Hello!

You guys!  YOU GUYS!!

I'm back!

After 7.5 years of blogging, I was just burnt out last November and I had to shut the blog down.  I was long overdue for a break and the result was an 8 month blogging hiatus.  But I'm back!

So what has changed?

* the O'G family no longer lives in 881 SF of hell.  The stars and moon aligned,  miracles were performed, and we got out.  My kids have their own rooms,  we have TWO FLOORS,  my kitchen is gorgeous (okay, so House Beautiful, South Shore Living, or Better Homes and Gardens are not knocking down my door, but *I* love it) and I don't have to schlep up three flights of stairs carrying babies and gear anymore.   It wasn't an easy move as we had to live with my parents for 6 weeks and my parents have a two bedroom condo, but we did it.

* Baby Girl graduated preschool! It was a bittersweet graduation,  she's officially not a baby anymore and my Little Guy won't be going to that preschool.  We are done forever! 

And one month from today she will be heading off to KINDERGARTEN.  Our new town has all day Kindergarten which thrills me for Baby Girl's sake because I think she will thrive, but I'm dreading it.  I may or may not let her get on the school bus.  I'm still undecided.

* My Little Guy... well.... he's developing into quite the little boy.  He gets everyone to love him within 5 minutes of being around him, but damn is he a spirited kid!  This is his last year at home before he heads off to preschool so we'll either have a super fun year filled with adventures or I will be committed to a locked psychiatric ward by Christmas.  We'll see. 

* Also, shortly after I closed the blog down, my grandfather died.  To quote my brother's euology,  I miss you, pal! (side note, don't go to your grandfather's funeral and then immediately head to Thanksgiving festivities.  Self medicating with wine is bad, mmkay?)

I'm happy to be back,  I started to miss complaining ad nauseum about my woes!

irreparable harm?

I don't know what kind of damage we are doing to our daughter with this whole moving business.  I know she's not the first kid to move,  but with all the 'maybes' going on in our life right now it's a very hard concept to explain.  She knows that sometimes people come to look at our house and she comes along to open houses with us.  She LOVES open houses... it's actually kind of odd.  Maybe she's realizing there is more to this great big world outside of her 881SF?   At any rate, she has turned looking at houses into a game. She's a mini real estate agent.   How many years of therapy is this going to cost me?

Here's a question for the universe:  where do you put the toys when you don't have a playroom?  I didn't have a playroom growing up, but my brother and I also had big bedrooms where we kept all our toys.  We kept the bigger sprawling ones (think Lincoln Logs, PlayMobil, Legos, etc) in our unfinished cellar.  Is that okay to do these days, or will someone report us to the Parents Police?  Because let me tell you,  there are no playrooms in our price range.   If we are luck we will get a formal dining room which will double as a playroom since we don't have a formal dining room set and we will have no money to buy one!  Which really is fine... what would I do with a formal dining room right now?   I'd rather throw the toys in there and call it a day!

And just to keep everyone updated:  I still hate the treadmill.  I don't know if I can do this all winter!

10 on Tuesday!

If your definition of Tuesday is Wednesday. 

1.  Halloween is tomorrow!  WHOOO!   CANDY CANDY CANDY!!!  I steal all the good candy from my children.  I am not ashamed of this.   CANDY!!!!

2.  Treadmills are the bane of my existence.  There are a lot of reasons why I dislike living so far north,  but up close to the top of that list is the fact that I have to run on a treadmill from October through April.  I'm hopeful to get an outside run in this weekend. 

3.  My boy qualified for EI.  I'm not too surprised,  but I'm overwhelmed.   I don't know how the parents of sick kids keep their shit together.  My kid isn't sick but he needs some extra help and I'm juggling appointments, tests, insurance, bills, referrals, and my other kid's schedule.  Craziness!

4.  Go Red Sox!!  Let's take Game 6 and win again!!! 

5.  I really truly mean #4.  I want the Sox to win.   So please don't kill me when I admit that I think the beard thing is stupid and can't wait for it to be over.

