Meet the Teacher

We met Mary and William's teachers last night! What a fun experience for us all. Mary was drawn to her classroom and warmed up to her teacher, Ms. Christine, within just a couple of minutes. She found the dry erase easel (and the marker found her dress - any tips to get that out would me much appreciated) and I filled out a survey of her favorite things for her. According to Mary, her favorite food is bananas, which I can easily believe though I probably would have put pizza, peanut butter sandwiches and string cheese above that. Simply put, there's not much Mary doesn't get excited about eating, so banana must have been the magical thought for the moment. Mary's favorite color (today) is red. Her favorite song to sing is "Holy, Holy, Holy." Mary spent a while jumping on one foot...her newest talent and way to show she's excited. She's thrilled to start school next week and hasn't stopped talking about it.

William's room is decorated like a jungle and when we walked in the door there was a little green bag with his name on it. I tried to get him to find the bag with his name, but he was too busy looking up at the vines on the ceiling. Silly mommy. I filled out the same survey for William while he found his name no less than 4 times around the room. One of his two teachers, Ms. Kelly and Ms. Kim, gave him his goody bag and told him what was in it - raisins - so his favorite food is, of course, RAISINS! Also inside the bag were crayons, so he pointed to and named all the colors on the front when I asked him what his favorite color was. That's typical of William - the best time of his life is right now. When asked about his favorite movie, William listed every one he's ever seen, but I asked him to choose just 1 and he said, "I want 5." (Five is, amazingly enough, William's favorite number.) William's favorite songs to sing are "I'm In the Lord's Army" and "Wheels on the Bus." William was so tall compared to the other chlidren. Most have just turned 2 and look like babies by comparison! I've spoken with the school about placing him in the Young 3s class, where he was originally enrolled. His birthdate does fall into the range for the 2s class, but only by a smidge and his skills really match up more with the 3s than the 2s. I don't want to be a pushy mother right off the bat or present him as the brightest kid in the world, but I do want him to be challenged and matched with peers, regardless of his age.

Mary and William are both so excited to start off to school and are literally jumping for joy about these new beginnings next week. I'm so surprised to see them growing away from me so quickly. I'll admit that I'm looking forward to the break and the time alone with Robert, but I'm also going to miss them while they are off learning at school.

Mother's Premonition

I was in the shower this morning thinking, "I don't have any pressing plans to get out of the house until this evening, so I could send Doug with the car." But visions of needing to visit the ER popped into my head and I realized that we hadn't had an injury in a while. Mary chipped her front tooth (and blackend the other) back in January. William split his forehead open in April, but other than the smallest bruises here and there, we've not had any injuries since then. It hit me that we are due and that I should expect something soon. Not an hour later, as William tried to get himself settled at the kid-sized table to color, he slipped and banged his mouth on the chair, sending his tooth into his lower lip. You see it happening in slow-motion, then hear the scream, and then the bloody mouth comes running toward you, but you still can't believe it's happening.

Once we got all the blood cleared away and got a good look at it, it's not so bad. The lip is swollen and bruised and he is complaining that it hurts a lot. A little ice, a little Tylenol and he's acting like himself again, but I can tell it hurts him still.

How on earth did I know this was going to happen today? I love my boys dearly, but I'm really beginning to wonder if I'm able to handle the "tough boy" stuff that mothering entails. I'm not queasy at the sight of blood, but I ache to my bones when one of my kids is hurt.

Food

This little guy ate with us last night. His first regular meal: italian pork and angel hair pasta. It's crazy how fast they grow up.

Short vowel words

Mary already knows all the sounds of the letters and she was getting quite bored with the first 26 lessons. So, I skipped ahead (just to see) to Lesson 27: Short Vowel words, which was a discussion about how to sound out words and sounding out /at/. That went superbly well so I tacked on Lesson 28: Beginning sounds of /at/ words.

Mary read: mat, fat, rat and hat with no problems. We worked hard on pat and bat because of the truncated sounds of /p/ and /b/.

I'm so proud of her. I've ordered BoB books for her to start with and we're only 10 lessons or so away before she can really start reading books.

What a big little girl I have.

A dog scare

It's no secret that our kids are a little skiddish around dogs. Mary is better off around them and as long as they lay still, she's happy to move about around them. William, on the other hand, freezes if there is a dog in sight. This morning, Doug opened our garage door and was walking the kids out to the (borrowed) car in our driveway. I heard blood-curdling screams from outside so I dashed to the garage to see what had happened.

A dog had darted from a neighbor's house, two doors down, and ran at them barking. According to Doug, this dog was small enough to throw 60 yards (he's a dog person, really!) and even Mary agrees that the dog was smaller than Robert. Yet, the fear and panic set in and they went running (and screaming). It doesn't matter the size of the dog or how friendly he's being, they have a natural fear. I remember when Mary was less than 2 years old and she finally verbalized what scared her about dogs. "Doggie bite." I don't know where she got that idea, but she certainly passed it along to William. Of course, some dogs do bite, but a majority are perfectly safe. A tough concept for a 2 and 3 year old to grasp.

I thought we'd made progress for a while, after visiting a pet store and watching through the glass crates for a few times, then Mommy would hold the dogs and even William would pat them. My goal was to start little and then visit big dogs. But, as luck would have it, they gave me a very squirmy tiny dog and he wriggled right out of my hands and fell to the floor (3-4 feet). He yelped and I passed him back to the store operator. They checked him out and reported that he was fine, but I felt so bad that we never went back.

The kids speak very fondly of our friends' dogs. Walter and Finnegan seem to be the most memorable and the most talked about. But face to face, dogs cause great anxiety for them. I hope that "yippie" as I've been calling this morning's darting, barking, fluff will not set them back further in their appreciation for dogs.

The cheese.

William stutters when he's excited, upset, or particularly eager to get his point across, which just delays him more. In the car this Sunday, William broke the silence and eagerly said, "M-m-m-ma Ma, Mmmmm-m-m-ma, Mama!"

"Yes, William?"

"Mama, the cheese stands alone."

Sparkly Clean

Not that anyone really cares, but I had my teeth cleaned today. I love that fresh feeling when all the gook has been scraped off and they are all polished and smooth.

And, a doubly nice day, our housekeeper came today and my kitchen floor is clean again. Woohoo!