The boy moves fast....

Yeah, it's been less than a week and Doug already has a girlfriend. Don't ask her name because he doesn't know it. I did get to see her back this morning when I dropped him off....

It probably made for interesting reading....

So one of the things that I filled out on our paperwork for the boys to take back after open house was one of those pages with not only emergency contacts and allergies (information that I know I have filled out on at least 5 other forms already), but also something about their interests, strengths, weaknesses, etc.

I just LOOOVE (insert sarcastic tone here) these questions.

Oh, I realize why they do it because I have an education background too....but somehow I struggle with what to put down. It is a little better with this one because the first day of school was right after I filled it out. With our preschool you fill out this information when you register and that is about 5 months prior to when the child actually steps into the classroom. When you are talking about a 2, 3 or even a 4 year old five months is a long time. Something that they like and what your concerns are will have changed.

I think I probably also have a slightly different perspective just because of my background in education. For instance, I put down that one of my goals for both boys was to help them learn to do their work without crushing their imagination and creativity. I put down as an area of struggle for Andy that he needs help with fine motor skills (he is still moving his whole hand to write and draws clockwise circles rather than counter-clockwise circles necessary for "correctly" writing most letters). I put that I wanted Andy to write without whining, and for Douglas to actually admit that he likes "reading" (as in having stories read to him since we are not technically reading yet).

I just always wonder what other people put.
Perhaps I over think these things.

I remember when....

I can't believe I have kindergartners.
I remember when they were born! I wish I could say that I remembered every moment and all the small details...but I do not because I was exhausted.

Today Andy and Doug had their first day of kindergarten. I had to wake Andy up and Doug was a little nervous (his exact words were "my tummy is bothering me right here" and I said "are you nervous?" to which he said "how did you know?")

I ended up having to drop them off because apparently you have to notify the bus depot to add you to their route and our open house was last night so I did not find that out until last night. We'll get it worked out eventually and I am sure we will get in to a routine.

When I picked them up they both said they had had a great day. Both kept "Happy Frogs" (apparently the teachers are doing happy frogs, uh-oh frogs, sad frogs, or off the board gone frogs...if you have a happy frog on Friday you get a reward). Both ate everything I had packed in their lunch and for their snacks...and both had not bought milk as planned but just drank from their water bottles.

We ended up in separate classes but in classes where the rooms are connected by a double door and the teachers plan to co-teach. They have PE together and lunch at the same time.

It is probably a good thing (I hope) that the principal recognized us when we walked in for open house and she personally showed us to the rooms. A friend of mine also teaches in a classroom just across the hall from Doug's and Andy's classrooms so we stopped and said hi and she said she would keep an eye on them.

Hopefully tomorrow will go just as well.

If you happen to see summer....I lost it somewhere

Of all the things I wanted to try and do this summer I think the two main things I actually accomplished were going to see my family and getting the kids swimming lessons so they could actually swim.

I have worked some on other things but none of them have actually reached a stage that could be called "completion."
Jim is starting school tomorrow and the boys start kindergarten on Tuesday. We have open house to meet their teacher tomorrow. Josie will have several days with me before she starts.

I have a mile long to-do list and of course a lot of it I cannot make headway on until normal business hours. The house feels like it is a mess because we went to my in-laws to shop at the factory outlets near them and when I got home I just sort of dumped everything. So I am trying to straighten, organize, get everything on the to-do list (instead of jumping around in my head), and basically get myself in a little more of a zen state from where I currently am.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about this summer....

The summer is really flying....

I can't believe that it is already July. Of course June was packed so it went by really quickly.
It's hard to believe that I am already thinking about school.
Today I called the school where Doug & Andy will be going to kindergarten. I was hoping they would still have a K-1 class as they did last year so that Doug & Andy could be in that class. Unfortunately they do not have the students to have that class next year, but it did give me the opportunity to talk to the principal on the phone.
She asked me about Doug & Andy and what their needs and strengths were. I definitely said that I needed a teacher who will push my kids and who understands imagination.

Day Out with Thomas!

Thomas came to a railroad near us! We went with Nana and Pop, and Jim's brother, his wife, and their daughter.

Busy Summer

How can summer be busier than the school year...
We have:

• been attending a summer enrichment camp
• been to vacation bible school
• taken swim lessons
• played with friends
• done a little bit of traveling

Preschool Dress-up day

Now that preschool is over I getting around to posting these. They had a week of "circus" stuff and one of the days was a dress-up day. This is one of the harder dress-up days because unless you have a little girl in dance there are not really clothes that fit the theme that are likely to already be in your closet.
So one day Andy went as the ringmaster wearing his dress shirt, daddy's bow tie and a mustache added with my eye liner. The other dress-up day I went to a local costume shop and found $1 masks. Due to the fact that I did not want to drag the children in to the store (which had TONS of stuff everywhere) and I did not want fighting over which animal they were going to be I forced all of them to be circus ponies. However, they all had a great time with the circus pony masks and the mean mommy was forgiven.

Museum fun

A museum near my in-laws had an animatronics (no idea how to spell this....) dinosaur exhibit. The kids were a little wary at first but quickly got over any concerns.