We've gotten to a really nice place in the morning. I get up at 6a with Andy and make lunch for all the kids, send him off and then have about 15 minutes to myself before Amanda wanders downstairs, often buck naked, to ask me what she should wear to school and if I will please help her get dressed. She doesn't really want me to physically help her get dressed, but pick out the clothes or sometimes just be there for moral support. The girls have been awesome about showering in the morning, brushing their hair and getting their breakfast. Sometimes they need help, like today Sarah had a hard time cutting her mini bagel and getting it out of the toaster, but otherwise things have been moving smoothly.
Occasionally I take those uneventful mornings for granted and don't check the girls over as carefully as I should. Maybe their hair is still wet or a little knotty or they are a bit disheveled. I'm sure their teachers have seen it all, so I don't worry about it too much, plus I really don't want to argue with them about their appearance in the morning, so I usually let it go. This morning, however, after we had dropped Sarah off in her line up and were walking up the sidewalk to Amanda's drop off point, I noticed she had cream cheese all over her mouth. So I did the thing my mother always did to me that I swore I would not do to my kids. I licked my thumb and rubbed it off her face.
She let me do it, but looked at me and said, "You're gross." Yes, kiddo, I am.
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Breakfast In Bed
Last week Sarah and Amanda kept telling Charlie that they wanted to make him breakfast in bed. He was a little worried about that prospect so asked them what they wanted to make him and then instructed them, just to be sure they were clear, on how to use the toaster. He also told them that they should wait until Saturday morning so it didn't disrupt our school morning routine and they could not bring it in before 8:45 a.m. Very spontaneous.
So yesterday morning, a little before 9 a.m., the girls came in with two plastic plates with toast on them. I wasn't really supposed to be included in the whole thing, but I guess since I sleep in the same bed as their dad they felt they had to bring it for me too. It could have been worse, they could have left me out of it completely.
Amanda handed me a plate with a piece of bread that they said had been toasted but wasn't at all that was covered with cherry jelly, my favorite. It had been cut in four pieces, but there were only three on the plate. I asked what happened to the other piece, thinking she would say that it fell on the floor or counter and she had to throw it away or that they had split the pieces between Charlie and me and so it was on his plate. Not so much. Her response? "I ate it." When I asked why she said, "Because I was hungry." Duh, mom. I guess you can only expect so much from a six-yr-old who always claims to be hungry.
So yesterday morning, a little before 9 a.m., the girls came in with two plastic plates with toast on them. I wasn't really supposed to be included in the whole thing, but I guess since I sleep in the same bed as their dad they felt they had to bring it for me too. It could have been worse, they could have left me out of it completely.
Amanda handed me a plate with a piece of bread that they said had been toasted but wasn't at all that was covered with cherry jelly, my favorite. It had been cut in four pieces, but there were only three on the plate. I asked what happened to the other piece, thinking she would say that it fell on the floor or counter and she had to throw it away or that they had split the pieces between Charlie and me and so it was on his plate. Not so much. Her response? "I ate it." When I asked why she said, "Because I was hungry." Duh, mom. I guess you can only expect so much from a six-yr-old who always claims to be hungry.
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Picture of the Day
A horrible picture (taken at a distance on Charlie's iPhone) of Andy on the Alpine Slide:
After our visit to the First Aid center:
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
A Quick Trip to the Mountains
On Friday Charlie mentioned that he wanted to go to the mountains over the weekend. I thought about for a minute and realized that due to commitments over the next several weekend, if we didn't go this weekend we wouldn't be able to go until sometime in September. Realistically if we put it off we probably wouldn't go. So we waited until after Andy's football weigh-in, picked Sarah up from a birthday party and headed out of town.
We spent the night in Keystone at a cute little two bedroom ski condo that had a nice big porch and living room and a full kitchen - of course we didn't use any of it. There was a small lake in the back where we fed the ducks and geese and we realized that the girls have an unnatural fear of geese. But who doesn't, they are extremely aggressive. Oh wait, now I know where they get it from. The kids played on the playground and we avoided the rain and had dinner in the little village.
The next morning we had a yummy breakfast that included a bacon infused Bloody Mary (Charlie and I split it, because we had to try it) and then drove another 30 minutes to Breckenridge. There they have all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to do including a mini roller coaster (where you have a brake and self-regulate your speed), an alpine slide (which is kind of like a luge where you ride a little sled with rollers and again have your own brake), a bungee trampoline, a timed maze, a ropes course, zip lines, panning for gold and a few other things.
