Favorite Girl's First Day of 3-Year Old Preschool

Today (Thursday August 27, 2009) was a big milestone for my Favorite Girl. She went to preschool for one hour to meet her teacher's, find her cubbie, and begin to make new friends. She gets to go all by herself on Tuesday. Apparently she knew the drill since we prepared brother for Kindergarten this week. She hopped out of the car, started running for the door and said by mom. I know how to go you don't have to walk me! This little girl's independence is quite admirable. She definitely will go far in life with her can do attitude. I am so proud of her. (I hope I still feel that way when she's 14 and laying claim to her independence, we shall see).

Off she marched straight to the door. She didn't want a hug or kiss. Little did she know I was staying for the hour ;)


Here she is with her best buddy Adam. Adam's daddy will take them to school everyday. Adam and FG loved putting sand in each other's hair all summer long while their mommies and daddies played sand volleyball. They were such a MESS every Tuesday night. If you notice the picture above FG is playing at the sand table. I pray they mind their manners while at school :) No Sand Fights!

I can't believe our little princess is old enough to be going to school. She is doing GREAT considering she just had her tonsils out on Monday. Her voice seems to have changed a little bit but she's still adorable as can be. She needed a family picture to take to school with her so we ran downtown and snapped a few last night. There wasn't a single pic on my digital camera where we are all looking at the camera. Thank you so much for running down there with us Brandi!!

Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy

After a previous post, my good friend Carrie informed me what the other meaning of T&A is, so I guess I better use the technical terms. Favorite Girl had her tonsils and adenoids removed this morning. We had to be at the hospital at 6am for her 7:10 surgery. Here she is in the waiting room waiting to go back for surgery watching the end of Mickey Mouse Playhouse and Special Agent Oso.
She was such a big big girl and went right with the doctor once we were finished signing all of the required forms. As far as FG knew the only thing she was doing today was getting her ears pierced! She particularly liked Dr. B's Pooh hat. I don't know why I look so ticked. I guess I was tired from the 4 hours of sleep I got. Here we are back in her room recovering. She had to go potty right when we got back into her room. That was a good sign. FG was required to drink the whole glass of apple juice there on the table before we could go home. She tried her best but she vomited at 8:30. She was such a little trooper. She didn't cry once. The only thing that made her mad was the I.V. in her arm. She kept whining for them to take it out. Around 9am we tried some orange jello but she threw up again at 9:30. So she received a shot of Zofran to help with the nausea and then a shot of morphine to help with the pain.

The drugs really livened her up. Carrie came to visit and brought a Dora balloon. That really made her happy!

We watched Dora, Diego, and the Bunny Rabbit show while we were sitting in her room trying to recover. Once the drugs kicked in Favorite Girl was a new woman! She drank her apple juice, ate all of the jello, a purple Popsicle, an orange Popsicle, and all of the marshmallows out of a container of Lucky Charms. Once she ate all of the food and kept it down she ripped off the gown and said I'm all better, please take the I.V. out so I can get dressed.

The nurse gave FG Tylenol with Codeine and then released us. The CNA that transported us back to the front door did not want to be in the picture of FG in the wheelchair, but I caught her.

First Day of School! 08 . 21 . 2009

Mom made a yummy breakfast of pancakes and sausage to fill his belly so he would be full and prepared to learn.

Mommy's tears started the second we pulled out of the driveway. She tried and tried to be so strong.

This looks like a face of worry. This is getting out of the car heading to the playground. From here he can see all of the kids lined up waiting to go inside.


Thank you America for the freedom to go to school and learn!

Here all of the kids are lined up by grade waiting for the teachers to walk them inside.

Favorite Boy twists things when he is nervous. It used to be that he would twirl his mommy's hair. Since he is too big to be held (especially on the first day of school) he stood and twisted his shirt. This made mommy cry harder.

He is interested in what's going on around him.

Ms. H found Favorite Boy and gave him a name tag. In addition to his name, it also said K-H meaning Kindergarten-Ms. H in case he got lost during the day and couldn't remember his teacher's name whoever found him in the hallway would know where he belonged (more tears), it also said how he would get home at the end of the day.

This was obviously a bad shot because she looks a little mean but she is very very nice!

This was on the door to his classroom.

Here he is at his Red Circle table. Unfortunately he saw the tears in mommy's eyes and started to get butterflies in his tummy.

