Category: Miss

The Tantrum

Posted on by Amy

Last week my husband worked nights and Miss didn’t nap.  That wasn’t the best combination, and we had a few rough points during the week.  It reminded me of another time my husband was working nights and Miss had her first super crazy meltdown tantrum.  Aaaah, memories…
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Okay, so I am floundering a bit with this “Terrible Twos” thing. I hate even saying that. “Terrible Twos.” Having a nearly-two-year-old is not terrible. Most of the time, it’s pretty great. But I have found myself in this place recently where sometimes, just sometimes, it is totally. crazy. psycho. During Miss’s toddlerhood thus far we’ve had our share of “moments.” Brief little fits. Minor tantrums. They were usually short and they’d blow over quickly. Miss could be distracted pretty easily, and if not she’d pull herself together without too much drama. The one area where we sometimes would have a big meltdown would be after nap when Miss would sometimes wake up in a terrible mood and just have a screaming fit for what seemed like an age.
And then we had today. This morning. My girl woke up like a little ray of sunshine, as always. We had fun playing and coloring and watching a little bit of Sesame Street. We pretended to be dinosaurs. She pretended to make lemonade. Then she said she was hungry so I took her in the kitchen to get a snack. I asked her what she wanted. “Bunny crackers.” “Yogurt.” Okay, no problem. I got out the yogurt, got a spoon, opened the yogurt and started to put it in front of her. Strawberry yogurt. Yum. Then she asked for a sandwich. I simply said something like, “Well honey, let’s have a little snack now and then I’ll get you a sandwich at lunchtime.” Hello. Commence screaming. Seriously. She started howling like a banshee and did not stop. I tried all my usual tricks. I tried to get her to laugh. I said something like, “I’m sorry you’re upset. Please use your words to tell me what you want and I’ll be happy to help you.”  Ha!! After a while of more shrieking I thought I heard her say, “bunnies,” so to try to positively reinforce her “using her words” I got the bunny crackers out and put some on her placemat. She screamed harder. I ate her yogurt and tried to wait her out. She said “down” so I got her down from her chair, at which point she fell to the floor and continued howling. My husband, who was upstairs trying to sleep came downstairs and asked her why she was crying. She stopped for a second, said “Daddy” and then went right back to yelling. He looked at me, I shrugged, he went back upstairs with a comment to the effect of, “Well, I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t knocked out down here or something . . .” The rest of what he said was lost in the noise of our daughter. I’m pretty sure that was his no-so-subtle way of saying, “Okay, since you’re conscious, can you please do something about our child’s insane wailing?” It didn’t help that he happened to come downstairs during the part where I was eating her yogurt and trying to wait her out, so it probably looked like I was just chillin’, having a snack, not realizing that our child had turned into a little puddle of insanity on the floor.
Anyway, it went on. I could describe the whole painful morning in detail, I’m sure, as it feels as though the scene is scorched into my brain, never to be forgotten. The First Big One. But I’ll spare you the details. Okay, I probably already gave way too many details. So, we can leave it at, It Was Bad, and move on. I probably could have ended it rather quickly by turning on the TV or letting her watch Yo Gabba Gabba on the computer or something like that. But I could not bring myself to do that. It just felt like that would have been reinforcing a behavior I’m not anxious to have repeated. Okay, don’t laugh, I know it will be repeated in some form quite a few times and probably agonizingly in public on at least a few occasions too. I’m just saying, I don’t want to increase the frequency of the Tantrum From Hell by reinforcing it. I’m a psychologist. I’m all into my behavioral principles. I know them forwards and backwards. I guess I automatically get Skinnerian in my head when dealing with this discipline stuff. But I gotta say, this morning, I felt L.O.S.T. I wasn’t mad. I wasn’t really even upset. I just had no idea how to make it stop. I knew I didn’t want to reinforce the behavior, but I also wasn’t trying to punish her. She’s almost two. She doesn’t have good control of her emotions and still has trouble expressing herself. She’s learning to deal with this stuff just like I am. But wow. I felt like I had been dropped into the deep end and had forgotten how to swim. I suppose, to stick with this simile, I managed to tread. And you know what eventually worked? I sat down on the floor where we had been coloring earlier, picked up a crayon, and started coloring. Within a minute she had stopped crying and was sitting next to me coloring away. Who knew?
So, I don’t really know where I’m going with this post, except to say that I am finding more and more Mommy-moments when I really feel like I’m not sure what the heck I’m doing. I always end up just going with what feels right to me, and things turn out okay. But then I look back and analyze everything and wonder if I did it right and am I going to screw my kid up forever or is she going to turn into a raging brat because I didn’t discipline her enough or did I do it too much and now she’s going to be insecure or rebellious??? Maybe that’s a little bit of an exaggeration. I’m not quite that neurotic. But I do tend to look back on what I did and see if there’s something I should do better or differently the next time. I guess I’m just making a mental note to myself that, even with all my principles of reinforcement swirling in my head, I still need to learn how to make it work with this girl. And maybe it will be different every time. And then I’ll have to learn it all over again with Lass. And so on. So, I’ve come to realize that there is no greater in vivo learning experience than motherhood. This is my classroom.
After Miss’s fit resolved, I got Lass (poor thing was just hanging out playing during the whole drawn out drama) down for a nap and asked Miss if she wanted to do some finger painting. This was a first for her so she had no idea what I was talking about, but she sure thought it sounded cool. So we got messy as our way to “make-up” (not quite the right word, but I liked the alliteration of the title) after the meltdown.
She liked squishing the paint between her fingers.
Masterpiece #1.
A bit of a lighter touch with this one.
After a while she got freaked out that her hands were so messy.
So she cleaned them off and got right back to it.
She decided to try tasting the paint and didn’t much care for it.
For the record, Crayola’s “washable” finger paints are indeed washable.
Gallery.
She seemed to like this set up better.
Aaand, we’re done.
What better way to finish a messy craft time than with a bubble bath?
Hanging out with Lass at lunch time. We had no more eating-related meltdowns. She had forgotten entirely about the sandwich. For lunch she wanted strawberry yogurt and Cheerios. Unfortunately I had eaten the last strawberry yogurt while she was howling face down on the floor, but she was content with apple. And I wasn’t gonna fuss about the lunch menu today. Apple yogurt and dry Cheerios? Sure.
And here she is proudly showing off her artwork to her Daddy when he woke up.
Before I click “Publish Post,” I feel like I should say that I know this is my second post in less than a week that might seem like it has a bit of a “complain-y” feel to it regarding mothering a toddler. I am not complaining. I realize all the time how lucky I am to have these two little people to bring up in the best way I can. Sometimes I screw up, and sometimes I nail it, and always I hope that I will learn and get better. And this blog is my way of chronicling this journey, and sharing it, and helping myself to figure it out by getting the words out of my head. So that’s it. Going to Arizona tomorrow. Wish us luck on the plane! Good night.
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Things are back to normal around here this week and much improved, though Miss still isn’t napping, which means she’s a bit of a mess by bedtime.  But nothing like she was that day^^^  

