenails in honor of this special day.

Look at that backpack! It's full of all of the supplies her teacher asked us to bring in...it wasn't so heavy it was going to pull her down backwards, she was just posing.

Awww, he's going to miss her so much, but he'll be ok.

Just Addie.

Yup, that's my girl.

Out side of the playground, ready to walk towards school!

Ben escorted her in.

She took off here, so excited to get into school.

Oh my God, here she goes!!

She knew just where to go!

About to walk into her classroom.

Seeing her teacher. As soon as Ms. M saw Addie, she said, "Oh you are here!! You Missy were the talk of my whole weekend to everyone I saw. I told them all about your singing." I think she made quite the impression.

Putting her backpack in her cubby.

All in place.

Her first assignment was "to draw a picture of yourself." She got right to work. Ben was intrigued to see how it turned out. She immediately drew a red head, two blue eyes, and yellow hair. I'm curious about what it looks like when finished.

Our parting shot. Addie hard at work. Her table has three other girls at it: Jashawn, Tatiana and Nailah. What ever happened to Mary? Really, look at how long each of their names is- including Adelaide!!

Ben and I gave her goodbye kisses and were on our way. Once we were outside, I picked Ben up and we peeked into her classroom through the window. She was sitting in her chair looking around and then suddenly caught our eyes and she started cracking up and waving like a nut. The three of us signed "I love you" and we were on our way.

I can't wait to pick her up this afternoon to hear all about her day.

Get your tissues out!!

Last week the kids and I were clicking through pictures we had taken over the years on my laptop's PhotoBooth option. I hit the left arrow to go each previous picture when all of the sudden this started playing. It was only 2 years ago this was taken!!! Since then, it's become perhaps the most frequently played video in our house. Enjoy.

Meet the teacher and the school

As you will see from the pictures below, she was THRILLED to be there.

The main entrance to the school

Ben was quite proud of his big sister too.

Here she is with a School Guide, who is in 2nd grade, outside of Classroom 1!

In front of the cubby she chose as her own. The teacher goes off of the roster given by the school district, so all of Addie's tags say "Adelaide" on them. I told the teacher that was fine, but that she writes/goes by Addie on everything (as a 5 year old, at least).

Posing while exploring

Rocking out on some headphones

"Practicing for circle time."

Quite happy to prepare and serve all of the grown ups tea.

After meeting her teacher they served ice cream in the cafeteria. Ben enjoyed that component, especially.

Checking out the huge playground

Overall, I think we'll be very happy there. There are only two kindergarten classes, and they are all on the opposite side of the building from all of the older kids. Addie's class has 17 children in it. She met probably 6 of them yesterday. One little girl (the only other girl at the meet and greet) Addie decided was going to be her new best friend. By the end of the time there, they were holding hands and running around together. The boys in her class look HUGE compared to her. Potentially some of them can almost be 7 years old, which makes sense for their size.

Addie told her teacher that she loves to sing and then belted out "Tomorrow," to which her teacher said, "I don't know why, but it makes me want to cry." Aha! We've got her!!! Addie was her usual charming self and I think she's going to be a-ok in kindergarten. Her teacher seems really nice and as Brian said, "she responded the right way to all of the things that were said."

After our visit, Addie and I went out to get her school haircut and to buy her new school clothes. She was really excited to get a new wardrobe and she looks like such a big kid now!!

Big day!

Today Addie goes to meet her kindergarten teacher, see her classroom, tour her school-- the whole shebang!! How is it possible that my baby girl is going to be a school-age child starting Monday? Where has the time gone? She is SO ready to be in school, will grow tremendously from peer-to-peer relationships, not to mention the education she'll receive. How is it possible though?
Part of my neurotic-mother-thinking (which I'm sure you're all shocked to see I have deeply hidden inside me) wants to write the teacher a note telling her about how lucky she is to have my sweet Addie in her class. I want to share with her all of the wonderful gifts that Addie brings with her, to make sure she understands what a star she is. Now the more realistic-mother side of me knows that every parent is supposed to believe in their child to the fullest degree possible and the teacher would probably balk at reading such a gloating note. I just want her to understand that I have high expectations of Addie's capabilities and she should treasure the fact that she gets to spend 8 hours a day molding my bright, wonderfully funny, caring daughter.
As I keep talking about school to Addie, I keep mentioning how her teacher is going to love her belly laugh, which just can't be contained. Her energy and spirit lights up every room Addie walks into and the observations about the way she sees and knows the world are tops. I'm so proud of the amazing 5 year old she is, and I give her credit for knowing who she is.
I loved school and loved knowing that teachers loved me. I hope Addie's teacher is that responsive and gives her the support that she needs to grow and learn to be the best she can be. I can't wait for the first reports home about how she corraled all of her classmates to sit down for story time, while Addie reads to them or how she befriended the shy child who didn't quite seem to fit in.
One final thought to leave you with on this momentous day. Last night after baths, I walked into my bedroom to find Addie sitting with Ben in her arms. He was saying, "but I'm going to miss you so much. I don't want you to go." And she was replying, "It's ok Ben, I'll always be here for you. I'll come home and teach you everything I learned."
And not that you ever doubted it, but I'll take many pictures from today and post them!

