Underwear Boy!

Because having a newly minted kindergartner isn't exciting enough, we also decided to officially potty train Simon this week. When I'd picked him up from school a week or two ago, his teacher indicated he was ready. We decided to wait and do it after the camping trip since we didn't want to try and keep him in undies while camping when the bathroom would be so far away. 

So on Tuesday morning we sent him to school in undies, and with several extra pairs of undies, shorts, and socks for the inevitable accidents.

He came back with two or three pairs of wet shorts the first day, but was fine the rest of the week, only having an accident on Saturday morning. He's still pretty reluctant to poop in the potty and holds it in until he absolutely can't anymore, but the good news is he is indeed pooping in the potty and hasn't pooped in his undies all week.

We still put him in pull-ups for nap, night, and any outings until he is more reliable. But for the most part, he is now underwear boy!

Simon and the Cicada at Sean's birthday party

On Saturday morning, Zac went to help some friends move and I took the kids to Sean's birthday party. He's a kid in Alice's class from daycare, so I was hoping to see my daycare friends their and bond over having our kids in kindergarten all week, but it was mostly some dads of the younger crowd, so I just talked to one mom whose kid isn't starting kindergarten until next year. Anyway, it was still fun, but I was looking forward to having the old gang back together.

The good news is, right as we were walking in, Simon found a nearly dead cicada. Simon loves dead cicadas. So this kept him occupied most of the time and even got him some street cred with the older boys.

Alice made a card for Sean, who loves trains. Here she is explaining that the thing that looks like a giant caterpillar is really a train.

Sean's mom, who is a really sweet person, had arranged all sorts of train themed games for the kids. I didn't get to watch much because Simon and I were walking around looking for more dead cicadas.

Simon just ate the frosting off the cake (which resulted in very interesting green poop the next day).

Alice had a lot of fun climbing this wall. Here she is with Zachary and Austin.

First week of kindergarten complete!

Alice's first week of kindergarten is complete. Overall it was a success and she is totally fine, but it is definitely a mental adjustment for me.

First of all, our routine is different. Before, Zac took both kids to and from school most of the time. I would try to do pick up once a week, just to say hi to the people at daycare and to stay connected. Now, I am doing drop off and pick up for Alice everyday, while Zac does Simon. The mornings are pretty smooth, although we have to wake up about 15 minutes earlier now, to make sure I have enough time to drop off Alice and still get to work. Also, since I usually pick her up on my way home, I now have to make supper with her interfering - I mean helping. Before, the 45 minutes after I get home and before Zac shows up with the kids is a peaceful (but rushed) time when I cook supper and listen to NPR. A few days a week I try to leave work early enough to have time to take a walk before making supper. I'm still adjusting and trying to figure out the new routine, but one day this week I went home, took a walk, then picked up Alice. It's more of a time crunch though, since I have to factor in an additional 15-20 minutes to get her.

Another thing to adjust to was the idea that she just wasn't going to be taken care of in the same way she was at daycare. At daycare, all the teachers knew her really well and were always so kind and friendly. And while I'm sure her kindergarten teacher will know her well, the idea of a whole school full of teachers that don't really know her or care about her is weird. For example, when I pick her up from the after school program, none of the people running it really say goodbye to her or appear to have any relationship with her whatsoever (granted --it's only been a week). So even although I know she's in good hands during the school hours, the part I interact with in the afternoons at pick up makes me feel like everyone is just indifferent to the kids. Alice doesn't seem to notice and is quite fine, but it's just a different feel from when I'd pick her up before and chat with her teachers and she'd give them a hug before she left every day.

Another thing is that I get the impression they're focusing a lot on obedience, which is kind of weird. I mean, it makes sense that you have to get all these kids through the halls without making noise and make the school function well, but I wonder how much time they're spending just getting the kids to line up and be quiet. It seems like there's a lot of bribery involved too, like giving the kids tickets every time they do stuff right. Alice loves it all, of course, but my goodness. I guess this is why I teach high school--we don't have to spend any time telling the kids how to walk through the halls.