Song Bird

Posted on by Amy
Last night I had some special girl time with my eldest before bed.  We painted her fingernails.  She chose blue, of course.  While waiting for them to dry we made some funny faces and sang some songs.
My girl loves to sing.  Both of my older girls do, in fact, though Lass is still working on the words a bit…  Miss goes all out in singing her favorites.  She lifts her chin up and belts them out at full volume.  In the car, in the playroom, at the store, on the swingset, wherever.  We were even informed by her teachers that she sings like this at school.  I absolutely love that she does this.  I think it might be a little bit hereditary, because I think I used to sing like that when I was a kid too (okay, I still do).  I remember singing with my mom and my Grandma a lot.  My Mom and I used to rock out to “Barbara Susanne Stripe” (a.k.a. Barbara Streisand), Neil Diamond, and Barry Manilow on 8-track. Or we’d sing all sorts of kid’s songs: You are My Sunshine, Eensy Weensy Spider, Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, and so on.  My Grandma is a very talented musician, and she used to play the piano and teach me lots of old-timey songs.  I think singing is an expression of happiness.  It’s good for the soul.
We sing a lot in our family.  My husband plays the guitar and we sing along with him in the evenings.  The girls and I sing lots of little songs during the day.  We sing while we play, while we are in the car, while we do just about anything.  I’ve had strangers chuckle at me for singing with my girls in the grocery store.  I think it’s usually a nice, friendly chuckle.  I hope.  I’m no vocal sensation, but I can carry a tune.  And who doesn’t love a moving rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star in their grocery’s produce section?
Anyway.  Back to last night.  After Miss and I finished with her nails, while they were drying, she was singing her latest favorite song, “Whistle While You Work.”  I especially love when she sings the songs from Snow White, because she doesn’t just sings the words, she does the vocal trilling “ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…” like Snow White does.  I don’t know if that’s the right term to describe it, but it’s so cute.  And since I can’t really describe it well, I captured it on video.  Though my girl sings loudly and unselfconsciously almost all day long, like most kids her age she was a little less willing to do it on command.  When I first asked her to sing for the camera, she said that she had “run out” of singing.  But then when I told her that I wanted to take a video of her and she could watch it afterwards, well, I could just see the wheels turning as she thought about that. She’s more timid and much quieter than usual in the video.  But I couldn’t help but smile when I watched and listened to her sing her song.