Comparisons

Addie and Ben are really into making comparisons and choice between things right now. Last week in the car they really wanted me to choose "which kid you love the most." I, of course, said "I love Addie most as my daughter and Ben most as my son." That answer did not suffice. They kept pushing for me to name one of them. Eventually it ended like this, "Addie." "Ben." Now Addie." "Now Ben." and so on.
Then we started playing that game and I have to say what shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, but that Ben chose me over everything....except when it came between "Mommy and Kate." He had to think long and hard about that. I'd say about half of the time he chooses me, and I'm ok with that.
Anything versus Addie, Addie usually wins in Ben's mind. Addie is slightly more judgemental in her determinations, but typically chooses her family member over the other person/thing.
The funniest part is when Benjamin is asked to choose between Daddy and anything else. Without fail Ben chooses the other thing. It's a joke, and he laughs about it, but he's consistent to no end. Brian will start with "Daddy or Mommy" and then work his way to "Daddy or ice cream" and then end up somewhere with "Daddy or a pile of dog poop (because yes, that's how classy we are.)" Ben will choose the other thing every.single.time. Last night it was "Daddy or an inanimate object" and Ben said, "the object." It's funny. No idea why he does this, other than to be funny and because he knows it'll get a rise out of Brian.
When Brian was recounting the "which child do you love most" story, he said Ben was lucky that they asked me, because clearly Brian's answer would be "Addie." Funny.

Longwood Fountatins and Fireworks

We did our annual pilgrimage to Longwood Gardens' Fountains and Fireworks show this weekend. This time the show was set to the music of the Beatles.

Addie making faces, as usual.

Ben was most excited about getting "to paint" again in the indoor Children's' garden.

This is blurry because it's an action shot, on purpose. At the front right of the picture you can see water jumping between squirters. It's set up like this around a 40 foot semi-circle. Addie and Ben both ran back and forth, back and forth, back and forth trying to beat the jumping water.

Looking up while going down a spiral staircase.

I put this picture on so you can see Ben's new sneakers. He no longer is wearing shoes that say "I'm a little boy." He's actually wearing shoes that say "hey I'm a boy somewhere between 4 and 10 years of age." They have skulls on the side.

A relatively good family picture, thanks to Onkteb's picture-taking abilities. Yes, Addie's shirt is too small on her, although it is bunched up in this picture (not to be talking smack, but had I been the one holding her, I would've made sure it was down! I'm just sayin...). The shirt had it's last hurrah at Longwood and now will make its way to the "old clothes" bin.

This is inside one of the treehouses. It was pitch black, so I told them to sit next to each other and I'd take a picture. My camera couldn't focus on anything, since it was so dark. When the flash went off, this is what I got. They can't take a picture just sitting next to each other. Always have to be hugging or touching, which I guess isn't the worst thing a mom could say about her children, right?
They are literally within 1/4 inch of each other in height, with Addie still being ahead, just barely. Everywhere we go recently people stop me to say how tall Ben has gotten.

Trip to New Hampshire

Here's a pictorial of our visit.

We met Uncle Jeremy at his last house of the day for dog walking. Ben got to walk Bella. He was very happy.

Eventually walking dogs lost its appeal and Brian ended up walking Ben and Addie.

We went to Bub and LouLou's house for playing and for dinner. Their backyard is fantastically huge for playing.

Uncle Jeremy and Aunt Amanda bought one of those birds that has the rubberband in the middle that you wind up and he flies around. He got stuck in the trees a few times, but luckily Uncle Jeremy and his abnormally freakishly long arms was able to get it.

I just think this is cute. They were concentrating on adjusting a "Duck Hunt" bird.

The next day we went down to the beach area. It was really pretty.

Addie decided to lay down on the warm stones, just because.

They were peering into the sun during this picture. I got several gray hairs with them walking on the edge of the rocks.

Part of our long walk involved swinging Addie and Ben. (See, Bub, it's better to have a picture where you're looking at the camera)

Just before we left. Addie has a bandaid on her chin, just because she had a piece of scab on her chin. She's nutty.

Weekend of fun

We took at three day weekend trip to New Hampshire to visit Uncle Jeremy, Aunt Amanda, LouLou, Bub and even Kate! I have lots of pictures to post, but wanted to share this one story with you before I forgot.
We left about 5:30pm on Thursday. The driving was smooth until New York, where we encountered an accident delay. It took a long time. Now mind you by that point, two hours into the ride I think we had stopped at least three times for Ben's pee breaks. His "holder" doesn't hold very long nor does it give him much notice, so we are becoming experts with veering onto the shoulder of any grassy patch we can find, if you catch my drift. Literally 6 minutes into the ride he announced that he needed to pee. Any way, fast forward to this bumper to bumper mess in New York and we are not moving, not an inch. Ben announces he needs to pee. My only option is to offer him to pee into our empty Dunkin Donuts iced coffee cups. So I climb into the back seat, unbuckle him and help him not make a mess. I buckle him back up, climb back up front and then there are lots of jokes about not drinking from that cup, etc. About five minutes and not more than one foot of driving later, Addie announces that she needs to pee as well. Well that is a little trickier. She's got a good holder, so she is willing to wait a while. Eventually she's basically doing a seated version of the peepee dance and I offer her to pee in the Dunkin Donuts cup. She took one look at it, and said, "Will you take off the lid?" Brian and I almost peed ourselves laughing over that question. Did she actually think that we'd make her virtually catheter herself with the straw and lid? It was so funny. She opted to not try to pee into a cup, much to my relief. She ended up holding it long enough to get through traffic and into an actual bathroom. It sure was funny though.
More stories and pictures will come tonight. I couldn't post last night because The Bachelorette finale was on, and we all know Addie and I have priorities! By the way, we were both satisfied with the outcome, if you are wondering.