The kids had a blast until we took our last (well, not planned last but ultimately last) trip down the alpine slide. I didn't see it happen because I was on a different track (there are three), but Sarah fell off her slide on her way down and then Charlie and Amanda who were behind her but riding together on the same track almost flipped their sled and kind of crashed against the side to right themselves. As a result we all ended up in the First Aid room getting the three of them cleaned up and trying to make sure there weren't any fiberglass remnants from the slides stuck in their skin. There were no major injuries, just a few bumps and scrapes, but it put the girls in a bad mood so they wanted to go home.
I was worried they wouldn't want to go back anytime soon, but Amanda summed it up this morning when she said, "I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide again. No, I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide with Daddy again." Guess I win the companion award. Regardless, I'm so glad we got out of town and did something fun and took advantage of the amazing place that we live. Hopefully we will find time to do it (safely) again!
We spent the night in Keystone at a cute little two bedroom ski condo that had a nice big porch and living room and a full kitchen - of course we didn't use any of it. There was a small lake in the back where we fed the ducks and geese and we realized that the girls have an unnatural fear of geese. But who doesn't, they are extremely aggressive. Oh wait, now I know where they get it from. The kids played on the playground and we avoided the rain and had dinner in the little village.
The next morning we had a yummy breakfast that included a bacon infused Bloody Mary (Charlie and I split it, because we had to try it) and then drove another 30 minutes to Breckenridge. There they have all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to do including a mini roller coaster (where you have a brake and self-regulate your speed), an alpine slide (which is kind of like a luge where you ride a little sled with rollers and again have your own brake), a bungee trampoline, a timed maze, a ropes course, zip lines, panning for gold and a few other things.
The kids had a blast until we took our last (well, not planned last but ultimately last) trip down the alpine slide. I didn't see it happen because I was on a different track (there are three), but Sarah fell off her slide on her way down and then Charlie and Amanda who were behind her but riding together on the same track almost flipped their sled and kind of crashed against the side to right themselves. As a result we all ended up in the First Aid room getting the three of them cleaned up and trying to make sure there weren't any fiberglass remnants from the slides stuck in their skin. There were no major injuries, just a few bumps and scrapes, but it put the girls in a bad mood so they wanted to go home.
I was worried they wouldn't want to go back anytime soon, but Amanda summed it up this morning when she said, "I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide again. No, I don't want to ever go down the Alpine Slide with Daddy again." Guess I win the companion award. Regardless, I'm so glad we got out of town and did something fun and took advantage of the amazing place that we live. Hopefully we will find time to do it (safely) again!
Friday, August 14, 2015
The First Week
It was an interesting and relatively uneventful first week of school for all of us. Andy realized today, after five days of being at school, that he was in the wrong Language Arts class. We received a letter in the spring saying that he would be in Advance Language Arts and today it finally clicked, based on what was being taught and other students that were in the class, that Andy was not in the correct one. We probably could have figured it out last week if we had looked more carefully at his schedule, but I (stupidly) assumed that they know what they are doing and put him in the correct classes and didn't even check his schedule. Apparently he didn't check it very carefully either. His teacher said she would look into it and verify his MAP scores. His MAP scores from last spring were the highest his elementary school English teacher had ever seen so I don't think it's going to be an issue. Other than that, he's adjusting and seems to like middle school.
Sarah is doing fantastic. She loves school, she loves her teacher, everything is good. She did say the following to me yesterday: "Mommy, there's a lot of boys in my class this year, and they're those manly, manly boys who think that they're so awesome and everybody falls in love with them. But I'm not going to!". She really isn't interested in boys at all yet, at least not in a romantic way, but it will be interesting to see how the year progresses. We've already talked a lot about "mean girls" and "drama" and how it would be a good idea to stay away from both. We'll see how that goes.
Amanda has had the most roller coaster week of all three kids. She didn't want to go to Kindergarten but she absolutely loves her teacher but she gets mad at the other kids because they don't behave and listen and she thinks that they think she's bossy for telling them to shape up. This afternoon she was so sad that tomorrow was Saturday and there was no school, but a few hours later she said she hated Kindergarten. So I don't know exactly what to tell you about her, other than she's happy when I drop her off and happy when I pick her up and tells me a ton about her day so I think she's doing just fine.
As for me, I think I'm going to like having everybody gone all day, but it's a little weird. I haven't had that much free time this week, I've been running errands and taking care of things, but I wonder if I'm always going to be that busy and then I wonder more if I really care. I think it's an adjustment for all of us, a new normal, but sooner or later it's all we're going to know and it's all going to be fine. If not, you'll hear about it!
Sarah is doing fantastic. She loves school, she loves her teacher, everything is good. She did say the following to me yesterday: "Mommy, there's a lot of boys in my class this year, and they're those manly, manly boys who think that they're so awesome and everybody falls in love with them. But I'm not going to!". She really isn't interested in boys at all yet, at least not in a romantic way, but it will be interesting to see how the year progresses. We've already talked a lot about "mean girls" and "drama" and how it would be a good idea to stay away from both. We'll see how that goes.