He started to cry so mommy left the room. Dad stayed to try to calm him down. Finally dad joined mommy in the hallway and all they could hear was FB frantically screaming at the top of lungs "DADDY, NO DADDY! DADDY DON'T LEAVE ME HERE, DADDY!" It was absolutely awful, and all the drama because mommy couldn't keep it together. As we turned to leave we ran into Mrs. K. She shared a few reassuring words with mommy. She told us she would be the the teacher's aide in FB's classroom. FB really likes Mrs. K so that put mommy's mind at ease.

At the end of the day Mrs. K called mommy to give her an update. She said FB had already stopped crying by the time she walked in the classroom. She said he chose to sit alone at his table for a few minutes to calm down before he decided to join the group. (Only half the class started on Friday the other half started on Thursday so there was a small group).

Later in the day all the children were sitting on the carpet learning about bugs. FB was holding a plastic cockroach. He informed his teacher, "I really like this kind of bug, I like to let them crawl on my arm." Ms. H. said, "you do? Where have you held one those bugs?" FB's response was, "at home, we have these kinds of bugs at home!" (I could hear him saying this in his matter-of-fact nonchalant voice, like duh everybody has these kinds of bugs at their house Ms. H! --ornery!!)

I am so very thankful that Mrs. K knows us and could set Ms. H straight. I am so happy that the Kindergarten stories started on the very first day of school! I wish I could be a fly on the wall! No pun intended.

When I picked Favorite Boy up from school we saw our friend D and his mom. We all went to Dairy Queen to celebrate the first day of school. When I asked FB about his day he said that he played outside for recess two times, ate his salad all gone, 20 bites of pizza, and that he has a special 3 digit number he has to remember to buy his lunch. That's all he could remember. He is excited to go back.

Unfortunately Favorite Girl has to have her tonsils out in the morning (Monday 8.24.09). We have to be at the hospital at 6am. Since we have to be up so early favorite boy went to spend the night with gma and gpa tonight. Gma will take FB to his second day of school in the morning.

Our one and only day at the pool this summer

Taylor Whitehead Benefit

Aaron and I bid on quite a few things at the Silent Auction for Taylor Whitehead. We were lucky enough to walk away with two fabulous cakes decorated by M.D. We we the BEST parent's ever when Favorite Girl woke up Sunday morning to a DORA cake!

Water Fight at Grandma's House

There weren't that many nice days this summer. We happened to be at Grandma's on one really nice day and Favorite Boy thought it would be fun to have a water balloon fight.

He has a pretty good arm. Ferentz might want to keep an eye on him. :)Favorite Girl stole the ball and kept it safe in her swim suit. I guess she was finished playing.

Enjoying her Nerd Wrap too

Nerds Wrap Up

Favorite Boy loves dessert on taco night. He likes to spread butter on a tortilla shell, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar, wrap it up and ENJOY! On this night he was pretty inventive! He had this box of Nerds from our recent trip to the theater to see Ice Age 2 and he decided to jazz up his wrap with a sprinkle of Nerds. (yuck!)

Carnival at Daycare 07.31.2009

Wednesday Night Open House

FB had gymnastics so daddy picked him up at the Y and rushed him home and fed him a lunchable. I picked up sissy and we rushed home to pick up the boys and we were off to school. The parking lot was packed so we had to park across the street and walk. FB was so excited but I could tell there was a little bit of apprehension there too. As we turned down the hallway heading towards the kindergarten classroom we met our good friend D. He was our neighbor that lived across the street but unfortunately he moved right before summer started. We miss him terribly but seeing him in the hallway really put FB at ease.


The second that we walked into the classroom Ms. H met FB at the door. She bent down on her knees and said, "HI! What's your name?!" FB shyed away for a second and at that moment a huge lump swelled in the back of my throat and my eyes instantly filled with tears. I couldn't say anything to encourage him to answer her question or he would hear the tears in my voice. I just held onto his shoulder and thankfully he answered her within a few seconds. She asked him if he could find his cubbie and hang up his bag and told him that he could unload his Kleenex and napkins on the table and she would put them away for him. Thankfully that bought me a minute to pull it together.


Next he said Mom let's go find my desk. He did a fabulous job finding his table. He sits with three other people at a rectangular table. In the middle of the table Ms. H had a red laminated circle taped down. She asked him if he knew what shape it was and what color it was, and of course he answered correctly. She said yeah, you are going to be at the Red Circle table. As I looked around I noticed a Purple Star table, Green Rectangle, Blue Diamond etc...It's kind of funny because during FB's first year of preschool he was a Blue Diamond and during his second year he was a Purple Star so I guess Kindergarten will sort of continue the "Lucky Charms" theme. We played with a few toys, looked at all of the wonderful books, checked out the restroom and then FB started to beg to go to the gym so off we went.