6.  I need to be more patient with my daughter.   I'm not sure how to accomplish that,  but I think it involves wine.

7.  I bought myself a new sweater from Old Navy this past Saturday.   I've worn it twice since then.  I saw one of my friends both times I was wearing it.  She probably thinks I have no other clothes.  She wouldn't be that far off from the truth.

8.   I'm reading IT right now - I know, like 25 years late with that one.   HOLY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH STEPHEN KING?  Seriously,  are all his horror books like that?  I've only read 11/22/63, none of his horror books.   That books is not okay.  Not okay at all.  Should not be allowed.   PENNYWISE THE CLOWN IS COMING FOR ME AND IMMA DIE.

9.  My daughter LOVES to walk through the "girl" toy aisles at Target.  But she doesn't realize you can buy those toys and bring them home.   I will cut the person who clues her into that fact.  Cut.

10.   CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!

sheer force

Victory is mine!!

Guess who did NOT cry on his way into childwatch this morning?  WHOO HOO!!  We're getting there!  I handed him to the very nice young lady and went on my merry way.  When I came back to get him, he was giving some other kid the side eye,  I'm pretty sure if he knew how he would have been throwing down.  I'm not sure what happened,  but there was probably something that the Little Guy wanted in his mouth that the other kid thought belonged in HIS mouth.  Preschool should be fun.   Anywho, we might be turning a corner!  I may be able to work out again sometime in the next few months!

The reason why the Little Guy goes to childwatch on Thursday mornings is because his sister has the cutest gymnastics class in the world.   Picture 10ish 4 year old girls (all of whom are blond, natch.  This class takes place in the Great White Suburbia) dressed in their finest pink leotards and trying to walk across the balance beam,  or jump on a springboard.   While this class takes place I walk the indoor track that looks down into the gym and many times I have to stop myself from laughing.   Pink childsized blobs are running, jumping, twisting, and falling all over the place.  They should charge to watch it.

Baby Girl started soccer this week.  She's never been a huge fan of playing in the backyard since she has to kick the ball and not use her hands.  She's extremely anti the "don't use your hands" rule and I think her calling may have to be a goalie.  No one has told her that goalies get to use their hands yet, I think she may refuse to kick the ball ever again once she learns this.

This was before the game.  Even though she was smiling in this picture, she wasn't exactly thrilled to be there.  Neither was her little brother, as you can tell from his expression.  But look at those pink socks!!!  She picked them out all by herself.   Obvi.

She's the baby blue team,  #3.   That little girl in the #6 purple jersey happens to be her friend from school.  They were discussing some very important school related topics during the game.   Once in awhile one of them would run and kick at the ball.   Note the two girls in the goal in the left side.   It's important to crawl into the net to make sure there are no hidden obstacles.  Even if you have to do it during game time.

The captioin on this one is self explanatory (click on the picture to see it enlarged) I honestly don't know where she was,  probably at the other end of the field looking for dandelions.   She loves those dandelions.

I found her in this one!  Thank goodness for those pink socks!  Eventually I'm going to take my actual camera - these were taken with my iphone and sometimes it's hard to tell what my subject is.

The ultimate takeaway from her first day of soccer:  Preschool soccer is adorable.

back to the grind!

Baby Girl started her last year of pre-school today.   Unlike last year when I almost cried when dropping her off,  this year was just another day.   My Little Guy was hell bent on destroying her classroom so I really just wanted to get out of there and go food shopping.   She was fine,  gave me a big hug, and off I went.

So much more attitude in the 2013 pictures!