The other thing Alice really loves about kindergarten is that they watch videos every day. This seems weird to me, too, because I can just have her watch videos at home, but it seems like she should be doing something more productive in school. Teachers better be careful because someday someone will just have the idea that the videos can do all the teaching and the kids will just sit in large auditoriums watching screens, while minders march up and down the aisles making sure the kids eyes are tuned to the screen. (See, I told you I was having some trouble adjusting. I just loved her daycare so much.)

 

Alice's 3rd day of kindergarten

On the third day of kindergarten, I did the carpool line in the morning and dropped Alice off outside the school. She was super excited because Mr. Stanton (the principal) was the one to open her door and get her out. It was so cute.

And, by the way, dropoff at the carpool line is the best thing ever. For daycare, we've always had to park the car, unbuckle everyone, grab all the bags, take the kids to their classes, give hugs and kisses, sign the arrival sheet, put the lunch boxes in the school fridge, go back out to the car, then drive to work. The whole process takes at least 10 minutes if you stay focused and there are no calamities.

But this morning it was like a drive-thru for getting rid of your kid. You just loop around the parking lot and when you get in front of the curb, someone comes and opens the door, gets the kid out, then you drive off. Seriously, it was awesome.

Alice's 2nd day of kindergarten

Alice's second day of kindergarten seemed to go really well. They told me I had to sign in if I wanted to walk her all the way to her classroom this morning, so I dropped her off at the door. She seemed fine and didn't even look back. When I picked her up in the afternoon, she was feeding plastic ice cream scoops to some plastic farm animals, and was in good spirits. And she had successfully gotten her snack.

But there was a different misunderstanding today. I let her buy lunch because the menu said they were having spaghetti, and I wanted her to learn how to buy lunch while everyone was still cognizant of helping the new kindergartners through the process. When I asked her how lunch went, she said she had chicken nuggets. They always have two entrees, so the kids can pick, and the best I can gather from Alice's account was that it was noisy and the "weird lady" couldn't hear or understand what Alice was saying and just gave her all the things she didn't want. Alice seemed pretty unfazed by it all, but it annoyed me that she didn't get what she wanted for lunch. So I've been training her on shouting her order clearly and vigorously shaking her head no when the weird lady tries to give her something she doesn't want.

Alice's 1st real day of kindergarten

On Alice's first real day of kindergarten, she was brave and excited. Her teacher met her at the door, I dropped off some supplies I'd bought from the teacher's wish list (a little bribery never hurts) and bid my little supergirl farewell.

Around 5pm, I picked her up from the after school program. It's basically babysitting for all the kids of working parents. The routine seems to be that they go to the cafeteria and have a snack, then play outside on the playground for a while, then sit in the cafeteria and play with various toys and games. When I picked Alice up she had made this big thing and was spinning it. She seemed quite content and happy, so I never have to feel guilty leaving her there.

When I asked her about the snack, though, she said she didn't get any. It turns out she didn't really understand how to get the snack, and when she got to the cafeteria, "everyone was already munching." It was surprising to me that she didn't ask someone. She's generally good at advocating for herself, especially when snacks are involved. I took her over to the lady in charge (who was not very friendly) and asked what had happened. She didn't really know (great observation skills lady - don't you notice some kids don't have a snack?). Anyway, she explained the process to Alice so that Alice would know what to do the next time.

She was exhausted but happy after her first day. Here's some work that was in her folder.

Camping at Jordan Lake

For the three day weekend (which was a five-day weekend for the kids) we went camping for two nights at Jordan Lake, a mere 30 minutes away.  It rained all day Friday, but things seemed to be drying out Saturday. We had a prime camp spot because we'd scoped the campground out last summer, and I noted all the best campsites, and then reserved this one at the beginning of the summer.  It did not disappoint.

We had some cool weather blow in, so it wasn't actually very good swimming weather (although it was perfect camping weather). The kids had a lot of fun playing along the shore though.

When we got home, Alice made a paper hotdog to commemorate the two hotdogs she ate on the 2nd night of the camping trip.

Greek Gods

To keep Alice busy while we got ready for camping on Saturday morning, we had her paint. Most of the time she just paints blobs or lines, but this morning she must have been inspired. She made these two paintings, explaining that they were Greek Gods. (We currently have a library book for kids about Greek Gods.)