Chin Up

I've wanted to get a pull up bar for so long. It's been one of those ideas that I get as I'm falling asleep or driving and so never act on. Well, a late night binge on Amazon solved that. I hope it gets a ton of use (and doesn't become a clothes rack).

Back to School Night

Back to School Night was a juggling act this year. We went to Sophie's school for 30 minutes and then dashed over the Mia and Zoe's school, going back and forth between their classes. I was dreading it.

It worked out ok though. We got no new 'to-do's' at Sophie's school and made it over to Mia and Zoe's on time. I was able to sit through the orientation for both classes while Scott went to relieve the sitter after he was able to visit one class. We were relatively unscathed with new dates and requirements which was good.

In Mia's class, they prepare a fun welcome for the parents. All week, Mia kept hinting "I'm going to be at back to school night...but I'm not!" This is the punchline of her riddle:

The kids brought in shirts from home and created portraits of their hands and faces and left notes for us.

"Dear Parents, Thank you for coming to back to school night. Second grade is awesome. I like reading. Please write back! Love, Mia"

This made the whole affair worth it. Thank you Mia.

Commitment

This is my motivation post. The post that will crack the seal and re-engage me in my commitment to blog. Well, my commitment is technically over since my plan was to blog until Sophie was five. Sophie, you are now five and 4 months. However, I am woefully behind and need to catch up in order to fill in the last six months. I have my notes and photos that I want to post. Now, it's time to post them.

It's not that I have lost my drive to keep this living diary for you girls. It's that life happens very fast now. There are no nap times that I can use to catch up on baby books, height chart pictures, blogs, etc. And, when we're home, I want to be with you, not locked on the computer. You also stay up later now, so there is less night time to do these kinds of projects. These are happy excuses, but excuses nonetheless. I look forward to having a living diary of the 1st five years of each of your lives that I can share with you one day. I am catching up...

First Day of School - September 2015

Today was the first day of school, and it came with mixed emotions for me. This year, Sophie will be attending Carlin Springs Montessori (where her Ashlawn class was moved over the summer), and Zoe and Mia will continue at Ashlawn.

I don't have mixed feelings about them getting a year older. I think it's exciting that they'll be exploring Kindergarten, 2nd grade, and 4th grade respectively. I do, however, have mixed feelings about Sophie being at a different school and on a different time schedule. 

I'm concerned about the impact of the different school start/end times impacting all of our schedules. Other than that, Sophie is very much in favor of staying with her teachers and hasn't once suggested any interest in doing anything otherwise. 

One other notable change this year was that it was the first time Zoe showed any interest in what her peers were doing. A friend's mention that she may wear something different caused Zoe to have serious doubts about her "first day of school" outfit. I was proud of her that she ultimately wore what she initially wanted to wear, but it was clearly an internal struggle she was having.

Finally, I miss summer. I love summertime (and even Spring because it means that Summer is coming). I'll be making every effort to soak up the last rays before Fall is fully here.

Now enough about me. Here are their adorable first day of school photos.

Sophie is first out the door. She needs to be at school by about 7:50 am to get to Marlena Dasbach's Montessori class at Carlin Springs Elementary. The year will start with about 10 kids in class on the first day, and they'll add in a couple of kids each day until they have all started which takes about three weeks. That's how they acclimate kids in to the Montessori class environment. Sophie will see 9 or 10 kids from her class last year that made the transition from Ashlawn Elementary to Carlin Springs.

Mia and Sophie both wanted Mia to join Sophie in going in to the class on the first day. I think they both found it comforting and supportive. Mia was happy to see her former teacher, and Sophie was happy for the company. 

Forty-five minutes later, Mia is ready to head off to Ashlawn Elementary. She needs to be there by about 8:50 am. She is excited to be heading back to Meg Bransford, Jenny Steinhof and her classmates from last year since her first grade is "looping" to second grade. Looping is when the teachers move with an intact class to the next grade. The teachers have promised the kids that it will be different from first grade, and they will have desks instead of tables, which was apparently very important to the kids.

