Kindergarten

C and D started kindergarten today.

Yesterday we rode the bus with them and then spent an hour in the classrooms with them.  I went with C. C's teachers are Doug and Trey.  Doug is a legend...we call him the "kid whisperer" and he is known for bringing is dog to school once a week (studies show it is easier for kids learning to read to read to dogs than people--yes, yes they do!), for turning Beatles and Stone songs into songs the kids sing for each letter of the week, and for telling great stories, often with puppets.  Trey is the assistant and he is really kind (and cute, I might add).  Doug told a story that enthralled the parents and the kids.

But I couldn't pay any attention.  I was too busy aching for C.  Because for the 10 minutes before Doug told the story he had asked questions, and C raised her hand first for every one.  She got one answer wrong and she was so mad at herself.  And I just ached, because all of a sudden I realized she was me.  I was sitting next to a much kinder, slightly less secure me.  And I wanted to hug her and tell her that it was great she was so eager to learn, not to listen to other kids when she hit middle school age and they called her a teacher's pet,  that she didn't have to get everything right, she just needed to work hard, that she should try to give others a chance to answer, and that she was going to be great if she could just trust and believed in herself.  Or something along those lines.

Andrew went to Dylan's class.  Dylan has Mrs. D and Mike.  Mrs. D is also a legend ("zen master")--she is known for helping the kids learn all about centering themselves, communicating, and managing their energy.  She's been teaching kindergarten for over 30 years.  Mike is known for being very funny and a little bit more of a pushover than Mrs. D.  : ).  I get a little sad that we have to split our time at events like these, because we are both always missing out on "firsts" for one of our kids.

Today, we went to the bus stop for the 7:40 pick up (two blocks from our house).  They met their 'bus buddy' Mylan--an older student who makes sure they get to their classrooms the first week of school.  We watched them board, waved, and jumped back in our cars to hurry across the bridge and up to school.  We then met them as the bus arrived and walked them to their classrooms.  In the afternoon I picked them up from the kindergarten bus which drops off about 5 minutes from our apartment.

They seemed bigger.

D Riding the bus with Dad

C on bus

D outside her class (they have to keep rainboots at school to play in the creek, at the end of year most kids donate them as planters)

C in front of her class (notice the belt she was so proud to wear!)

C in class

PS -Ladies, someday when you ask why you didn't get alone pics, or why these aren't very good shots, please ask your father. I love him dearly but he really sucks at taking pictures

Bus Buddy!

D hopping off the bus at school

Recess!

5.5

C (this is her "picture smile")

Happy Half Birthday Ladies

A bit random because I am behind by (ouch) two months

As your preschool director told me (with a grin) at pick up the day your class held wrestling matches, "What they lack in girth they make up for in determination."