Things are not progressing too well on the half marathon training front.   Yesterday I was supposed to do 10 miles and I did 9.75 miles.... not too bad, but I was hoping to be a little stronger with the mileage by now.   I really don't think there's any way I can finish in 2 hours and 30 minutes at this point.   But I will finish and get my lobster roll and beer!!  On a side note,  my heart rate monitor chest strap is digging into my sides and rubbing the skin raw.  I tried to tape up my sides so it wouldn't irritate the skin,  but that didn't work.   I'm going to be bummed if I can't wear it next weekend when I do my 11 mile run,  I LOVE seeing my calorie count go up and up and up...  I burned 1400 calories this week!  That's double what I eat in a day!   Of course eating those calories back in the form of fried mozzarella and subs doesn't really lend itself to healthy eating and losing weight,  but damn did it taste good.   Food always tastes better after a run! 

I go back and forth on coughing up the money on Shakeology...  what say you healthy people?  Waste of money or no?

beach bums

Summer is winding down (it's taken a lot of self medicating for me to be able to say that without hyperventilating) and if there is one word to sum up Summer 2013,  it's BEACH!  We spent so much time there,  some of us actually got sick of it. 

Tonight we traveled over to the other end of town to go to a different beach for a picnic dinner.  The kids had fun.   Andrew and I wondered why we didn't get the memo that people bring fancy appetizers and wine to beach picnic dinners.   Oh, the things to look forward to when our kids are grown!

Pictures from our dinner beach trip. 

Dr. Jeckyll and Baby Girl

OMG

OH EM GEE

My kid is crazy.  This summer has been action packed.  My kids never stop moving from the time they wake up until the time we all admit defeat and throw them in bed (literally in my Little Guy's case,  I'm too short to put him all the way down into the pack and play),  and it takes a toll on them.... well,  on my Baby Girl.   Girlfriend gets tired and cranky.   Tonight my mother and I had to drive about 45 minutes away (in traffic) to pick up my father's power washer.   You know, the one that's been broken for 2 years but suddenly it HAD TO BE PICKED UP TODAY.    We put the kids in the car around 4:20 and headed out.  

Baby Girl was dead asleep in about 10 minutes and she slept for a solid hour before we woke her up to get dinner at Panera.

In retrospect,  that may have been one of the worst ideas in the history of the world.   Eve eating the apple,  letting rats run rampant during the Plague,  Baby Girl being woken up from a nap.  It's clearly in the top three.  She whined and cried for TWO SOLID HOURS.   That's right,  more than double her naptime. 
She wanted chocolate milk.   She has never had chocolate milk and I knew she'd dislike it so I told her as much.  She threw a fit and I let her get it.   Guess who threw a fit because she doesn't like chocolate milk? 

She wanted grilled cheese.  I told her she was splitting it with her brother.   She threw a fit because I gave half her sandwhich to the Little Guy.   Guess who didn't eat a SINGLE BITE OF GRILLED CHEESE?  

She wanted to be carried.  She didn't want to be carried.   She couldn't walk because her legs hurt.  She didn't want to move.  She didn't want to sit.  

She wanted a cookie.   She refused to pick out a cookie.   I picked out a cookie and she didn't want it.  She didn't want to share the cookie.   She wanted to eat the whole cookie and then she didn't want any of the cookie.   She didn't want her brother to eat it.   She wanted me to eat even less than her brother ate.

I wanted to leave her at Panera. 

Story Land

This is going to be a recap of our trip for reference purposes... so I can look back in a few years when we go again (why do people go every year?) and maybe help out some other first timers.   Your regularly scheduled snarky self depreciating rants will be back shortly. 

As you can see,  we took the kids to Story Land this week.  My parents claimed they took me there once when I was extremely small, but I have no memory of it.   Andrew doesn't have any memory of going either,  so essentially this was all of our first time. 

(by the way,  who knew you could drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and NOT be in Canada?  You learn new things every day (before the hate mail starts, yes, I know that you can drive 3.5 hours north of Boston and not be in Canada, I was employing sarcasm (embedded parenthesis are cool)))

We stayed at the only Marriott in North Conway.  I KNOW!  Just one Marriott from which to choose!  The horrors!   Residence Inn North Conway.   We had actually never stayed at a Residence Inn before and I was quite impressed.   It's not cheap at $170 per night for a King/Queen Family Suite.   Oh - and the "King" sized bed was two twins pushed together.   While, yes,  technically that's King SIZED,  two mattress does not a King bed make.   I was kind of annoyed by that but not enough to do anything about it.

