On August 20th, Sariah became an official first grader. She loves it! One of her favorite parts is getting to eat her lunch at school. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see her interact in the lunchroom. She can hardly stand being so grown up and independent. Her teacher is Mrs. Snow and I have been impressed so far. I actually think going to school all day has been harder on me that on Sariah, although she does get pretty tired. The first few days I walked around in a daze. I missed my little shadow. I really did feel lost. I love my Sariah so much and am so proud of all she has accomplished.
Zac started kindergarten a week later on August 27th. He was SOOOOOOOOOOOO ready! If you ask what his favorite part of school is, he reponds without hestitation, "Recess!" Spoken like a veteran student. He has made several new friends. Last night for FHE he was in charge of the activity and he even taught us the game he learned in PE. We all had a blast playing with him. His teacher is Mrs. Comte. That is who Sariah had last year and she is fantastic. I was thrilled. I miss my boy, too. The house is pretty quiet in the mornings. Ally and Brook are getting some good bonding time and it is fun to spend more time with just the two of them. Zac, you are amazing and I see a bright school career ahead of you.
Ally and mom have "preschool" once a week at home. She gets her backpack and brings her imaginary classmates to school. Bless her heart. She would dearly love to go to a "real preschool outside," as she informed me yesterday. I think the outside part means outside of our house. Next year, Pal. For now it is just us and we have fun. Here she is coloring her Humpty Dumpty puzzle. She had a good time "putting Humpty together again." I am thinking we might need preschool more than one morning a week. Without Zac and Sariah around, I have become her playmate of choice. I just can't keep up with who I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to say in all of the pretend games. This morning I did laundry with a superhero cape on. I am pretty sure I was Wonerwoman for most of the time. I think I did an OK job following directions.
Brook is EVERYWHERE! She gets up in the morning and just runs from one room to the next to see what treasures she can find. She has a few places she likes to check just to see if we have let our guard down. Places like art boxes (she loves markers), the bathroom (she loves the toilet), the pantry (she loves to help herself to boxes of cereal) the big kids' room (she loves to play with toys that she shouldn't.) When she does slow down, one of her favorite places to land is in a chair at her table reading her book. She is pleased as punch with herself that she can climb into the chair herself. And she loves books, especially books with pictures of babies or animals.
Another favorite activity is to climb into anything she can. On this particular night, Brook and Ally were supposed to be cleaning up the mess you can see in the background. But climbing into the box was much more fun that putting toys in it. My favorite thing to watch is when she tries to climb into something that is not quite big enough. She is at such a fun stage right now. She understands so much of what we say to her and what is going on around her. It delights her to no end when she can communicate with us and we understand what she needs. Her little personality manifests itself more each day. In fact, tonight she finally figured out how to climb on the stool in the bathroom and see into the sink. She just giggled. Then she leaned over the side as best she could and made little spitting noises -- copying what the big kids do when they brush their teeth. It was hilarious. You make my day, Brook.