• C, you are 42 inches and about 36/37 lbs.  (this was at 5.5, you have both actually grown in last 3 months).
• D you are 41.5 inches and about 35 lbs. 
• You (especially you C) are a little fascinated by money.  You want to know who pays whom and for what.  You will always ask "Is that his (or her) job?"  "Who pays him/her to do that?"  "Which job pays more.."  If it is a two mom family you are obsessed with knowing "which Mom works more." This can be a bit uncomfortable at times,  but I would like to think that you are just trying to figure out how the world works.  We were recently listening to something on NPR and you asked me what a beauty pageant was...I explained it (in not very flattering ways) and you asked what the prize was...I said $.  Then I asked you if you would want to do something like that... your answer? "Well, I'd like to get the money.  But, I wouldn't want to have to do all that stuff."
• You scar easily (especially you C) and I feel like it is me against your skin (and the sun).  I stare at the little scar underneath your lip C and I feel guilty every time I see it.  I remember when you fell between our bed and the bedside table and cut yourself.  I had no idea it would scar and I feel terrible I didn't take you to get stitches for it.  
• You are both a bit socially young.  D especially.  C, you are definitely into what bigger kids are doing, but you are both equally happy playing with younger kids.  D you could hang with Lila all day long and play at her level.  I love that you are not trying to grow up too soon, but I worry that this will get harder for you as you get older and kids get meaner.
• Along the same lines, you are still complete scaredy cats when it comes to shows.  You are not that into videos and movies anyway, which is good because we are running out of Berenstein Bears and Martha Speaks to watch.  I don't have any interest in showing you princess movies (I think they would scare you anyway) and you don't have much interest in a lot of other options offered you (you yelled for me to turn off Dumbo and Annie and you barely made it through Finding Nemo).  The exception--Charlotte's Web.  You laugh out loud every time the horse falls over.  
• You are both, 95% of the time, the world's best big sisters.  I probably could not say this too many times.  You have a slew of nicknames for her too--Li, Ho Ho, Go Go, Goags, Geej.  Maybe my favorite is how C will say "Here girl" to L when they are playing together, as if Li were her favorite dog.  
• You (C especially) look more like me every day. 
• You are so much fun to sing with in the car.  Dynamite, Firework, Life is a Highway, Celia Says, Mermaid Molly, Swimming in the Pool, Purple People Eater, Ready to Run, Carolina on My Mind, Life is a Highway, Run for the Roses.  We drive and sing and I can see a future where A) you will cringe if I try to sing with you, but B) with the right soundtrack we just might survive your teenage years intact.
• I have no idea where you stand "academically" right now and I can honestly say that I don't really care.  I mean I absolutely care in the big picture, but not right now in the small picture.  All the feedback we get on you from the people who probably know more than we do is solid.  Life is (hopefully) long and childhood is most definitely not, so for now I am not going to spend any time documenting your current 'academic' stats.
• I forget sometimes that when you are five things start to get hard.  I am so quick to forget that much of your life is new, unknown, and beyond your control.  I remember one day we were picking out clothes for school and C you got really upset and said "If I wear this and they sing the color song this morning I will only be able to stand up once!"  It was a very real issue for you that day, and I need to be more sensitive to what it is like to be 5.5.  
• You know about the birds and the bees.  Seriously. Your preschool believes that if you explain the basics at a young age in an objective, nurturing, safe environment kids will not be nearly as traumatized by the information (unlike me, who DISTINCTLY remembers the day my friend Anna told me what "making love" meant.  I was in first grade, it was in the bathroom at St. Theresa's, and I am still a little scarred by the experience).  They have been doing it for 14 years and said many parents come back to thank them about the honest and open line of communication it created.  They talk about the differences between boys and girls for the first year, get closer to the facts of life the second year, and in the pre-K go straight for the jugular.  We were probably in desperate need of such a school because our kids walked into that week of school still calling everything south of the border 'bum.'  After the first day I asked D, "What did you learn today?" Answer: "The difference between boys and girls." "And?" "It's mostly about their bums."  So after learning the cold hard truth Andrew got a few questions from C that make me laugh so hard I cry (and no, I can't put them in writing), and then neither of you have mentioned anything since.  (I share this information as much for posterity as I am giving someone the opportunity to rub my face in my own smugness if I announce I'm going to be a grandmother at 49).   
• When you are not exhausting me, I am staring at you and trying to commit every piece of you to memory.  You are on the cusp of leaving early childhood and we both know it.  I miss the little yous already.  And I love the bigger and more complex little yous intensely.

My Girl D

Summer Setting

This summer has been one huge, exhausting blessing.  I spent ridiculous amounts of time with my girls.  It was thrilling at times and it was terrible on rare occasions and it was exhausting all the time.  In many ways I felt like it was the last hurrah--the last time we would really be 'carefree' and not encumbered by school demands and extracurriculars for a long time.  I wanted to do a bunch of things with them.  I got to some:

----Putt putt golf--probably 8 rounds

--Strawberry picking--this one turned out to be a bigger pain in the *ss than I would have expected because the first time we missed it by 10 minutes and the second time we hit terrible traffic.  But we finally managed to make it happen and C and D loved it.  I was a little freaked about all the bees (allergic) but they seemed ok with it because their science teacher at preK was a bee keeper and had told them that bees don't want to sting you.

