First day of school 2011!

My big kids headed off to school today!

Really, Ben was excited and not in pain, which may be a surprise considering his face above!

Showing off the Super Mario Kart backpack.

Hanging on the swing together.

Looking so grown up.

Her My Little Pony backpack, chock full of her school supplies, including a 20lb pack of white paper!

She was in the best mood and so excited.

Hugs before she headed out.

Getting ready to go into school.

Outside her classroom. She virtually floated in to school today. She was so thrilled to be there and see everyone. The woman in the capris and pink shirt is her teacher.

She sat down to do her morning work. That's her friend Reagan next to her and Hyltin across from her. They were all classmates together last year.

Meanwhile Ben ate his lunch at home and then headed off to school.

This is the group of kids lined up waiting to go in. There are two pre-k classes. His class has 9 students and the other has 8 students. There are only two girls between the two classes.

Aunt Wendy and Muddy picked Ben up after his day was over. He was smiling, which was a good sign.

The same is true for Addie.

And just for fun, look at them one year ago! My how times have changed, right?

When I asked how their days went, Ben said, "It was different than I expected it to be." I asked "better or worse?" and he replied, "better." Addie told me it was her favorite day of school ever.

Twas the night before school

when all the through the house, this post shoulda been made on Sunday, but Hurricane Irene gave them their first weather-related closing for their first day of school. That must be some kind of record or something, right?

So they are snuggled all sound asleep right now, with freshly bathed bodies and spanking clean hair.

I made them take some pictures before baths tonight.

For some reason, they had to put on their backpacks. Ok. Addie got a little hair trim today, just so she's all fresh for tomorrow. This picture may look a little awkward, but let me explain why. Their feet are "doing a high five." Not sure why, but that's what they are doing!

Ben is proudly sporting a Wolverine tattoo on the forearm, because nothing says pre-kindergarten like Wolverine, right?

With the added day of summer vacation, it threw off my plans a little. I have patients tomorrow at work, since we hold clinic on Tuesdays. So instead of being able to drop off and pick up and photo document their first day the way I would like to, we are going to compromise. I'll drive Addie to school and take her pictures, then I'll head to work. During my 12noon break, before my 1:00 patient, I'll run home, get Ben's pictures and then drive him in to his first day and try to do some stealth-photography. Then I'll head back to work to see my two afternoon patients. Muddy will pick them up as usual and will get to hear all about their first day first.

Surely I'll post pictures tomorrow, don't worry!

Oh yeah, and you can thank me for making them take pictures together too, since I know how hard it is to choose just one of them for computer backgrounds!!

Come on Irene...

So within one week we survived an earthquake and a hurricane. In case anyone isn't sure, we live in Delaware; yup I said Delaware, not so commonly known as whackadoodle weather state apparently.

So our Saturday night was spent like this:

Doesn't that look like all the comforts of home? That would be the cement basement floor. Luckily for us, the kids had gone to bed with just some rain going on. Within a half-hour, the winds picked up and we saw our tree get swept away into the darkness, along with this indescribable swoosh sound. After we ran next door to check on the neighbors (more on that in a second), we ran back inside, grabbed the kids from their bed and headed down to our basement to wait out the tornado warning. It was kind of surreal not knowing what was going on outside, but sitting nicely in the basement. Amazingly the internet worked fine, so I was able to post and search online for the latest weather predictions, etc.

We stayed down there until...

the water started invading our space. We ended up moving to the first floor, with mattresses in the dining room, foyer and living room. I basically spent the night awake, waiting for the next tornado siren to go off. Each kid woke up one time and said, "why are we down here?" I downplayed it and said, "just because of the storm." They went back to sleep peacefully with no clue what was happening outside.

When the sun came up and the rain subsided, this is what we saw:

That's our shed that holds the bikes, waterslide, moonbounce etc, and that's the 250 year old tree that once stood behind it. The pieces sticking up on our neighbors yard are all from our tree, which totally uprooted and fell sideways. Now the unlucky part is that it nicked the neighbors roof and hit their addition a little, but other than that everyone was spared...

except for this neighbor's car! The house on the right is the house next to us, that the tree hit. The car belongs to the owner in the house on the left, who figured his car would be safe from any hurricane damage, you know with being parked between two houses. Not so much.

This is from our back corner, just next to the shed, looking into our neighbor's yard. Not sure you can see, but their wood deck is in smithereens. Shockingly, the tree is touching their windows, but didn't break one!

So all in all, it was eventful. We are incredibly fortunate that no one was hurt and the actual damage was not so much. So far we've had two neighbors ask for some of the wood for firewood!

And let me tell you, the back side of that shed is covered in mildew, because it has never seen sunlight, having always been protected by this massive tree. I guess now it'll have a chance to!

Getting ready for Pre-K

Ben will be going to pre-kindergarten in the afternoon five days a week. It's through a program for 4 year olds. We debated back and forth about him starting kindergarten early, since his birthday precludes him from meeting the chronologic age of acceptance, but ultimately decided those rules exist for a reason and he would wait another year. So the pre-k option is great, because he'll get exposed to other kids and rules and other authority figures who are not related to him, etc. So this afternoon was also the "Meet the teacher and see your classroom" thing.

Excitedly running up the sidewalk.

He looks pretty proud right? The Pre-K entrance is on the opposite side of the building from the rest of the elementary school, which is nice.

So we get in to the hall and find out that his class isn't finished yet so we can't go in. Um, how is that supposed to help kids feel comfortable come Monday? I don't get it at all.