We loved having the kitchenette,  and we were able to eat lunch and dinner back in our hotel - that's pretty key when you have two overtired babies that you've dragged all over New England.  There's no way we could have managed to get all 4 of us out to dinner and back in one piece so having a place where we could eat dinner and have our own food was key.   We actually got pizza from Good Times which is a few doors down from the hotel and we picked up some other odds and ends at Hannafords.   I can't emphasize enough how much better that made our night. 

The Little Guy is still in a crib (OBVI,  he's not even 1 yet) so we had a portable crib from the hotel and set it up in the little area next to the "bar" in the kitchen and the door.   We were able keep him somewhat separated from us so he could go down at 7.   Baby Girl went down at 8 in the Queen sized bed and we had the kitchen/sitting area/King bed to ourselves.   Granted we had to be super quiet to keep them both asleep,  but since the Bruins were on anyway we both were watching things on our iPads and keeping quiet wasn't so hard.  The hotel also had an indoor pool which the kids loved (again OBVI.  What kid doesn't like a hotel pool?),  free breakfast in the morning,  and there was a wine and beer tasting the day we were there.   

Storyland itself...  wow.  Time to update.   But it really is great for kids,  so it's hard to complain too much.  We made a few rookie mistakes and the weather was horrendous, so it wasn't as smooth as we would have liked.   Now we know better!

We did the last three hours are free deal.   Because it closes at 5:00 in June  we could get in at 2 and come back the next day for free.   We thought two and a quarter days would  be the perfect amount for an almost 4 year old and we were right. 

It started raining on our way over there on Monday and it didn't stop until we left the park.   At one point there was thunder and lightening and some of the rides had to close.  That was the point that we called it and left.  We got about 1 hour and 45 minutes in the park on Monday,  but we would have been miserable if we had stayed. 

We went back on Tuesday and had a pretty uneventful morning if you don't count the rain.   We dropped some cash on overpriced ponchos and sucked it up.   The good thing about the rain was there were NO lines for anything.   The bad thing was.... well, it was raining. 

After lunch is when things started going not so well.   First of all,  the food in the park was HORRENDOUS,  and that says a lot coming from me.  I like crappy food.  I loved the food I got when I was in the hospital after having my babies.  I usually don't know what people are talking about when they complain about food in places like amusement parks,  but this food was simply the worst I have ever had. 

After eating the awful food,  we made our way up to a very spinny ride called the Spinning Turtles or the Twisting Turtles or something Turtles.   It was too much for Andrew and Baby Girl.   They were the only ones on the ride which was lucky because they had to stop it early.  They were both sick for a long time after that and Baby Girl was hesitant to go on any other rides because of it.   At the very end of the day,  the sun was peeking out and I really wanted to go on the log flume...  Baby Girl said she wanted to as well so I went on with her and she didn't really like it.   I think I pushed her too much.   She wasn't scared of it,   and I think if we hadn't had the Turtle experience she would have LOVED it,  but she was too scared of rides she hadn't been on.    I should have skipped it - I only pushed it because I really wanted to go on it! 

As for my Little Guy,  he was a champ.   He basically spent the whole time in his stroller except when we went on the Antique Cars,  Tractor Ride,  Safari, and randomly he was allowed on the Ferris Wheel too (granted this is a child sized Ferris Wheel!).   I think because there was so much stimulation for him,  he was fine.

We brought our Sit n' Stand and it was perfect.  She didn't always need to ride but when she did I was glad to have a seat for her.   She did a ton of walking and sometimes she just needed a rest.

All in all it was a fun 30 hours.   I'm glad we did it and my Baby Girl had fun!  We know some things for next time to make it even easier!

celebrate we will

I don't even want to talk about running.    I haven't laced up my shoes since last Saturday.

I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that my babies are turning 4 and 1 in a matter of days.