--Water park----the best cheap fun for kids.  Wish we had made it more often.  

--Francis Ford Coppola Pool.

--The Academy of Sciences and Discovery Museum--so much better during weekday mornings during the school year but we still managed to have a good time there.
--Spending time with their New Mexico Cousins
--Thomas the Train (again, yes, this time for Lila)
--Farmers Markets, Pony Rides, Face Painting, etc.

We missed some things I wanted to do (ie. visiting tide pools, fishing)

But what I will probably remember most are the lazy days, the all of us eating lunch together days, the nothing days.

Black Swan

On Monday morning, Andrew left town for the week. On Monday afternoon my eye started itching.  By Tuesday morning it looked like this...

By Tuesday night the other eye was infected.  Wednesday morning I woke up and both my eyes were sealed shut.  I found a doctor--the verdict-- an "impressively bad" case of conjunctivitis in both eyes.   

All week, while I looked like a leper, I was grateful.  Andrew might have been gone, my mom may have been recovering from a month of taking care of grandchildren and not able to help, but I didn't have to try to go to two weddings and C and D's first days of school looking like I had just boiled my eyes.

Potty Training

In late July I went away for two nights with my girlfriends.  The first day Vilda, our nanny, stayed with C and D because Andrew was out of town.  During that day she basically took lila out of diapers.  I had been trying to get her to pee in a potty but to no avail.  And in one day Vilda took Lila got her to pee in the potty, and go to the park in big girl underwear with no accidents.

When I got back I put her back in diapers because we were headed to Carmel, girls had a week of camp, etc.  The next week when Vilda came back for her day with us she did the same thing, and again, Lila was a champ.  So I went with it.  We have had 5 accidents total.  She is awesome.  She knows when she has to go, will go by herself, can hold it forever, etc.

Ever the sweet tooth, she does it for the "N 'n Ms' as she calls them.  She hasn't even finished her business when she is grunting "I get 3 N 'n Ms!"  (For the record, she also thinks she should get candy for just trying).  And within a week she was using the toilet.

The only thing better than M&Ms--iphone!

Crazy Hair Getting sisterly support

Truly a big girl now

Thank you Goags... you made something that could have been a pain in the *ss a breeze.  You are 'da best!

Tahoe

After a day at home from LA, we then headed up to Tahoe for a week.  I went up for the first part of the week with just the girls.  A friend with three girls joined me for the first two nights.  Then my mom and Chris and my brother Daniel and his family joined us for three nights (in a different condo).

• THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Mikie for being so good at what you do.  We were able to spend a week up there thanks to your skills and generosity.  
• Thank you Mom and Chris also for your generosity in Tahoe.  It was great to go out to dinner and hang as  family.  
• I love Tahoe in the summer. I could never see it in winter again, but I LOVE the summer up there.  Sunny, warm, not too hot, lots of fun things to do but nothing too fancy shmancy.  
• Poor Andrew got the short end of the stick because he drove up Wed, worked through most of his birthday Thursday, then drove back to SF for the day to work Friday and came back in terrible traffic. Awesome!  
• I was alone a lot, and that was tiring but we still had a great time.  We:



















































•  played 3 rounds of miniature golf (3 different courses). On the last day D was able to use her "free game" card she had kept for over two years. She was so proud of herself!
• Swam and went down the water slide countless times (except L, who loved to swim but always said she would go down the water slide "tomorrow")
• Made a candle
• Roller skated thanks to the uber-patience of Lindsay once again
• Bungee jumped
• Went to a 3 hour pony camp
• Painted pinecones
• Got to enjoy SUMMER.