So we got to see his class list instead. Woohoo. That was about the excitement of it all. His teacher seemed ok. I'm not allowed in on the first day to take pictures of anything. We have to just drop him off at the front door...Um, ok? She tried to say it was a school rule because of separation anxiety, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. Well I'm certainly not buying it, but I'm deciding how to deal with it.

The most exciting part, for all seriousness, was this...

We got to go into the boys bathroom so he could see where he'll go. They even have this step mounted to the floor, so the little kids can reach the urinals.

The funniest part of the whole visit was on his classroom door there were paper apples with each kid's name on them. Some were green for the morning pre-K kids and the others were red for the afternoon kids. Ben looked at them, saw his name on red and said, "Why are some red? Is it because we're the bad kids?!" I thought that was pretty funny. He's used to Addie's school which uses a red-yellow-green light system for behavior and you never want to be on red! I explained it had nothing to do with that.

So Monday he'll be on his own. He get his own locker too, which is odd, but the whole thing may be a year of oddities.

Getting ready for first grade...

Can anyone remember last year when my baby girl was this little tiny thing and was giddy with excitement at the thought of entering kindergarten? Well look at her now.

There is really something rather transformational about being 6 years old. Physically she's changing and starting to look older. Maturity-wise, she older and more confident and directive about what she wants to do, how she wants to look, and how she will do stuff. It's really incredible to see the difference of just a year.

Today was the meet your teacher and see your classroom day.

Outside of the school. Sniffle, sniffle, last year I remember this same pose.

This year Jungle John was there to greet students. He has basically a traveling zoo he takes around. Ben is petting this 6 year old alligator. This dude has spent so much time with wild animals that he actually demonstrated how he's the world record holder for having the most hissing cockroaches in his mouth for the longest time. Seriously. I doubt he has much of a social life....

Outside of room 109!!!

She got to pick out a book to take home, since she came in.

The list of students!!! Addie was so nervous to see who from Ms. Melgarejo's class would be with her. It turns out there are 7 students from last year in her class this year, so she knows most of the kids.

Afterwards they gave out dippin' dots ice cream too.
So she has Ms. Fitzgerald as her teacher. She seems super nice and immediately was like "You are Addie!! I've heard you sing before!" She taught 3rd grade at the school for the past four years. She's supposed to be good at challenging high academic achievers, so that's great too.

One thing that's so wonderful about her school is that every single teacher or staff person we saw knew her name and gave her a huge hug. I know they don't know every kid like that, and that not all children are interested in engaging with adults, but I love the fact that Addie has that relationship with all of those people. I feel like there's always someone there looking out for her and she won't be led astray. As a mother, it feels great.

Catching up

So I can't believe it's at the end of August and I've only posted twice this month. That will change, as soon as I get time to sit at the computer with my camera and download some pictures, I promise!

Last night while Addie was reading Ben his bedtime story (really, isn't that awesome?! They really barely need us at all anymore), he had to go to the bathroom, so he said to her, "Addie, pause the book." This seems really funny to us, because he knows to pause a dvd when he's watching it, heck he can even pause live tv, you know? He also knows how to pause MarioKart when he needs a potty break, so of course he would just ask Addie to pause her reading to him, right? Just struck us as really funny and a sign of the times.

This afternoon the kids get to go meet their new teachers! School starts Monday and Addie is thrilled. Ben is a little nervous, but he'll be good once he sees where he's going, etc.

Will update with photos tonight for sure.

Funniest.Text.Ever

From Muddy today to me:

Addie was just telling us a very tedious story and after listening to it for a few minutes, Ben announced, "this isn't a story-- it's a punishment!"

Having been on the receiving end of some of those stories before, truer words have never been spoken.

Wisdom beyond his years

This little boy may be a handful sometimes, but he's wise beyond his years in so many ways. The things he observes, processes and then explains are at times hysterical and at other times just so dead-on, it's frightening.

As the back to school push has happened, we received the Toys R Us catalog in the mail and Addie and Ben have spent hours flipping through the pages and circling the things that they need. Ben had seen a Mario Kart backpack that stopped his heart right then and there and it was clearly apparent that he needed that backpack. Addie, on the other hand, circled some Barbie princess backpack. Now Addie has enjoyed many a branded character in her six years, but Barbie just isn't one of them.

So on Friday morning as I was getting ready for work and explaining that this weekend we'd be going to get their backpacks, I told Addie I didn't think she should get the Barbie backpack. I may have even said that she couldn't get it. She sulked off, defeated.

Ben came up to me and we had this discussion:

Ben: Why did you have to say that?

Me: What?

B: That Addie couldn't get the Barbie backpack.

Me: Because she doesn't even like Barbie, Ben.

Ben: Mommy, why do you care? She's the one who is going to school. Not you. She should be able to pick it out.

Me: Is she sad?

Ben: She's really angry.

Me: Well, you bring up a good point. If she wants that backpack, she can get it.

And with that he ran to tell her the good news.

That conversation made me think about a lot of things. I'm one who preaches for others to pick their battles, because ultimately, does it really matter? Ben's logic was so mature and rational. Out of all of the things that I need to protect Addie from, whether she has a Barbie backpack or a Hello Kitty backpack isn't one of them.

So I told her why I didn't think Barbie was the one for her. I explained that I wanted her to make an informed choice and we talked about a menu having one choice and then seeing what someone else had and realizing that's really what you wanted. So we talked it out and all is right with the world.

It just so happens that when we got to Toys R Us yesterday, the store was out of both their choices. Addie ended up choosing a My Little Pony backpack (which I think definitely suits her better) and Ben was ok holding out for a Mario Kart one, which will be ordered online. All is right with the world.