Five

 

 

 

Some things I love about this age: he has reverted to calling me "mama," school has made him a crafting whiz, he protects and cares for his sister (when he's not torturing her), he cries when he watches Bethoven or The Lady and the Tramp (particularly the scene where the dogs are howling in the "jail"), he loves to sing, he's hilarious and always tries to make up jokes that don't make sense, he LOVES to cook and set the table and serve food to others and eat around the table. I know that the coming year will bring so many changes but I plan on just enjoying the amazing person he is becoming.

Kindergarten tears and rainforest dinners

I'm going to try to cover a lot of ground in this post since I haven't found the time to blog in recent days.

First, I need to announce that I have aged like 10 years this past week. Liam has attended 8 days of school so far and he has cried 5 of those days. Sometimes from the moment he woke up until the moment he arrived. And once, periodically throughout the day at school warranting a phone call home. Knowing he was so unhappy was/ is seriously heart breaking. I'm pretty sure I have shed more tears than he has. He has been gradually getting better at going and I have been gradually realizing that even when he does fine, I still feel physically nauseous and like an emotional wreck because dropping your first born off at full day kindergarten feels like you're slowly being murdered from the inside out. Or am I alone in that emotion? 

Either way, it's been rough. I found solace this week in celebrating Liam's birthday. We promised him dinner at the Rainforest Cafe so it gave us all something to look forward to in the middle of the week. It was his turn to take home the class "pet," Callie Bear, and take her on an adventure so she joined us in the Rainforest. 

Brygit was a little in love with Callie Bear but, luckily, Liam was willing to share both his bear and his birthday cupcake.

He was also the "star of the day" at school where he got to be line leader and teacher's helper and I was able to bring cupcakes to the class and see a small portion of his day. 

I really am just so proud of how brave he is and how hard he tries. I miss him so much during the day and the sweet things he says when he's upset like, "please think about me today," seriously melt my heart (and possibly contribute to the aforementioned internal murder I have going on).

First day of Kindergarten

Liam had his very first day of school today. And it was definitely an emotional one... for me. I have so many reservations about sending him to school at such a young age for full day Kindergarten every day. I woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep because of all my nerves. Liam, on the other hand, woke up at a decent hour and held no reservations about heading to school. Paul and I fussed over his lunch and whether he would have enough to eat or if he could open all the containers on his own. We repeated reminders about speaking up and asking for help when he needs it and made sure he knew his lunch was in his backpack and that we would drop him off at the playground but couldn't go in and that he knew where the bathroom was. On our walk there he commented that, "everyone sure is forgetting stuff and repeating everything today." Yeah, we were kind of a mess. 

He is lucky enough to go to the same school with his cousin and be in the same class as a girl from his preschool and a boy from his baseball team so he ran off onto the playground as we watched from afar with the other paranoid parents. We picked him up from class and he was absolutely exhausted. And it was only a minimum day. I can tell this is going to be a big adjustment for us all but I'm encouraged that his favorite part of the day was, "all the parts."

Skylanders Party

Liam has been totally into the Skykanders video game and the toys that accompany it ever since Santa brought him one last December.  He has been talking non stop about having a Skylanders themed birthday party for his fifth birthday and we obliged. He isn't technically five yet but Paul is currently on vacation and Liam starts school in a few days and we wanted to celebrate it before life gets too busy. We had family over for breakfast and played games and ate cake. 

Liam had a great day and is still talking about how much fun he had. I, personally, am still recovering from the day but I'm happy that he is happy. And now we are ready for kindergarten to begin.

Girls Day

Yesterday Paul took Liam to see the new Ninja Turtles movie. Brygit and I were left at home since neither of us was very interested in joining. Since it was just the girls I decided we should do girly things. See, I'm kind of excited about my future mother-daughter dinner, movie and shopping days and I've been anxiously awaiting the day we can begin making those memories. So I thought we could start a little early. I took her to get her very first mani/ pedi. She did great and she loved it. I was a little nervous because they had her sit at her own booth facing away from me but she was totally fine and the workers were so good with her. I told them they could just paint her nails but they insisted they could do a manicure on her tiny hands. Brygit later told me they cut her nails and put "pink cream" on her hands.

We followed up with coffee at Starbucks (hers was decaf), lots of fun looks from other patrons for giving my two year old a frapuccino and a little bit of shopping. 

I have had a lot of girls days in my time but this makes the top of the list. I can't wait to do it again.

 

 

Opposites

We got some much needed rain today. When Brygit looked outside and saw the river flowing down the gutter she asked if she could go run in the rain. I said yes and she ran outside with nothing on but a diaper and Mary Janes. Liam put on his shoes and asked for his umbrella so he could join her. He enjoyed standing in the rain without getting wet and he occasionally bent down and threw a flower in the gutter stream. Brygit splashed and ran and stuck her whole hands and feet in the stream. These 2 kids are very different and I love each of their personalities.

 

I really enjoy having two very different experiences when it comes to raising them and I like to think they appreciate the other's differences as well.