The Little Photographer

Posted on by Amy
Quickie post tonight:
As foreshadowed yesterday, my girls got to get outside and play today.

And play they did.

They ran and ran around the yard, especially through the last patch of snow.

Lass fell and got snow on her hands.  She did not like that one bit, and Daddy warmed them up for her. 

They got beautifully wet and dirty and had fits when it was time to come in for lunch and naps.  Hopefully we will have more of the same tomorrow.

Miss got a little camera today.  She has been asking for one.  She was so excited and get right to taking photos of everything.

Her sister.

Herself.

Her Yo Gabba Friends.

And various other artistic subjects.

This one was quite puzzling to us until we realized she had taken a picture of the cover of her Daddy’s “Whitetail” magazine.

I love this one.  She took it while spinning around dancing.

I didn’t edit any of these photos other than to enhance the color on them a bit, as this kid’s camera doesn’t take the best quality photos.  No cropping or otherwise changing the pics.  I love them!  What a wonderful way to see the world through her eyes.  I’m so proud of my little photographer.

Three

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday was Miss’s third birthday.  She’s three.  I can hardly believe it.  It seems like it couldn’t have been that long ago that she came into my world and made me a Mama.

I wonder if I will have this incredulous feeling every year, as time flies by and my girls get older.  Holy cow, Miss is six! How is that possible?  and OMG, I just can’t believe my little Lass is 10, and so on.  I suspect I will.  I suspect I will continue to cherish every new stage my girls reach, while simultaneously feeling just a little bit shocked, maybe a teeny bit sad, that they are growing up.  Each time one of my girls has a birthday, I think back on the day that she was born and I savor my memories of those first moments of seeing her, holding her, and marveling at every tiny detail of her.  I look at how much she has grown and I am amazed.  These girls amaze me in their new developments all the time.  I suspect they always will.

We were out of town visiting family this weekend, and unfortunately both of my girls had bad colds.  Miss woke from her nap shortly before her birthday party started, and it took her a little while to warm up.  She had been feeling yucky for a few days, and was resistant to the idea of even having a birthday party.  She did get into playing with her sister and cousins eventually.

We had a Care Bears themed party and I had been so excited for her to enjoy it, but she just wasn’t feeling it.  When it came time to sing “Happy Birthday” and blow out her candles, she was not having any part of it. 

Poor thing refused to blow out her candles, so we had to ask one of her cousins to help.

I hated that she was feeling so badly.  She even said, at first, that she didn’t want any cake or ice cream. After I got some and offered to share a bite with her, she changed her mind though.  She ate most of “my” piece of cake and almost all of my ice cream.

Notice her poor upper lip and under her nose.  She has been refusing to let me put anything on it but chapstick, and she wipes or licks that off almost right after I put it on. 

My birthday girl perked up a bit more when she started opening her gifts.

A few months ago, after she first saw the movie “Snow White” and we read books like “The Little Mermaid” and “Sleeping Beauty” a few times, she said that she wanted “A Snow White, a Sleeping Beauty, Ariel without her tail, a prince, a queen and a castle” for her birthday.  So that’s what she got.

But the biggest gift hit?  The Yo Gabba Gabba beanie babies I had ordered for her for Christmas.  They were back ordered and didn’t arrive until late January.  She is currently sleeping with all five of them.

Lass had a pretty good time at the party as well.

Overall the party was a success, I think, though I wish my girls had been feeling better.  I’m hoping they will be back to their energetic, happy selves very soon.

Speaking of very soon, in only about five weeks or so, we will expand again to a little family of five.

I’m so eager to meet little Sis.  Tonight I’m thinking about the Birth Day of my eldest, while happily anticipating the rapidly approaching Birth Day of our newest little one.

