Kindergarten, Here We Come

Well, I finally did it.  I registered Jac for Kindergarten.  Wow - it seems like such a big accomplishment for both him and me.  The day after I registered him they were having a mini open house for kids and parents to come tour the school.  Jac was very excited.

We met in the Library and met the Principal and the Librarian, both of whom have that elementary seemingly drug induced peace about them.  They were both very nice and clearly loved their jobs.  The Librarian read a story to the kids and used the projector which was a big hit for Jac.  He instantly loved the idea of seeing the book on the big screen while the teacher read the story.  He asked if he would get to come to the Library every day and have a story read to him.  I told him he would probably come here once a week, but that his teacher in his class would probably read to him every day. 

I think it is exciting to have other grown ups read to him, mommy and daddy may get boring.

We went on the tour and got to see all of the specialty rooms like the Gym, Music Room, Art Room, Cafeteria, etc.  But most importantly we got to see the classrooms.  The thing that struck me was the amount of stuff.  This school is 35 years old (1974 was a good year) so I think it has had a lot of time to accumulate stuff.  Stuff in the corners, stuff on the walls, stuff on the ceiling, stuff.  I was a bit worried that this would be overwhelming for Jac.  He gets a little overloaded with too much stimuli.  But he seemed okay, other than the fact that he gripped my hand tightly the entire time. 

I certainly don't have to worry about discipline problems with this one.  There were kids running around, jumping on stuff, making a lot of noise, playing tag; not Jac.  He was quiet and right beside me the entire time.  It is the exact opposite, it would actually make me breath a little easier if he whooped it up a bit. 

So we got to see the Kindergarten rooms, First Grade, Second Grade and Third Grade.  This is when we had to leave, we had to get to someone's half birthday party.  Jac didn't want to leave.  He really wanted to see the rest of the classrooms, even though they were all exactly the same.  He likes to complete the job. 

When I mentioned ice cream and party he was a bit more willing.  We had a good day and he asked a lot of questions.  I believe the one that sticks out the most was his fantasy about wouldn't it be "funny" if my new school and my preschool were in one building?  I think what he was saying was, wouldn't it be wonderful if I could stay at my preschool and we could just bring the other school here?  He is such his mother's child.  We love the familiar.

Half Birthday Party

Everybody should celebrate their half birthday!  Well, everyone but me that is.  I need a half birthday like I need another person's poop to clean up.  But, Mia, she definitely needed to celebrate her half birthday.  Her birthday falls before school starts, so she doesn't get the "cupcakes at school, that all the little kids just eat the icing so I should have just bought a big tub of icing party", like all the other kids. 

Well, I didn't bring cupcakes because our school is nut free.  I brought little ice cream cups which were a big hit.  Here are some cutie pics of the party and the half birthday girl.

I am going to seriously consider wearing a crown on my birthday.  It justs adds a little je ne sais pas.

Eating ice cream.

With all my friends.

And my brother.

Self Aware

There is a fine line between being relaxed and letting your kids pick out their own clothes and brush their own teeth and having them become the kooky looking kid that everyone makes fun of.

Well, Jac has discovered that he doesn’t want to be made fun of. He didn’t tell me a specific time when he was laughed at but he has never liked being the center of attention, unless Jeff and I are the only ones observing. Needless to say, he became self aware last week.

It was a fairly normal morning. I don’t recall too much craziness; although Jac’s hair was sticking up. Our routine in the morning is to comb hair and put on shoes right about the time that we are to leave. Jac went to bed before his hair had dried and you could tell. Generally his hair requires a very quick comb, nothing too vigorous, it normally behaves quite nicely. It was not behaving this morning.

I doused the comb with water and ran it through his hair. It helped a little. I got a lot more water and patted it down. It looked about 80%. I combed some more and we were getting up to 90%. Good enough for preschool.

We got to school and I had to go in versus just dropping off through carpool line. I normally drop off and then Mia and I are on our way to some shopping extravaganza. But today we all got to run in and leave a car seat in the lobby for the mommy who would be picking Jac up.

As we got through the front doors of the school, Jac asked, “Mommy, is my hair sticking up?”

I looked at it. Why yes, yes it was. It must have dried and remembered that this morning instead of laying nicely against his cute little head it wanted to spring up right in the middle similar to Alfalfa. He probably could feel it bouncing around on his head as he walked.

“Yes Jac, it is.”

He stopped and looked up at me in only the way that Jac can. With big soulful eyes, he said, “I don’t want anybody to laugh at me.”

Oh my goodness. If you had been in the lobby with me at that moment you would have heard my heart break. I almost cried. But mommy mode took over. I quickly shuttled them both into the bathroom in the lobby.

I literally dumped water over his head until it was sopping and very carefully used my hand to smooth it down as I had no comb. It looked wet, but flat. He could see himself in the mirror and I could see the tension leave his shoulders. Phew. Somehow I helped Jac avoid having his tiny little self esteem being harmed. What a close call.

We are very careful combing hair in the mornings now, and that is fine.

Shopping 101

Evidently I don’t know how to shop. This is the conversation I had with my husband when he threw down the gauntlet.

“Oooh, I like these lamps”, I said while browsing the new Crate and Barrel that had just arrived.

“We could get two of these, a couple of mirrors, take down those ugly lamps by the bed and get a couple of tables. That would look really good.” I said this very dreamily.

“Yeah, $1500 later."  He takes a sip of his coffee, "you know what style is? Seeing this and then finding something very similar that looks just as good for $25. That’s style. You need to figure out where to shop.” He said all of this in a slightly mean but distracted tone.

“Hmmpfh. I don’t like to shop.” (I know I must be the one female on the planet who doesn’t like to shop.)

“I know, that is why we don’t have those lamps, the mirrors, the tables……” He walked away.

Well now, he has thrown down the gauntlet. I made an emergency trip to Garden Ridge to see if they had anything like this, they didn’t. I called my shopper friend, who unlike me is the best shopper in the world. She can furnish a house, treat the windows, change out all the hardware and have the A/C fixed in a two week time frame after she has just moved in pregnant with a toddler. I kid you not, she has done this.

She told me about Home Goods. She said it was owned by TJ Maxx. Well, right there I know it will be good. But will I be good enough? I have shopped at TJ Maxx in the last year. I survived. I didn’t pass out from all of the options. There are literally 1000 shirts all a size 8, but all completely different. My worst nightmare. I have been in Marshall’s once, but never Home Goods or Tuesday Morning or any other store that has somehow scooped up a huge truckload of one off products from 100 different stores and stuck them on shelves in a their store and marked them all at 25%.

I am going to have to put on my big girl pants, or take a tranquilizer, whichever gets the job done and check out Home Goods.

I am going to do that right after I have a little sip of this cocktail milkshake.