My baby girl the day she was born

My little guy the day he was born

Both of them 4 days ago

How is it possible?  Wasn't June23rd 2009 just like 2 minutes ago?

Unprecendented

I blogged 4 times in the month of March.   A thousand apologies,  as I know you are all sitting riveted in your seats wondering what marvelous things are going on in my life.

Let me bring you up to speed.

It's really really really cold and I'm so sick of it.

By not blogging in March I spared you endless bitching about the unnatural coldness.  You're welcome.

In all serious, I haven't been blogging because I have had a serious case of writers block - which surprised even me since I don't write anything on here that takes much thought.   I generally don't proofread before I hit post (and when I say "generally don't proofread" I mean "I never once have proofread").  But when your life is full of mundane and it's really cold out and you are about to lose your ever loving mind if you don't get out of your 881 SF of hell... it becomes hard to think about anything else.

I did miss posting about my Little Man's 1st Easter while I was wallowing in my own despair.  Here we go!!

 Happy Easter Little Man!!

 And another one.  Please ignore me... it was early and I hadn't had any coffee or food or makeup or... anything.  But I need to be IN the picture more often and I'm trying to not let things like looking like I'm a zombie get to me.    Actually I didn't wear any makeup at all on Easter since we were running around like mad people trying to get to Church on time.   We failed in that endeavor and I still had to go sans makeup!

 Stolen egg!  The Easter Bunny only left eggs for Baby Girl to find, but my Little Guy was more than happy to steal them from his big sister.

 His Easter Basket!  Filled with mostly food,  some socks and sippies.   Oh, and a truck because what little boy doesn't want a blue police car?  I think it's a paddy wagon... what little Irish kid doesn't want a toy paddy wagon??  (answer: all of them) 

 Hello.  I think deep thoughts.  Also, how adorbs is my Easter sweater vest? 

Big Sister's 3rd Egg Hunt of the season.   Lucky.  Little Brother is more than happy to steal these too.

Family!  Even though I picked out and dressed the children, I guess I didn't get the memo to wear blue.   I also hate this picture, but again... trying to get IN the picture more often.   It would help if I had more makeup on!

I'm going to try to post more in April.  I still have massive writer's block, but I'm going to make an effort to push through it.

Only in New England

I took this picture on Monday when it was in the 60's.   It was my Little Man's first time in the swings.   He wasn't quite sure at first and then he loved it!  His little legs were kicking up a storm.

Fast Forward to Wednesday - Baby Girl is outside making snowmen and snow angels.  Seriously, these pictures were taken about 48 hours apart!

crafty!

Keeping a preschooler entertained day in and day out can be challenging.   When I say that I mean I constantly watch the clock and count the seconds until Andrew comes home and try not to lose my ever loving mind in the process. 

In order to keep myself sane and my daughter occupied I'm constantly on the lookout for cheap things to do with her.   Pinterest is my savior.   I had posted a few weeks ago that I had planned on doing this craft that I had pinned and we finally did it today.

First step, printing out the shapes.  I'm pretty sure I could have drawn my own outline of a candy cane and wreath,  but I do what Pinterest tells me to do.   Aren't I super good at printing out shapes? 

Okay, so then you have to cut the shapes out.  That's a LOT more effort than I like to put into a project, but my girl still cannot wield a pair of scissors (can that get her on an IEP? I'm trying everything to get her into preschool for free!) so there was no one else to do the manual labor.   Lame.   That's half the reason I had children.   As it turns out, I'm just as good as cutting out shapes as I am at printing them.

Baby Girl waiting patiently for me to finish cutting.... sorry chica,  there's like 7 steps in between the printing out the shapes and gluing on the pom poms.   Life's full of disappointments.

Shapes are printed and cut out.   Now comes the tracing.  OH MY GOD THE WORK NEVER ENDS.   Actually before you even get to the tracing step,  you have to cut open the cereal box you are using for the cardboard (the original blog posts also says you can use tonic containters.  By tonic, I mean soda.  Or pop. Or whatever it is you call tonic when you didn't grow up in Greater Boston.  DIET COKE.  Does that work?