Today, Zoe and Mia will leave for Ashlawn at the same time, but on future mornings, Zoe has to be at school by 8:30 am since she's a safety patrol this year. Something about that little fluorescent yellow belt instills a lot of power. Zoe will be in Katie Avilia's 4th grade class. We've heard wonderful things about Ms. Avila, although Zoe is a little apprehensive because few of her regular friends are in the class.

Ready to go!

Summer Challenge

This year, Ashlawn Elementary and Mia's class in particular both issued summer challenges to the kids. I'm not at all a fan of school work in the summer. The school does it I suppose to help the kids not loose academic ground. I thought it was generally a major hassle, but the girls wanted to participate. Two were easy; one not so much.

The schools challenge was simply to read a book and take a photo with the Ashlawn Eagle and mail it  to school. No sweat. We would be reading anyway. The main challenge was not loosing the picture of the eagle and remembering to take a photo. 

The next challenge issued from Mia's teachers was to read at least five days a week for 15 minutes. No sweat. We do this anyway. No need to track it. Just sign off that she did it. Kids who did it would be treated to a private audience with the teachers for a special breakfast. Done.

The third challenge, also from Mia's class, was a complete and total hassle. Kids participating needed to write three stories every week. They had to be at least six sentences long. They were given lots of topic suggestions, but that didn't matter. Kids who completed the challenge would be treated to a private audience with the teachers for a special lunch. Mia really wanted this, but boy was it hard for her to remember and then start the stories. And, she didn't want to skip any suggested topics, so when she approached a topic that she didn't know what to write about, she really fretted over it. It was a drag for us to watch her schlep the notebook and writing topics around and then get frustrated about writing. However, she did it and she felt really proud of it! She also wrote some pretty interesting and funny stories. Well done Mia!

Now, we're waiting for the teacher to own up to the prize!


PS - This challenge of Mia's ended up helping me quite a bit. When Mia was struggling with her sentences, I tried to think of something that I equally struggle with completing. The first thing that came to mind was this blog. So, I told Mia that for every story she wrote for her challenge, I'd write one or two blog posts. That really helped her write, and it also got me going. She finished before me, but it's definitely what helped me catch up. I got the idea from when my dad challenged me to stop biting my nails. He told me that he would try to quit a hard habit of his as soon as my nails were longer than his. He'd test out my progress by comparing our nails regularly. That was very motivating!

Rehoboth Quickie - September 2015

We didn't get our full one or even two weeks at the beach this summer, but we did manage a few weekends which was terrific. The ocean is definitely my happy place, and I am so, so glad that we managed to go one more time.

Knowing that we had more limited time at the beach this year, the girls ranked their list of things they most wanted to do. Then, based on the averages, we picked our top four. That was a cool experiment and also made the weekend so much more enjoyable and less hectic. It was especially time-saving since one of their top four items was getting ice cream or snow cones, surprisingly nudging out an all-day outing at Jungle Jim's water park. 

Sophie excited to get to the beach (and wishing the candy shop behind her was already open).

Zoe very happy that we remembered the big shovels.

We went to the speedway where we all rode go-carts, jumped on trampolines, spun in the weird plastic bubbles that float on water, and did bumper boats.

Zoe is now tall enough to ride solo. She was a little nervous at first, but wanted to go for it....and then ride them again.

Hard to tell from this photo, but Mia, Sophie and Zoe are all in the jumping harnesses and in the process of doing flips at the same time in this picture. Mia is on the right, Sophie is in back, and Zoe is on the right. 

Mia and Zoe rolling around.

Sophie exhausted from the effort, and simultaneously asking to go again.

The weather at the beach was great, and we blew through 100 tickets at Funland in no time now that they can all go on the "big rides".  Mia won a free round of miniature golf after getting a hole in one on the 18th hole, and Sophie played under par the whole game.

Just finishing a 4-way round of burying each other's legs.

Ready to take on the Super Flip.

Surprisingly, one of the kids' top 4 things they wanted to do was go to the outlet malls. That worked for me because we were able to do a little last minute back to school shopping.

All in all, it was a great time and definitely worth being away the weekend before school started.