Carrie’s teacher has a tradition where every child is the “Star of the Week” for a week (usually near their birthday) during the school year. This week is Carrie’s week, so we got to make up a poster of pictures for her to share.
Tomorrow I’m going to meet her for lunch and then read a story to the class, and Friday she’ll bring in cupcakes for her birthday celebration. Since this is new to us, I hope we’re not over- or under-doing this star of the week thing!
Carrie is having her first school picture taken today. I’m slightly concerned that she may have listened to the Junie B. Jones story about “The Cheese Man” a few too many times and may do a crazy face on purpose. It will match her crazy outfit, however, since she insisted on wearing her brown dress with the orange, yellow, pink and burgundy polka-dots. And she insisted she wanted the bright green backdrop. To be fair, all of the backdrops were ugly – whatever happened to the sky blue backdrop we had when I was a kid?
We’re just ordering the image file on CD. This way if it comes out truly awful we don’t have to share it with anyone!
Anna managed to pinch her little fingers in the play kitchen cabinet, which caused a few tears. Before I could even get to her, Carrie was right there, kneeling in front of her and hugging her, saying “It’s OK, baby, you’re OK.” Anna hugged Carrie right back and cried into her shoulder. It was the sweetest, saddest moment – and it was truly fleeting, as just another moment later they were happily playing together with chef hats on and pots and pans banging.
Carrie: “Mommy, did you know that a long time ago…before Anna was born, before I was born, before you were born, before Daddy was born, before Nana and Poppy were born, before Grandma and Grandpa were born, before Big Grandma and Big Grandpa before, before Great-Gramie and Great-Grampa were born… Did you know, that people thought earwigs got their name because they /crawled in peoples’ *ears*/?!?”
Me: “Um. No, I didn’t know that. Do they?”
Carrie: “No, that’s just what people thought a long time ago. Also, they have thin front wings that fold underneath their thick back wings!”
Me: “Alrighty then. I didn’t know that either. Why have you been learning about earwigs?”
Carrie: “Because, *I* sit at the *earwig* table in my school!”
Me: “….”
(Keep in mind that this is the child who is terrified of pretty much every bug except ladybugs and butterflies. And all of a sudden she is excited about earwigs…)
I took Carrie to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs today. It was surprisingly good – not at all true to the book (if it had been, it would have been all of fifteen minutes long!) but enjoyable nonetheless. There was plenty of material aimed over the kids’ heads at the parents, and it was really quite funny. Carrie leaned over at one point and said “Mommy, this is the *best* movie I’ve ever seen!” And although the last bit was tense and scary in parts, she really did like it and wants to see it again.
As per my usual, I’m still in sticker shock over the cost of two tickets and a small popcorn, so we’ll wait until it comes out on DVD to see it again.
Dear Carolyn,
Yesterday you turned 4 years and 11 months old. Just one more month until you turn 5! You have changed and grown so much in the past month it’s amazing. You’ve only been in school for less than three weeks, but you’re already a bit more confident, a bit more…grown up, I guess.
You went from a complete TV addict over the summer, to insisting on playing outside from the minute you step off the bus. I imagine you do a lot of sitting all day at school, even with daily recess and P.E. three out of six days, so it shouldn’t be surprising that you want to kick around the soccer ball and play with chalk for a bit. Then you have a snack (which usually involves you finishing whatever was left of your lunch and then eating another meals’ worth of food after) and play with Anna a bit. This is working out pretty well for me, because the playing with your sister bit happens right around when I need to start dinner, and the two of you miss each other so much that you play nicely long enough for me to cook!
Your writing and drawing skills have improved considerably this month as well – from even before school started. You wrote get well notes to both me and Anna when we were sick, and you have been drawing pictures of yourself playing on the playground and riding your tricycle that are quite good. I’m happy to hear you ask me how to spell words, and I love reading your own attempts at spelling things!
As far as I’m concerned, your transition into full-time schooling has gone incredibly smoothly. For the most part, you’ve been able to go right to sleep at a reasonable hour and get up and ready for the day without too much angst. You’re a little tired and crabby right after getting off the bus, but after a bit of outside time and a snack you happily tell me about things you did at school. I’m impressed with your ability to go with the flow. I hope someday I can learn how to do that from you!
Love, Mommy
Carrie is going to have weekly homework assignments which come home on Friday and are due back on Tuesday. The first one was “Summer in a Shoebox”. She had to find 4-8 items that represented memories of things she did over the summer, and put them in a shoebox. They’re going to write or tell stories about those things over the next few weeks. This is Carrie’s summer, in a shoebox:
We put in a ticket from the Strong Museum butterfly garden, a bubble wand, a piece of chalk, a small vial of water from the pool, an acorn from Ithaca, a picture of her cousins and a drawing of her playing on the playground. The shoebox, with added soccer stickers, was from the sneakers we bought for her to play soccer in. That pretty much sums up our summer!
Today, Carolyn headed off for her first day of Kindergarten! I got up at 6:20, got myself ready and packed a yummy lunch (a ham & cream cheese pinwheel sandwich, baby carrots, grapes, olives, letter pretzels and two tiny vanilla cookies). Then I managed to get the kids dressed early enough that I had time to make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, and we still had a good ten minutes before the bus came to snap a few pictures.
She looks all grown up from last year! (Though I said the same thing last year too!) She picked out this dress herself when we went clothes shopping for school, and although it’s not exactly my style, it is pretty darn adorable.
She was so excited to get on that bus she practically skipped down the driveway, and I had to stop her to give her a hug and a kiss and tell her to have a fun day.
It wasn’t nearly as hard to watch that bus pull away as I thought it would be. I think I already cried all the tears I had to in anticipation of today, and instead I felt excited for her. I can’t wait for her to come home and tell me how her day went, and whether she found the little note I stuck in her lunchbox.
Anna officially has yet another tooth. The other upper tooth, to the right of the middle teeth.
And Carrie seems to be completely better. She slept all night last night, started out the morning pretty rough, but then after going back to sleep until lunchtime she suddenly woke up, ate a full lunch, and insisted on playing outside for half the afternoon. We even took the girls on a wagon ride around the neighborhood – Anna’s first ever time in the wagon!
Fever gone, appetite and energy back…assuming she wakes up the same tomorrow morning, kindergarten starts on Tuesday!
OK, so last night Carrie went to bed with a fever. I don’t sleep well when one of the kids is sick. I’m so intent on listening for one of them needing me that I can barely fall asleep, and when I do I sleep very poorly. And then sometime in the middle of the night Carrie came in our room and tossed and turned all over the bed. I don’t quite get how Denis can sleep through that!
Then around 5:30 her fever had spiked to 102.5, so I gave her some Motrin. Which promptly came back up. And she was complaining her throat hurt. So off to the doctor’s for a strep test (thank heavens the office is open on Saturday mornings for situations like this!) No strep. Just a virus of some sort.
She’s just been feverish and lethargic all day, watching TV and sleeping on the couch. Poor, poor baby! It would be a little bizarre to have to call her in sick on the very first day of school, so I hope she gets better before then.
And I’m exhausted. I think all total I had about 4 hours of sleep, and none of them were consecutive or restful. But at the same time I’m completely wired, because I drank half a pot of coffee this morning and a coke this afternoon. Not good.