Visit with Grandma Joanie and Grandpa Buddy

lest i have a high opinion of myself

As I'm getting ready to go out to Parent's Night for Caitlin's school, she is watching me apply some make-up and comments "I don't need makeup because my face is not like that.....but I still love you anyway."

wow. I guess the numerous discussions I've had with her about the importance of our heart over our looks is really making a difference.

First soccer game

Caitlin decided to try soccer this season instead of dance. She is loving it so far and meeting new friends. Somehow I managed to capture the one time she touched the ball below (she is #7). Nora and Ryan are enjoying rolling down the tiniest hill at the soccer field and are, of course, the cutest spectators.

First Day of kindergarten

Caitlin's first day of school was Thursday, Sept 8. She was very excited to go to elementary school. I thought it would emotionally difficult and sad to see her with the big kids in an elementary school, but it wasn't--I was just really excited for her. I couldn't wait to pick her up and ask her one hundred questions about her day.










We were invited in for the first 15 minutes or so and it was sort of fun to see the routine. Caitlin was very serious about listening when her teacher was talking. She was very independent about the whole thing--not only was she NOT clingy with me, but she wouldn't even make eye contact. I barely got a wave out of her when it was time to go. She is kind of a big deal now, i guess.

When I picked her up, she was all smiles though. She had a hard time recounting her day other than "it was great," but was happy to answer all one hundred of my questions and it turns out: she was able to get milk for lunch with the money I gave her, she met some new friends, she went potty exactly once with no problems, she played outside, they had apples, bananas and cheese sticks for snack, lunch was not enough time to eat, she likes her teacher, they traced leaves and birds, she felt good all day, she sat at a table of all boys except her, she didn't mind that she sat at the boys table, she likes "choice time," the gym is boring but the computer room is pretty cool.

On the way home, she started going through her school bag and doing her "homework," which intrigued me, but OK. She insisted she had some papers to work on. After dinner, I opened up her school bag and found emergency forms, lunch ordering forms, fundraiser forms, health forms, transportation forms, etc. that already had "CAITLIN" written in her typical 5 year old style under the "child's name" section and "710" written under "contact number." I left most of it that way and just filled in the extra blanks.

Since school has started, she has continued to be open with me about her days--I don't know, I guess I thought she would not be interested in talking about her day with me and that I'd be totally out of touch. So, I'm happy for that. She tells me who she played with at recess and what types of things she learned each day. I'm missing the regular chats I used to have with her daycare teachers each day so I'm looking forward to conferences to hear how things are going from the teacher's end. Caitlin has been great about getting to bed earlier, picking out her clothes for the next day, and getting up and moving in the morning but it's a long week. Last week, she got a terrible headache on Friday afternoon and I wonder if the transition to full day all week long isn't just a bit too much too fast compared with the 3 days she used to have school. She'll get into the groove, I'm sure, but I'm watching her carefully. The other issue is that she doesn't want to eat breakfast and she doesn't have time to eat a full lunch (she is a VERY slow eater) so I'm hoping that improves after the initial weeks we are in.

All in all, it's going great. We also started a pretty busy soccer schedule at the same time so we are trying to manage our new schedule. It's crazy, but good crazy.

I can't get away with anything...

We were on vacation at Grandma Mary's last week and we had a blast. I hope to get on and type up some of the great memories from there--but for now, I will just share this Nora-ism from last week:

I had just eaten a few Oreo's--it was about 10 minutes after I'd tucked Nora and Ryan in to bed. One of them started screaming about something, so I went down to investigate. Ryan asked me to pick him up, so I picked him up and sang him a quiet song in his ear and laid him back down. Then, Nora asked me to do the same. While I was singing quietly to her, she pulled her head back, placed both her pointer fingers on my lips and said, "I FIND CHOCOLATE.....I LOVE CHOCOLATE, MAMA." I chuckled a little and continued singing, but she persistented "I LOVE CHOCOLATE."

Busted.

Big kid undies times two.

So, we decided to do it. Potty training. The dreaded. This is a process--an ongoing process. If you continue to read on, beware--there is lots of talk of pee and toilets and stuff....

We started with reading some plans that have been published online. We stocked up on trivial prizes at the dollar store and the mega store nearby--stickers, stickers, stickers, bubbles, playdoh, puzzles, figurines of our most favorite characters, etc, etc, etc--sweet drinks, salty snacks. We quarantined off the carpeted areas and left access to only our kitchen tiled area and the deck and backyard. Got 2 identical potties ready to avoid any arguments over them. And we went for it--no pull-on style diapers--directly to big kid underwear. I had been talking it up to both little ones recently and whenever I would ask Nora if she was ready to use the potty, she would say "pwetty soon, Mama, pwetty soon."

With John home for the summer and the past 2+ years of diapers, diapers, diapers, we are definitely ready to teach these guys about the potty. We were prepared for the long haul (not sure if the nanny was, but she's going with it!).

Last Saturday became "Pwetty soon"--Day 1 was no diapers and trips to the potty every 10 minutes. Easy, right. When we started, we realized how far away we were--neither had any idea that they were peeing when they peed. When we did this with our oldest, we started much younger and followed a little different philosophy, but I was still surprised at how out of touch they were with this even though I realized they are still on the younger side for potty training by today's standards. We had lots of successes on Day1 and lots of accidents and we were all tired. We were able to see that they can space out voids by HOURS and between that and their great verbal communication abilities, we were definitely convinced by the end of day 1 that they were indeed "ready." One unanticipated issue was when one would have a success and get a prize, it would break the other's heart--it would also break the older sister's heart on occasion.

My first big YAHOO moment was the first time Ryan realized he was peeing--it was day 3 and he leaped off the potty midstream and screamed "I POOP!" and we all celebrated with him. No one told him that he didn't poop, we were just thrilled that he knew he was doing something.

My next YAHOO moment was realizing that Nora could start/force herself to pee on command. That happened on day 5. If I ask her to pee, she will tense up, pee and squeek "I MAKE A PEE," and clap for herself. She is so impressed.

Over the next few days, we extended the intervals, had more successes, less accidents. On Thursday Nora had 5 successes, zero accidents and Ryan only had one accident so we celebrated LOTS. Then Friday, not the same degree of success, but still lots of successes. So, we haven't had a sustained steady progress, but definitely are seeing overall improvement. We aren't to the point where anyone is actually asking to use the potty and then following that up with an actual pee, but we are hopeful.

My expectation was that this might take a couple weeks--I think now that months is probably more reasonable, so I'm hoping by the end of the summer. So, we continue. We might actually leave the house this weekend--probably with the pull-on style diapers though :) We have seen lots of progress but still have miles to go.

Summer Fun

Amy took some stunning pictures of these beautiful kiddos during a couple playdates we had this past week.