Boy Wonder's New School

My little baby is starting kindergarten in less than a week. I can't believe it! How is this possible. It seems like just yesterday I brought him home from the hospital and now he's old enough to go to elem school. The werid thing is, I remember my first day of kindergarten and that seems like just yesterday too. The tricks that time plays on us.

Today his new kindergarten teacher had a party at school to invite all her new kinder friends to come and explore their new classroom. Boy wonder was a little shy at first but he came inside and we slowly made our rounds around the very cool room. There was a building corner full of legos, blocks and other manipulatives, a dress up/drama area with kitchen set up, dolls and puppet theatre. There were three tables set up with watercolor painting, building a bead necklace and a snack table. There were two classroom pets, a huge goldfish and an even larger salamander. There was a book nook, a circle carpet, an art supply area and lots of orig art hanging everywhere, the ceiling, walls, etc. What a fun and colorful room! I can't wait to go to kindergarten again!! Boy wonder sat down at the watercolor table and for the next 40 mins created picture after picture. Taking an occasional break to get up and pour himself a glass of juice and eat a strawberry. Juice is a special treat in our house so it was big motivator for him to move over to the snack table and get that dixie cup of juice. The teacher even had a lovely bouquet of sunflowers on the snack table. Boy wonder eventually moved to the lego area and sat down and began building a vehicle of some kind. We met a couple of boys in his class over the summer so he would recognize a familiar face. He was happy to see them both there and shyly said "hi". The teacher seems wonderful. Very caring and she told us about a few special projects they would be doing during the year. She saw Emily signing to me. Emily was in the sling and she loves to be a part of the conversation as well. So she does her best to throw out words and signs to get my attention when I'm engaged in coversation with others. The teacher also knows sign language and told us they would learning signs in class and recognized the signs Emily was doing. Small side..Emily has created 4 new signs to communicate to me "twinkle, twinkle little star", "patty cake, patty cake, the itsy bitsy spider, and row row your boat.

I'm so excited for Boy Wonder to begin school. He has such a great opportunity of exploring his whole self in this class. And even though I'm very sad to see my lazy and warm days of summer slip on by. I am looking forward to cooler weather, new school supplies, being back in the mtns with Bubba and working in Boy Wonder's new classroom. Oh and don't forget apple picking. I'm really looking foward to visiting some orchards with the kids and picking yummy, juicy apples. So I guess I'm ready for you Fall. Bring it on!!

Brothers for Life...

I'm always amazed how well these two can play together, work together and just be together. Yes, they have their unsibling moments of hitting, yelling, taking each others toys, throwing things at each other. But for the majority of time they are great friends. I love listening in on their play. As I'm typing this they are playing in BW's room. I have a video monitor with sound on my desk so I can see what they are upto during their "nap" time. I think they forget that even though I'm downstairs I can see one boy sneak out of his room and join the other boy. They are being super silly right now. BW helped his younger brother take off his shirt as that is the one article of clothing that Bubba can't get off. BW talked him through it while he pulled and yanked if off. They have stripped down to nothing and are flying around the room being super naked heros. Jumping off the bed and just laughing so loudly. Anyone else have boys that prefer their own skin to anything else? Their belly laughs dominate much of what they do. They are so silly together and can entertain each other for a long time. They seem to bring out the best in one another. I see that when they are together they support one another and help one another. It's amazing to me they do get along so well and have so much fun as they really are as different as night and day. I do hope that their relationship continues to strenghten with age. How lucky they are to have one another...brothers for life!

It's been awhile...

More updates about the boys coming soon....

Much needed time off...