Amanda has had the most roller coaster week of all three kids. She didn't want to go to Kindergarten but she absolutely loves her teacher but she gets mad at the other kids because they don't behave and listen and she thinks that they think she's bossy for telling them to shape up. This afternoon she was so sad that tomorrow was Saturday and there was no school, but a few hours later she said she hated Kindergarten. So I don't know exactly what to tell you about her, other than she's happy when I drop her off and happy when I pick her up and tells me a ton about her day so I think she's doing just fine.
As for me, I think I'm going to like having everybody gone all day, but it's a little weird. I haven't had that much free time this week, I've been running errands and taking care of things, but I wonder if I'm always going to be that busy and then I wonder more if I really care. I think it's an adjustment for all of us, a new normal, but sooner or later it's all we're going to know and it's all going to be fine. If not, you'll hear about it!
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
First Day of School Part II
Today was the first day of school for Sarah and Amanda. Amanda was pretty excited about Kindergarten a while ago, but lately not so much. Regardless, they were up early. By 7a Sarah was already in the shower. We decided fourth grade was the year that she was going to shower every day. Not that she smells, but that the day that she consistently will is coming sooner than later so I thought it would be good for her to get in the habit of showering in preparation for school. Both girls were dressed and just messing with their hair by 7:30a. Nice.
We took some pictures before we left for school and then we were on our way. The placement of their lines (they wait outside until the bell rings unless it is less than 30 degrees or it is raining) worked out pretty well because we have to walk past Sarah's class to get to Amanda's. So we dropped her with her class and teacher and then headed up the the Kindergarten classroom. At this point Amanda was not so happy and as I gave her one last hug before she went into her room she started to cry and had to wipe her tears as she walked away from me. I felt a little sorry for her but knew she was going to have a great day.
I wasn't sad at all today because I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. The day when all three of my kids are in school full day. But then I read an article that changed my mood. I realized that I've been so worried about Andy and his first day of middle school and how he's growing up so quickly and Amanda and how little she still is (or thinks she is) and how she would rather be home with me, that I kind of haven't been thinking about Sarah. Sarah, who got up this morning without an alarm and took a shower and got dressed and brushed her hair and only asked me for help when she was deciding what shoes to wear. She did it all on her own. Somewhere while I was busy worrying about the other two she matured and stepped up and took care of herself. Wow. And how funny that it coincides with National Middle Child Day, a totally made up holiday but whatever it was all over my newsfeed, which she thought was pretty cool when I mentioned it to her.
I picked up the girls after school and they couldn't wait to tell me about their days. They both loved their teachers and really enjoyed school, which I knew they would. Amanda had so much to talk about I couldn't get her to stop. One of the benefits of having a girl, because boys don't tell you much.
At dinner tonight I asked Amanda if she was going to cry again. She said yes. I asked her when it was going to stop. She replied, "when I get to middle school". This should be a very interesting year!
We took some pictures before we left for school and then we were on our way. The placement of their lines (they wait outside until the bell rings unless it is less than 30 degrees or it is raining) worked out pretty well because we have to walk past Sarah's class to get to Amanda's. So we dropped her with her class and teacher and then headed up the the Kindergarten classroom. At this point Amanda was not so happy and as I gave her one last hug before she went into her room she started to cry and had to wipe her tears as she walked away from me. I felt a little sorry for her but knew she was going to have a great day.
I wasn't sad at all today because I have been waiting for this day for a very long time. The day when all three of my kids are in school full day. But then I read an article that changed my mood. I realized that I've been so worried about Andy and his first day of middle school and how he's growing up so quickly and Amanda and how little she still is (or thinks she is) and how she would rather be home with me, that I kind of haven't been thinking about Sarah. Sarah, who got up this morning without an alarm and took a shower and got dressed and brushed her hair and only asked me for help when she was deciding what shoes to wear. She did it all on her own. Somewhere while I was busy worrying about the other two she matured and stepped up and took care of herself. Wow. And how funny that it coincides with National Middle Child Day, a totally made up holiday but whatever it was all over my newsfeed, which she thought was pretty cool when I mentioned it to her.
I picked up the girls after school and they couldn't wait to tell me about their days. They both loved their teachers and really enjoyed school, which I knew they would. Amanda had so much to talk about I couldn't get her to stop. One of the benefits of having a girl, because boys don't tell you much.
At dinner tonight I asked Amanda if she was going to cry again. She said yes. I asked her when it was going to stop. She replied, "when I get to middle school". This should be a very interesting year!
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