The Little Guy watching our progress.   He wasn't terribly impressed with our mad skillz but he didn't fuss either.  That's a win.

Look at that fabulously traced and cut out cardboard candy cane.  Whoever traced, cut, and then traced and cut it again must be awesome.  And smart.  And beautiful.  And tall.  Well...  maybe not tall.

And after all that fun,  I glued on some yarn (because there is no ribbon in the arts and crafts box.   We accept donations).  

Viola!  Handmade Christmas tree ornaments that killed an hour out of our day :)  We made 6 different ones and I "helped" her on two of them.  She did all the pom pom work, but I just nudged her in the direction of picking the same sized ones.   Those are the ones that are going up on the tree.  The other ones I will find places for and toss them when the decorations go back up in the attic in January.

Penelope

We (I) decided to do Elf on the Shelf this year.  Apparently EOTS is controversial... who knew?  I just thought it was cute.   Anyway,  our elf appeared this past Sunday and my Baby Girl hasn't 100% accepted it yet.   We had to gently nudge her in the right direction in naming it - Baby Girl wanted it to be named "Daddy Elf"  or "Baby Girl Elf".   We eventually decided on Penelope.  She loves getting up every morning and finding out where Penelope is,  but I'm not sure that she's buying the fact that Penelope flies back to the North Pole every night to report back to Santa.   That concept may be a little young for a 3 year old though.  

I had to email Santa a few days ago because Penelope was dangling from our ceiling fan in the kitchen and I kept knocking into her with my head.   Baby Girl was getting panicky because you can't touch the elf or she will lose her magic.  So we emailed Santa and explained that Mama didn't MEAN to bump Penelope and we really hoped she wouldn't lose her magic.   Luckily for us,  Santa checks his email daily and ensure Penelope was able to go back to the North Pole and report how wonderful Baby Girl had been that day.   Crisis averted.  Rest assured Penelope will not be dangling from the ceiling fan any more!

life as we know it

I am so tired.

My 4 month old has never slept through the night.   Not once.  Not even close.

Do I have your pity yet?  Because I can get more dramatic about it if you don't feel bad for me.

I have calluses on my right hand from carrying my boy in his bucket seat up and down three flights of stairs multiple times a day.   Also,  my back is in constantly in pain. 

Okay,  I'll stop.

Now that I no longer pay people to do it for me,  I need to come up with crafty ideas to do with my Baby Girl so she doesn't grow up and feel a need to pay a therapist to figure out why she never made a handprint turkey.   I search Pintrest on the daily, but a lot of what I see is more suited for older kids,  or requires supplies that I don't have (a list of supplies of things I don't have would include:  construction paper,  googly eyes,  felt,  pipe cleaners,  feathers, and glitter).   The best I can come up with is Thanksgiving Garland
-but only if Andrew can print of a whole bunch of leaves... and if I buy some string.  

Sometimes I even impress myself with my stellar crafty mama skills.  

Okay, so I may not be winning any Martha Stewart awards,  but I allow both play-do AND finger paint and we use both multiple times a week.   I ROCK.

My girl is clearly a genius.







It's been a hard couple of days. Everyone is tired and grumpy. I'm over it. I broke out some Christmas carols today to raise my spirits. It didn't work. I'm thinking a weekend at a spa would work...

sad days ahead

Day is done, gone the sun
From the lakes, from the hills, from the sky
All is well, safely rest
God is nigh.
Fading light dims the sight
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright
From afar, drawing near
Falls the night.
Thanks and praise for our days
Neath the sun, neath the stars, neath the sky
As we go, this we know
God is nigh.

OMG y'all.   My Keurig has bit the dust.   That beautiful machine that dispenses coffee to me in a variety of sizes any time I want it...  is gone.   It silently tells me to descale it,  despite the fact it's been descaled numerous times in the past few days.

