End of Year Celebration

Alice was looking forward to her "graduation at the church" for the weeks leading up to the end of June. We knew they were spending time in class each day practicing, and Alice could be found singing a new repertoire of songs when she thought nobody was paying attention.

They even gave her a speaking part, which she practiced a lot, although we had no hope that she would actually be able to do it on the big day. We told her to practice saying it an imagining everyone looking at her. She seemed completely confident that she would not be shy.

So at 1:30 on Thursday (why they plan a performance during the kids' usual naptime is beyond my comprehension) all the parents gathered at the nearby church for the kids' annual performance and graduation.

First, we sang the national anthem while Alice hid. (Why did they put her in the front row, one wonders.)

Then, it was time for Alice's speaking role where she was supposed to introduce the next song. She was completely inert, so Genevieve filled in.

You can see Alice warming up a bit by the third song. No dance moves, though.

For the next song, all the kids were given some fake food and were supposed to put them in the basket when the song mentioned those items. Alice completely missed her cues, even although Oscar tried to help her. Poor thing. In her defense, we don't buy soy beans and cottage cheese.

In this song, Alice demonstrates how she doesn't move at all when she's feeling shy.

Rye's confidence in leading this next song seems miraculous compared with Alice's stage fright. But notice how Alice finally participates. She just needs a half hour to get used to a crowd of adults staring at her.

The next act was a skit of the Three Little Pigs. We knew they'd been working on this because Alice went around the house blowing on things.

Finally, a role Alice can fill well: She gets to be a wall flower in this Three Little Pigs Skit. (She's to the left, sitting behind Rye, the girl in the black dress).

By this point in the show, the kids were wound up and getting loopier. Alice is finally normalizing a bit.

At last, time for the graduates to get their certificates!

Watch for the cute ending.

Ms. Georgiana made a lovely speech at the end, but due to technical difficulties, I failed to record it.

Ms. Lottie, the infant room teacher, came over for a photo with all of her babies.

Then, we helped clean up and headed back over to the daycare for Simon's classroom celebration. However, it didn't start until 3:30, so we passed some time reading books in Alice's classroom.

Then, it was finally time for Simon's celebration. Thankfully, they didn't have any performance planned, but instead had Dr. Seuss-themed stations set up around the room for parents to do activities with their kids. The place was a zoo, and Simon kept repeating something over and over that I couldn't hear. I finally figured out he was saying, "Don't leave me after the celebration!" He must have been remembering the Mother's and Father's day celebrations where we come to his class in the morning and then leave (which is a terrible idea).

Simon's teachers: Ms. Saffa, Ms. Jane, and Ms. Perin

After Simon's thing was over, we went to Pullen Park for the after-party.  This is always great fun for the kids and a total nightmare for the parents trying to keep track of their kids.

Simon didn't want to leave.

Poop Car

Now that Simon is almost three, we're trying a little harder to convince him that pooping in the potty is a good thing. Zac had the idea to up the ante: the reward would be a little hotwheels car instead of gummy bears. I bought a bunch at the store, and Zac prominently displayed the packages in the bathroom. We reminded Simon at every opportunity the benefits of pooping in the potty.

A couple days later, he was in the bath and suddenly declared that he needed to get out. Zac figured out that he needed to poop, and put him on the potty. Wha - la, Simon pooped in the potty. We lauded him and gave him his first poop car.

(It's two weeks later and he hasn't done it again - but we've been out of town, so we're hopeful the progress will resume.)

Still Life: After Breakfast

Simon at Play

Zac and Alice at play

Princess Castle Complete

About 2 weeks after her birthday, Alice completed construction of her princess lego castle. She is pretty good at looking at the diagram and building things herself, with a little adult supervision.

Burlington Visit

On Sunday afternoon, we headed to Burlington. We first went to the pool, where Simon had a blast playing with his float plane and submarine in the baby pool. He even walked around in the big pool a little bit and went down the duck slide a few times. Alice enjoyed trying out her new shark fin that she got for her birthday, and is getting better at putting her face in the water to try and swim.

Then we went back to the house to have dinner and play.

In addition to the regular toys, Tom had a little drone from work that he flew, with some assembly help from the kids.

The drone's picture of us

Back Porch: Fruit, faces, and bugs

Meanwhile, Alice was drawing bugs on the whiteboard.