All By Herself

Posted on by Amy
Miss graduated to the next level of preschool gymnastics class.  She is now in the class where she goes in by herself, without me.  I was a little bit nervous how she would do with this, considering how hard it was for her to adjust to going to school by herself.  But she just waltzed right into the gym with her teacher like she owned the place.

She rocked it, and I was so proud.

She looks so big and grown up.  I just loved watching her do her thing.

And I must admit, I was quite relieved to not have to do the class with her anymore.  Running and jumping are not my favorite activities at this point, and I was getting pretty nervous I’d end up peeing my pants in one of her classes.

After her class she came out and was so excited.  She went on and on about how much fun she had.  She seemed pretty proud of herself too.  That was my favorite part.  Though watching her holding the beanbag on her head while she walked the beam was pretty fun too.

Wednesdays

Posted on by Amy
I love Wednesdays.  I get to spend a little bit of special time with each of my girls on Wednesdays.  Miss goes to school and Lass and I run errands or just hang out and play in the morning.  Then I take Miss to gymnastics in the afternoon.  She loves gymnastics.
Note: All of these gymnastics pictures were taken at least six months ago, probably more like nine months.  Unfortunately, I don’t have any recent photos of her at gymnastics.

Miss has gotten so much braver and stronger since these photos were taken.  She used to be somewhat fearful about doing certain things by herself, like going down the slide, or jumping from a height she perceived to be too high.

In spite of encouragements to try it herself, she used to insist on holding my hand.

Now she jumps from much greater heights by herself.  Occasionally she still comes up to a jump that makes her nervous, but with encouragement she’ll usually even go for those by herself.

She used to need lots of help doing this “strong arms” move down the beams.  Now she not only does it totally by herself, she’s fast!

Today she even insisted on trying to do a headstand by herself.

One thing that still makes her a bit nervous is walking the balance bean if it is raised up off the floor at all.  But she’s even getting better at that.  Today I was so proud of her, because although she was clearly nervous, she did walk the whole length of the beam herself.  She did it shuffling her feet in tiny, tiny steps, but she did it.  And at the end she jumped off and yelled, “I did it!”  It was awesome.

Gymnastics class with Miss is a blast and I am always so entertained and awed by watching her learn new things so quickly.

In addition to enjoying spending time with her in class, I like to savor the car rides to and fro.  Now that it’s dark out when we go, she often comments on the Christmas lights she sees.  Tonight we sang to Christmas music.  Her favorite is “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Deer” followed closely by the Chipmunks Christmas song.  She half-sings, half hums along with that one until the line “Me, I want a hooooola hoooop,” which she nails every time.

And since gymnastics class runs right up to dinner time, often we treat ourselves to some take out dinner.  Lately we’ve been getting an extra special treat of Culver’s on Wednesday nights, complete with frozen custard sundaes for dessert (mine is still waiting for me in the freezer…)  Of course, Culver’s has very little post-dinner clean up, which leaves plenty of time for my favorite part of the day, between dinner and bedtime when we listen to music and play.  Christmas music and wrestling/chasing/tickling with Daddy were on the agenda tonight.

I love Wednesdays.  Frozen custard is calling me.

A Few Thoughts On Raising Daughters

Posted on by Amy
I often think about how to teach my daughters to be assertive.  In our culture, girls and women are often given the message that they should always be agreeable  and nice rather than speaking their mind.  I want to raise daughters who will be strong, independent, and confident, as well as being nice people.  Daughters who will not afraid to voice an opinion, go against the grain, and stick up for themselves when necessary.
 After school today she insisted on getting back into her Halloween costume so she could be “a beautiful ballerina.”  I love it.
So far this little one seems to have no trouble expressing her feelings about things.

Yesterday at her school Halloween party, I saw a boy push Miss a few times.  She came over to me after it happened the first time and seemed quite intimidated.  I admit, my immediate instinct when I first saw it was to go and tell the boy to please not push.  Instead, I talked to her about how shecould tell the boy to please not push her.

This morning, after a week of no tears and great school experiences, she was a bit upset about going to school again.  I thought it might have something to do with that boy, so I reminded her of what we had talked about yesterday and how to handle it if another kid pushed or hit her.  She then mentioned that the boy had pulled her hair yesterday as well.  When I dropped her off at school I informed her teacher of my concerns about what had happened.  She was very responsive and reassured me about the issue.

When I picked Miss up, I experienced a major proud mommy moment.  Miss’s teacher told me that Miss had turned to the boy who had pushed her and pulled her hair yesterday and said, completely on her own, “I didn’t like it when you pulled my hair.”  Simple and direct. The boy apologized.  I am so incredibly proud of her!