It's the small things in life that make life great. And for me it was having a week off of school. It was such a needed break just to recharge my batteries and take a breather. As much as I love school it pretty much has consumed me this year and I know next year will only be that much harder with having two in different schools and one at home. But for this year it feels like I live at the school, esp since I have 2 at the same school, which means double everything, 2 carpools, 2 requirements for being the cooking mom, lots of laundry, 2 times a week I spend driving groups of kids to school and then watching them at school, multiple clothing changes in the woods and at the creek. Our preschool is an outdoor school in the mtns which is a 30 min drive from our house. I also have double the nighttime meetings, the writing assignments and 2 culimination projects looming in the back of my head. And last week I spent everyday at school just trying to get caught up with all my makeups this semester from missing school time because of Hawaii, Russia and the flu that hit us. And next week my hubby is off (he's a teacher, so they have a week off too) and we will once again be at the boys school all week trying to get ahead on makeups for our time off for our 2nd trip to Russia. We know we will be making one more trip to Russia and I have no idea how I'm going to be able to finish the year off once our daughter comes home. Don't get me wrong...I love our preschool and I'm glad for the opportunity for my boys to be outdoors and all the great friendships our family has made.. but it's a participation school and it's really tiring with 2 in school and an adoption at the sametime and then there's just the rest of everyday life and the workload that goes along with that.

These past 2 months have really taken their toll on me and I have been a roller coaster of emotions. We traveled half way around the world and back in one week and met our daughter for the first time!! I have been exhausted from all the prep required to get there and then the jet lag, adjustment to life and the make ups once back. We also lost a beloved pet and the weeks we spent prior getting her to all her appts, and special medical treatments and watching her not responding to anything we tried and losing her so much more quickly than we had planned was painful. I also spent March touring kindergartens and frustratingly fighting immigration for an important document for our adoption and finally after 6 months getting it. We found out that our son made it into the only kindergarten that I wanted him to go to. No pressure there! What a happy moment that was..boy that took off a lot of stress. He had to go to an assessment at the school and I had to attend a few meetings. The assessment was a little stressful for me as I tend to worry and I wasn't allowed to be present, so I didn't really know how he did until I went in for a meeting and found out he had been accepted. Yeah! And shortly after we came home my aunt past away fairly unexpectedly which has been very, very hard and left me raw to the bone both with her passing and the anger that seems to consume my extended family. And now we are hearing that we may be traveling once again to Russia for our daughter maybe before the end of the month. The highs and lows of these past 2 months and just being exhausted all the time trying to meet all of these various tasks...it has been so hard! And then to have all our birthdays in these two months...my daughter's, my hubby's, mine, both our sons...it's crazy!

So...selfishly I'm grateful for this week off and have done very little to get ready for anything beyond this week. Which I'm sure I will regret on Monday. But for today, I have this week. And what a beautiful week it has been. Thank goodness! Time off has been so great! A chance to break from the everyday routine and mix it up. So far this week we have gotten to have a playdate with a friend, sleep in and have a pj day where we stayed in our pjs all day and hung out at home, camped in the living room with our lanterns, made pb and banana muffins together, and worked in the garden planting our veggies and flowers, gone on bike rides and stroller rides, played in the sand and water and tomorrow we will have an early b-day party for me. The kids are looking forward to playing with their cousin and the ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. And the best part? I went to bed at 8pm everyday so far. That never would have happened in a regular week.

It has been so fun just having this time this week just to be together and really be together presently in the moment and enjoy. The boys are changing so much. My oldest has outgrown all his pants and shirts. He has been especially kind to his brother this week and has helped him in so many ways. My youngest is telling the most amazing stories. It's been so fun to hear what he comes up with. It's hard to believe that at the end of April and the beg of May they each will turn a year older...I will then have a 3 year old and a 5 year old. The boys play so well together. Their laughter has been my greatest medicine..that and sleep. I'm so happy they have each other to grow up with. And I pray that they remain close and kind to one another throughout their life. We are hoping to bring our daughter home soon and I'm excited to see the 3 together and watch them all grow up. I think each of them has so much to bring to one another and I hope that they will all be the best and closest buds that siblings can be.

And the one thing I hope to take from this week is to appreciate the small things that make life sweet..to take deeper breaths and to overall do less and just enjoy being for awhile. Now how I can incorporate that into my crazy life I still need to figure out.

Here's my beautiful boys this week....

Playing Catch up...

Here are a few of my favorite photos from our trip to Hawaii. The first few show the view from our hotel condo.