The thing about Keurigs is they are not cheap.  A brief visit to Amazon and Bed Bath and Beyond are letting me know I will need about $150 to replace my beloved piece of machinery.   Ack.   I'm determined to get this crises resolved without me shelling out $150.  I really hope I am successful.

And on a completely different note,  the library has informed me that my reserved copy of Dr. Ferber's book is available.   We never had to Ferber Baby Girl,  but my Little Guy needs some help in the sleeping department.  Let's hope Dr. Ferber knows what he is talking about!

crafty kid

After a morning of swimming lessons,  bike riding, and two hour naps (the aforementioned nap unfortunately took place in the car!)  Baby Girl and I pulled out our box o' art supplies and I tried to teach her how to do a tree with fall leaves using finger paints. 

this is mine:

This is hers:

I'd like to point out that mine is way better.  I actually made leaves on my tree.  Baby Girl started to make leaves and then decided that it was more fun to just smear everything together.  Andrew keeps giving me a LOOK when I point out (quietly, natch) that mine is totes better.  Apparently I shouldn't be getting as much satisfaction out of doing a better finger pain tree than my three year old did.   Whatever, mine is good.  Hers is not.  Fact, not opinion.

She did a few more trees and we did handprints and other fun stuff. 

I'M SO TALENTED,  I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT

OMG, she kills me when she mixes all the colors together.  Like it really hurts me.  I see all these colors mixed into a brown muddy mess and I cry a little bit inside.   (notice that I don't do that.  I make nice pictures. I WIN AGAIN!)

My Little Guy woke up at the end of art time and I had him touching the play dough (never too early to start those sensory activities!).  These are his little toes - I tried to get the whole foot, but the toes came out better!

milestones

This morning the Little Guy and I escorted my Baby Girl to her pre-school open house.   He was not impressed and slept through the whole thing.   I almost cried, which surprised me.  My little girl went to daycare full time when she was 13 weeks old, and I thought I got all my tears out back then when I had to leave her.   But this is different,  although we always called daycare "school",  it really wasn't.  Oh, she learned things, all right.  I'm 100% positive she has more knowledge than most 3 year olds and it's because she had the best teachers we could have asked for the past three years.  But daycare is a home away from home, and school is school.  Her classroom at daycare was set up as part playroom,  part classroom, part art studio, part bedroom.   Her new classroom is definitely a classroom - it has a CHALKBOARD.  (the chalkboard is completely covered with posters and signs, because honestly, who uses a chalkboard in 2012?  That's why they invented whiteboards).  I can still remember my pre-school days and my first classroom and the whole thing made me want to cry.   There is a good chance I may cry when I leave her on Monday.   I'm sure the Little Guy will sleep through the whole thing again.

Right after Open House, we went to the Little Guy's 2 month appointment.   He's a huge monster baby.   14 pounds 5 ounces and 25 inches long.   We don't have the exact percentiles,  but it's right around the 50th.   So I guess it makes him completely normal, but to me he's HUGE.  I'm taken aback when people comment on how little he is.  

So I officially have a pre-schooler and a huge monster baby. 

I feel like yesterday I was in college.

Swimming!

These pictures are SOOC  (or SOOPhone, as it were) so I apologize for the lack of editing and the horrendous lighting situation going on.  Not having photoshop or any other editing software, there's not a whole lot I could have done about the lighting anyway.

Baby Girl finished her swimming lessons at the beach last week.  She learned nothing,  then she got a trophy for it.  I don't understand why the trophies were necessary.   The pizza and cake though..... those were completely necessary.  But trophies for occasionally showing up for lessons and having the lifeguard carry you in and out of the water...  well that's the embodiment of kids getting rewarded for EVERYTHING these days.  As much as I thought it was ridiculous, she was excited to get her trophy,  once she figured out what a trophy was. 

Baby Girl and her trophy for her accomplishments showing up

Look Mama!  Next stop-Olympic Glory! swimming lessons at the Y

Up close and personal.   Yes, it's engraved.