As a mother of daughters, it is so important to me that they learn to stick up for themselves.  To not be afraid to voice disagreement with something they think is wrong or to tell someone to stop it if they are being treated badly.  Right now it’s pushing and hair pulling.  Later on they might have to be assertive if faced with bullying, “mean girl” behaviors, or overly zealous attentions from hormone-crazed boys.  When they are older, I will teach them some good ways to knock down the hormone-crazed boys (literally and figuratively) if necessary.  Their dad can teach them some good wrestling moves.

But for today, I’m pretty darn proud of “I didn’t like it when you pulled my hair.”  That’s my girl.

Bring on the Ickies

Posted on by Amy
Miss went to school today.  Her teacher texted me this photo of her having fun.  Unfortunately, she came home with pink eye.

I knew that she would probably get every yucky, germy illness known to humankind now that she’s started school.  But ew.  Pinkeye?  Really?  At least it’s not the really goopy, crusty kind.  Her eye is just red.  My husband said that’s because it’s viral instead of bacterial.  The bummer is I can’t just go get antibiotic eye drops to make it go away fast.  This one might take a little while.  The good thing is she doesn’t seem bothered by it a bit.

She’s still my little sunshine, just with very frequently washed hands.

Gotta try my best to keep the germies away from this little one.

I’m sure the next few months will be peppered with lots of illnesses picked up at preschool.  We’ll try to keep them to a minimum.  I’m loaded down with Wet Wipes and hand sanitizer, and of course we wash hands a lot.  But the ickies will come anyway.  We’ll take them in stride and hopefully my littles won’t be knocked low for long by anything.

The First Week of Preschool

Posted on by Amy

Yesterday was Miss’s first day of preschool.  She was excited, though a bit apprehensive.

When she got to school she did a great job of getting into playing with other kids at first.  Her teacher told me she had a bit of a hard time a few times during the day, and Miss told me herself again, “I cwied because my want you.”  Overall it was a pretty good first day though, I think.

Lass and I spent some fun time together.  Rather than drive the almost 30 minutes back home, we went to a local cafe where there are lots of toys and kids to play with.

They also had a little free music class that we got into a bit.  She seemed to enjoy her one on one time with Mom.

We were both happy to go get big sis though.  Miss was pretty quiet about her day at school, but I tried to make a big deal out of what a big girl she was and how special her first day was.  Here she’s holding up her back pack before we got in the car.  She’s also holding a Wish Bear Care Bear that my Auntie got her. She takes that thing everywhere with her.  Fortunately I convinced her to leave it in her back pack during her school time.

We went back to the cafe where Lass and I had spent the morning for a special “First Day of School Lunch,” complete with a special “First Day of School Chocolate Chip Cookie Treat.”  

After lunch I watched Miss interact with some older kids in a new way.  She walked up to them and said, “Hi.  What are you doing?”  Then she proceeded to play with them, and even asked them to play catch with her.  Her teacher had mentioned when I picked her up that day that one of the things Miss had a little bit of trouble with at school was initiating play with the other kids, so I wondered if this new behavior was a result of something her teacher had taught her just that day (her teacher confirmed this when I took her to school this morning, and I was really excited to be seeing new skills already).

Today was the second day of school, and the last of her school “week.”  It was both better and worse.  It started out worse.  When Miss woke up and I told her we had to get going to get ready for school, she said, “I don’t wike it Mommy.  Can you come to school with me?”

We managed to get ready and head out to school, only for her to tell me again and again (in the parking lot as soon as she realized where she was, right inside to door, at her designated coat area, etc.) that she didn’t like it.  She grabbed on to my legs and buried her face in my knees.  It was not fun. Then she said, “I don’t want that girl to grab me,” in response to which her teacher explained that another one of the really young students had been trying to hug Miss and play with her the day before and Miss had gotten upset.  So her teacher and I talked to her about this and how to handle it, and then her teacher mentioned that they were going to play with a water table that day.  She perked up at that.  My girl loves to play with water.  However, she was still super clingy and wouldn’t let go of my legs, so I asked the teacher what I should do.  She suggested I take Miss over to choose her “job” for that day.  They have a job board with lots of different classroom chores on it, and each child gets to choose their job for the day and clip a clothespin with their name on it to the job of their choice.  Keeping with the water theme and something I know she loves to do at home, I asked Miss if she’d like to help water the plants that day as her job.  She smiled and agreed and clipped her clothespin on the board.  She loves water.  She loves plants.  Bingo.