First we stopped by the book fair in the "Media Center" aka Library. FB and FG each picked out two new books and then we went to find the gym. The gym teacher was impressed that FB was wearing tennis shoes and not flip flops and commented that he was wearing the perfect shoes for her class. Our final stop was the playground and then we were off to home.


Today has been a very rough day for mom. I knew that half of FB's class started school today (FB starts tomorrow, Friday) so I sat and thought about two of his classmates that I knew started today and I cried all day long. I emailed the two moms and told them I was thinking of them which only made matters worse because then they wrote back about how "it" went. B's daddy bent down to give him a hug and he said, "B are you crying?" B answered, "no daddy I'm not crying, the tears just won't stop flowing but I'm not crying". B's dad gave him a pat and away Mom and Dad went. Dad did not tell mom about the incident until this afternoon when her baby made it home safe and sound from his first day of Kindergarten.

I know I have to be strong. I know this is a good thing but why do I feel like I just tucked my precious baby boy into bed for the last time and nothing will ever be the same again?????????? Why does it sting so much?


It killed me so badly when I put my kids in a public daycare center and after one week of attendance a teacher told me, "oh your kids have already changed, it's so weird to see how quickly they transition and pick up on the ornery behaviors of other kids, they were so sweet and innocent but they toughened up quick". OUCH! Who tells a mom that?!?


I took tomorrow off of work. I think some of the people I work with think I'm crazy. But the tears wouldn't stop flowing all day today so I'm pretty sure I would be quite unproductive if I tried to work tomorrow. FG and I will hang out, go get her haircut and wait very patiently until we can go rescue brother. I know he's going to love it, I know he's so eager to learn, he wants to be a big school boy, he wants to learn how to read, he wants to run laps in the gym, he can't wait to carry a lunch tray and most of all he can't wait to meet new friends...he's ready (wait I had to go blow my nose) I know he's going to do GREAT! but why don't they allow me to go with him? Do you think anyone would notice if I hide in the bushes all day? I promise I will be quiet.

Parent night at Kindergarten!

The parents were invited to a special meeting held tonight to meet Favorite Boy's Kindergarten teacher. We had Kindergarten round up before school let out last spring and we met all four of the teachers, but FB's teacher got married over the summer and resigned before this school year started. Last Monday the school hired FB's new teacher-Ms. H. Needless to say all of the parents were going in to tonight's meeting with a lot of anticipation. Ms. H was very very nice I think FB will really like her. Since Ms. H is new to the school she did not run the parent's meeting for FB's class. Instead we joined with another classroom and the "tenured" teacher ran the meeting for both classes. We went over basic rules: a folder will be sent home each day-one side will contain papers we can keep and the other side will be papers that require our attention and most likely will need to be sent back to school. The teacher strongly encouraged that we send our children in tennis shoes instead of flip flops :) We learned that FB will have "sharing" day on Thursday's. The teacher discussed Jolly Phonics (which was also the program used in FB's preschool). She shared that each one of her students were able to read by the end of the school year last year. FB will be so excited. He tries so so hard to read now. I'm amazed at how much of the Dr. Seuss books he can "read" verbatim from memory. The little stinker! So I will save the "mushy I love you post and how badly my heart is aching right now because it feels like it is being ripped out of my chest post" for the First Day of School. I don't think I have the emotional energy to live through it again right now. And besides that I'm supposed to have my happy go lucky game face on right now for FB!

But I do have to post this...I just need to remember this night...I don't consider myself a naive person but I must admit I was quite shocked that the truancy officer made an appearance this evening. He spoke about the Iowa law that requires every child to be in school from the age of 6-16. He explained the difference between an excused absence and an unexcused absence and what it means to be tardy...kind of felt like I was at work... commonsense stuff for the average Joe. I think my mind started to wonder and I sat thinking wow I really can't believe we are having this discussion in Kindergarten. And you would think that with my job nothing would amaze me, AND THEN, parents started arguing with this man?!? The truancy officer actually called out one parent by name and told him to stop rolling his eyes at him...apparently this is not his first rodeo. So it all started to become crystal clear to me why the truancy officer was needed at this meeting and WELCOME TO PUBLIC SCHOOL smacked me hard square in the face. I know it will do no good to try and shelter my children from the reality of life...but honestly I don't know that I was prepared for that reality.

Anyway enough about that rant. On to happier things, I found FB's desk and it looks as if he will sit at a table with four girls. GIGGLE! Poor boy, he can't run, he can't hide, he will have his "mom and sister" sitting right next to him meddling in his business right there at school too!

I love you more than you'll ever know little man! I can't wait for your Open House on Wednesday. I know you are going to do GREAT!