Here is Bubba comfortably whale watching from our boat.

BW riding on the sugar train. He loved riding this train!

The view we had at the wedding reception. Amazing!

This was taken as the sun was setting right on the beach infront of our hotel.

Sweet Dreams Baby Girl

Our sweet Mandy Blessings left us on Wednesday afternoon. She was a gentle and sweet girl who was born with as hubby said..the short end of the straw. Her body just never worked right and in the end it was her liver that failed her. She was one of our first children. Before Hubby and I were married I wanted to get a dog. I finally talked him into getting one dog. We did research like crazy to find the calmest and most gentle dog, as he was really unsure of dogs after a bad experience he had as a child. We chose the cavalier king charles spaniel because they were so sweet and lovable. They were a little harder to find back in 1998 and finally located a litter in Southern Ca. We drove to Southern California in one day to pick her up and drive back. When we got there, there was 2 puppies left, one female and one male. Just seeing their little faces...we were sold and home came the terrible twins. We would joke in the begining that if things didn't work out we would each take a dog. Mandy was mine and James was his. Mandy and James were inseparable and would cry if one was without the other so bad that we never separated them. If one had to go to the vet, they both went and I always worried how the other would survive if somthing happened to one of them. James is handling it very well.

Hubby and I miss Mandy terribly and only hope she is now free to really run and play as only a dog should. James, her brother has been looking for her and has taken to sleeping in the spot in the office where she liked to sleep. I haven't the heart to vaccuum the office yet and late at night the last few nights I thought I smelt her there and had to look behind me to see. Since Mandy spent the last few weeks sleeping all the time in the office the boys have not noticed that Mandy's missing. We had talked with them on Tuesday that it was getting close to Mandy's time to leave us and they were handling that well. We are dreading talking with them about Mandy actually being gone and hope to do so on Sunday after BW's assessment for kindergarten. We are a little thankful to have had a few days to grieve for her before having to talk with them about her death. Keep us in your thoughts on Sunday.

Here are a few shots we have of her with the kids and her brothers the last 2 weeks.

Day 11 down and counting...and other odd thoughts

We've been hit with the cold bug. I have tried to be so careful this winter season since we didn't get our flu shots. I've tried to avoid being out in public and have washed our hands like crazy. But there must have been a crack in our defense against those pesky cold bugs because they got in. We are going on 11 days now of dripping noses and wet coughs. And while I have really enjoyed slowing down to a snail's pace and just being content to be inside all day with my boys..doing snuggly things as Bubba says. I'm still slowly going a little insane. I love my house but I can only take so much of the same four walls. I miss school. I miss visiting with other adults. I had a meeting last night at preschool. Who thought one little simple outing could make me so excited. We had a great speaker too..on the topic of raising resilient children. Lots of good, insightful tidbits to raise strong, self confident kids.

The kids are doing well. We had lots of pj days in the beginning when we were really feeling the effects of the bug and the weather was miserable with lots of rain. Now that the weather is nice and the boys have a bit more energy back we were finally able to get outdoors yesterday. We took a spur of the moment trip to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. They are gearing up to totally remodel this park. Already the parking lot has been fenced off along with most of the old front entrance. And though I agree there could be something done to revitalize this great,old park, I'm more than a little sad at the changes they will ultimately make. The quaintness of this cute park holds a few childhood memories for me. I can remember my grandmother taking me there and riding the Neputune's carousel and climbing up to the top of the crooked old house only to slide to the bottom of the crooked old slide. Watching the puppets theatre, running through the maze and riding on Danny the Dragon. I have enjoyed being able to share in these memories by bringing my children there as well. What will be come of this lovely little park? I fear it will just become another modern, commercialized place and all that is lovely and childlike will be lost only to be replaced with large modern shapes and lots of steel. It's enough to make me teary eyed on such a beautiful Friday. It reminds me of what is happening to our local library. I loved that it was an old one story brick home and now it has become some modern monstrocity that no longer resembles it's former charming building or the rest of the cute little town. What an absolute shame that "new" needs to be "big" or "modern" and can't be "lovely" or "simple".