Photos from today after school.  She’s wearing the new tutu I made for her last night.
As we were putting her clothespin on the board, she saw the other kids playing and got excited to go play with them.  She barely remembered to give me a kiss goodbye.  But I did tell her I was leaving and gave her a kiss and off she went to play.  So far, so good.
Then I kind of screwed it up.  I saw another mom I know as I was walking out the door and stopped to chat with her for a minute, in view of the door.  Miss saw me and I heard her start crying.  It was all I could do to not run back into the classroom.  I got a panicky feeling and felt my body lean towards the door, as if, independently from my mind, it almost had to go to her.  But I didn’t.  I knew it would be better if I just left.  I trust her teachers.  And it all turned out okay.  
When I went to pick her up today, she was smiling and telling me about the fun things she had done that day.  She loved the water table and her snack and doing their daily yoga pose.  And the best thing? Several times since leaving school today she has said, “I wike it Mommy.”  Next week will be easier.

One Year

Posted on by Amy
One year ago, I was arriving at the hospital, in labor with Lass.


I was excited about her impending arrival but scared and nervous at the same time. I had only been in labor with Miss for about four or five hours before I had a c-section, so I had very little experience and naturally I was apprehensive about my plan to have an unmedicated VBAC.


Little did I know how long that night and the next morning would turn out to be. Little did I know that Lass would be 10 and a half pounds of perfect. Little did I know how much joy she would bring to my life and our family. One year ago, when I got to the hospital, ready to get the show on the road and meet our little Lass, I had some idea about the joy part at least. I knew she would be wonderful and we would love her. I knew it would be amazing to have two little girls and a sister for Miss. But that night, one year ago, in my last few (okay, many and agonizing!) hours as a mommy of one little girl, I couldn’t even imagine how much. How wonderful. How big our love. How amazing.

Tonight I’m reflecting on that night, just before Lass came into our lives and made our happy family happier. I’m remembering being a little scared about how Lass’s arrival might affect Miss. I’m smiling at how it did affect her, and at what a fantastic big sister she is. Tonight I’m choking up thinking that my baby will be a year old tomorrow. I’m cringing slightly remembering the pain of getting her here (who the heck says you forget that, by the way?). I’m reminiscing about how great my husband was and what a great team we were that night.
Tomorrow Lass will be one, and I’m all sappy and sentimental thinking about it tonight. It’s amazing the difference one year makes in the life of a family. I remember feeling like Miss grew up practically overnight between the time I put her to bed on this night one year ago and the time she walked into my hospital room to meet her baby sister.
This is Miss, one year ago.


This is her a few weeks ago.


I love to see how much she’s grown.




I mentioned above how it seemed like Miss grew up almost overnight when Lass was born. Today was another day that made her suddenly seem so much more grown up.

Today she went for a visit to her preschool. Preschool. It wasn’t her official first day of school. That will be after Labor Day. Today she just went to check things out and was only there for about an hour and a half. She seemed to be having a blast when I left (she gave me a kiss and ran back to playing with blocks and toy dinosaurs with another little boy) and when I came back (she was happily drawing a picture). Her teacher said she had a little rough patch, but over all did great. When I asked Miss how she liked school she said, “I cwied because my want you.” Stab to the heart. Twist. Gulp. I have to remember how much fun she seemed to be having for the majority of the time she was there. She was very interested in the science area with the birds’ nests, rocks, seeds, and other various objects from nature (she couldn’t stop talking about the birds’ nests and seeds). She got very excited when we talked about trying to find something at the farm next week that she might be able to take to school to add to the collection. She talked about new friends she got to play with. I know she’s going to love school. She’s so confident and inquisitive. It will be great for her to have her own “thing” to do twice a week, without me. Hopefully her first “full day” (three hours) will be a little easier in a couple of weeks.


Lass and I will stay nearby just in case. Today we went two doors down to a bagel shop and met up with the Daddy (who is on nights this week and came from work) for breakfast and coffee. In my last post I mentioned that Lass was feeling under the weather. When she woke up with a fever again on Saturday I took her to the doctor and found out she had strep throat! I suspect she picked it up on the plane home from Florida. She’s been taking her antibiotics and is back to her happy little self now.


My little almost-one-year-old at breakfast with Mommy and Daddy: