Wednesday, August 26, 2009

First day of school 1.4



Today is the real first full day of school - YAY!


On a side note, I have really begun to enjoy the time alone that Baby Bear and I have in the car alone after we drop Mooka off at school. There are about 7 miles between her school and his, so we have a little bit of bonding time.

This mornings conversation went like this...

Both of us were singing along with the radio.


BB: Mom, how do babies get in mommies bellies.

Me: I'm sorry, what?

BB: How do the babies get in the bellies.

Me: Honey, why do you want to know.

BB: Because I want to know how them get in the bellies.

Me: Because Jesus puts them there.

BB: Okay!

Silence the rest of the way to school.

Where do they come up with these things and what in the world was going through his little head that made THAT the question for the morning?!

Monday, August 24, 2009

First day of school 1.3

I think we are going to consider this the first official day of school, since she will technically be there all day. Today, she had school until 12:30 but will then go to latch key. (Which apparently is extremely cool because it's all both of them talked about this weekend.)



Walking up to the doors...


Peeking in the window...


Ready for Mom to leave...


And someone scored a cookie for breakfast because Mom was a wreck...


And in case you were wondering, I didn't even make it back to the car today before the waterworks started.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Last weekend's update

Because I was so school focused this past week, I never got around to sharing the pictures from last weekend's follies.

We made our annual trek to the Illinois State Fair.



We made the decision to let them ride this ride for the first time this year. They both were well above the height requirement and were both begging, so I gave in. I'm not going to lie though, I about crapped myself (and no, there is no better way to phrase that) after the thing started moving. I have an absurd fear of carnival rides/heights/things that go fast, in fact my palms are sweating as I am typing this and reflecting on the moment.



Clearly, they were not phased by my constant screams on the sidelines...



I love the sheer joy on their faces in this one...



We and by we I mean A. always takes the kids on the big slide. After going down first with the boy, they were quite disappointed in the lack of speed they were able to achieve. They made up for it on the second pass with the girl and while this picture isn't the best, you will see what happens when you get over zealous on the big slide. (this one is just for you Grandma Gayle)

Friday, August 21, 2009

First day of school 1.2

Today, she opted to have her picture taken in front of the morning glory vines.



As I mentioned yesterday, today was only a two hour day and she was without me.

I got to hang out with this red mustache bandit.



Her report when I picked her up was "I really like kindergarten."

There were no tears until I had dropped everyone off at day care and this song came on the radio.

O, well...there is always Monday :)

Thursday, August 20, 2009

First day of school 1.0

Today was Mooka's first day of school...sort of. I am finding that they make it easy for kindergartners to make the transition by having a week worth of firsts. Today was an hour orientation that I was able to attend with her. Tomorrow is two hours on her own. Monday and Tuesday are half days. Then finally, Wednesday, she will go for a full day. I love that they ease into it, but if you are trying to capture the true "first day of school" it makes it a bit difficult.

Anyway, so here is version 1.0.



The orientation was set up so that the kids were separate from the parents. I was completely shocked when she grabbed a hold of my arm and asked me to not let go of her hand. (No, I did not cry.)

A teacher came over and introduced her to some other girls and took her hand to lead her into the room. She blew me a kiss and away she went. (No, I did not cry.)

I went into her classroom to get her things situated and to meet her teacher. As I sat in the tiny chair and looked around the room, everything just felt completely surreal. (No, I did not cry.)

Afterwards, I was able to walk Mooka through her class and show her the desk. She is sitting in a quad with three other little girls. I noticed that there is another quad of girls very near by, so the class is nicely blended with a total of 14 children. We finished our tour and then it was time to go.

As I drove her to one of her last days at daycare, I looked in the rear view mirror to see her looking out the window while sucking her thumb and twirling her hair just like she has done since she was a baby. Neither one of us said much.

When I walked her up to daycare to join her brother, she did not want to go "because those are the little kids and I'm in school now."

It's so hard to be in that transition phase.

Baby Bear came running right up and started asking all sorts of questions, so off they went.

I got back to my car and sobbed all the way to work. The exact same way I did 5 short years ago when I dropped her off with her Grandpa on my first day back from maternity leave.

Cherish each day because they just fly by.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Don't be a Grover

When I was a kid, I used to LOVE this book.



And now, my kids love this book.

The basic story is Grover starts flipping out after the first page when you read that there is a monster at the end of the book. Page after page, he constructs new obstacles to try to keep you from going forward. And, page after page, you prove his efforts to be futile.

At the end of the book (stop reading if you don't want me to spoil it for you) there isn't anything but Grover. He's the monster at the end of the book. He freaked out for nothing and even points out his embarrassment.

As we were reading this the other night, dear old Grover taught me a pretty big life lesson.

The reason why the kids (and I) always love this book is because it lets them demonstrate...

courage,

determination,

confidence,

strength,

bravery,

all of those things that we want for our kids.

Lately, I have been less like them and more like Grover. I freak out about what the future holds when it's going to happen regardless. And, most likely, the only bad thing that is going to happen was all constructed in my own imagination. At the end of the day, I'm just sitting there embarrassed about all of the time I wasted worrying about something didn't even happen. I'm not sure when I changed, but I don't like it.

Has anyone else experienced this, the lack of fearlessness as you've gotten older?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Guessing game

Take a look at these pictures and guess where we were this morning.



You may also notice that Baby Bear now has even shorter hair than he had two SHORT weeks ago.


You get one guess.

I was laid off from work on Tuesday (everything is going to be fine - I'll post about that later) and had a better reaction to that than the one I had when the school called to say come pick up your dirties children.

But, the visit to the doctor said we are clear for at least another 10 days.

YAY for parenthood!

Sunday, August 9, 2009

By Your Side

This song has been on repeat for me for the past week. It's by Tenth Avenue North and serves as a reminder for me that no matter what is going on, I'm not the one in control.

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

Friday, August 7, 2009

Jump around

We bought this thing before Mooka had even turned two. As you can see from the pictures, it was as much for Daddy us as it was for them. A friend of ours had a summer party at their house and decided to buy it. After the party, they realized they had no use for a ginormous trampoline and sold it to us for a ridiculously low price. I'm so glad we have room for it again, as it had been in a box for the past three years.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Rock the River

If you follow me on twitter or facebook, you are probably sick of hearing me talk about Rock the River. But seriously, I cannot express how much fun we had!

If you haven't heard about it yet, allow me to share. Rock the River is a music tour coordinated by the Franklin Graham. It is targeted towards the younger generation and they do an amazing job.

Leading up to the day, I did not have high hopes for having two kids out at an all day concert. They cannot behave for a 30 minute trip to the grocery store, let alone, 9 hours in the sun.

We prepped them by letting them know that there favorite band Skillet would be performing.

And it worked.

They got along most of the day. There was limited fighting. There was minimal whining.

The only negative to the day was when we had to make the trek to go potty. The funny thing is that it was so horrible, that they didn't ask to go back again. (If you have ever been out to eat with the House of O, you know that this is MAJOR as we normally make no fewer than 5 trips to the commode during an hour long dinner) I'm not exaggerating when I say we were gone for nearly TWO HOURS. Someone thought it would be a great idea to only order 15 porta-potties for the event. Since nearly 71K people were there, it did not make for a fun experience.

I digress.

How about some pictures!?



I absoltely love this one, so I had to feature it by itself.


During the time between bands, they showed video testimonies from people that the kids in the audience could relate to. These were very powerful. When they showed this one from Brian Welch, you could have heard a pin drop under the arch.



It was a surprisingly great day. If you live in Minneapolis, I highly recommend catching the show next weekend!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Busy, busy

We made up for our previous week of being shut off from the real world this past weekend. I have lots of pictures to share.

First up, we headed out of Saturday morning to preview the new "A Christmas Carol" by Disney. They are doing a US wide train tour promoting it.





You walk through the train and see the process they used for creating the movie... from concept art,



to paper models,


to the technology behind making a real actor become a cartoon character.


At the very end, there was a 3-D screening of the movie.


Everyone had a great time and even better, the whole thing was FREE!