Pre-School

I was reading an article somewhere recently that talked about how narcissistic this generation is, and cited all the 'selfie' pictures they post places like Facebook and Instagram. I can't even imagine how much worse it will be as T and Nora get older, because they already ask us just about every day to take pictures of whatever they are doing. "Mom, take a picture of me like this! Send it to Granny and Gigi!". Or, T frequently asks me to take pictures of her drawings and send them to the museum. Anyway. Here's a picture they wanted of them playing with blocks. 

But really, I'm posting because I sent my little four-year-old off to pre-school this week. She's been SO excited all summer. Poor kid has been waiting for both school to start, and her brother to get here, it has been pretty hard for her, especially the last few weeks. She had absolutely no qualms about going off to school without me. I was trying to get her to admit to any nerves the day before, but nope, there were none. Once we got in the car to take her she did say "Um, I think I might miss you guys a little bit while I'm at school. But only a little". Marc walked her in, but I got out to give her a hug, and barely had time to hug her before she was pulling away, ready to go. Poor Nora had the hardest time, she kept saying "but I want Teresa to come back!". We took her to Costco and got some ice cream, and let her walk instead of riding in the cart, so that made up for being left behind quite a bit. 

Of course I had to send Marc out to take some pictures before school started.

Oh, the back pack. We went to Target a week or so ago to get the few school supplies she needed. We made the huge mistake of going after Marc got home from work, so it was closing in on bedtime. Anyway, backpacks are expensive, y'all! I found a cute striped one that was in our budget but didn't feel like it was super cheap, and had almost gotten T convinced that she loved it when she spotted the Hello Kitty back packs. She likes Hello Kitty, of course, since she's a 4-year-old girl, but it's not like it is her favourite thing ever, so I was pretty surprised when she had a complete breakdown about NEEDING that HK backpack! Yeah, we were totally that family in Target. Luckily the other moms in the school aisle were all smiling at us and commented that they'd been there before too. So. I knew Costco had nicer HK backpacks for a better price, so I told her that she could either get the striped one at Target, or wait until the next day and get an HK one at Costco. She finally decided she would rather have the striped one right away, so that's what we got. The next morning she came in my bed good and early, and just burst in to tears over how much she wanted a Hello Kitty backpack instead. Good grief. So, we ended up returning the Target one and Marc took her to Costco and got the very last Hello Kitty backpack they had. 

  

  

Girl loves to pose. She came up with all the poses herself. 

Nora needed a turn at pictures, too. 

"Dad! Take a picture of me looking at that bird!"

Nora is pretty bummed that she will not be going to pre-school as well, but I am excited to get a little bit of alone time with Nora during the day. I don't want her to feel like the neglected little middle child, so hopefully we can do some fun stuff together. We'll just tell that baby brother he has to nap from 12:30-3:00 everyday. 

I thought I would have a harder time sending T off to pre-school, but she is just so excited for it, that I'm excited for her. Ask me again next week when she starts riding the bus. I'm a bit nervous for that. Her school is only pre-K and Kindergarten, and that is the only reason she gets to ride the bus, too. No way would I send her on the bus if there were bigger kids, too.

Marc went to pick her up and found her like this on the playground.

She was pretty excited that she got to pick a prize for  being such a good listener the first day! She was so cute, once she got home she spent ages in the bathroom, just standing in front of the mirror looking at herself in her "Mr. Man face" and saying stuff in a deep voice.

She was nice enough to let Nora try it out, too. 

Just Some Stuff

I don't really have any thing cohesive to write about...we've just been muddling through the rest of the summer, waiting for this baby boy to get here. I think T and Nora are starting to wonder if he is ever going to actually show up.

They have been pretty funny in regards to my pregnancy symptoms. Every time T sees me take something for heartburn she says "So, when I have a baby in my tummy, will I have to take that medicine, too?" and one night we were watching a movie and she put her fist up to her chest and said "oh, I think I have some heartburn". And when I'm throwing up (because, of course, that's back now) she is very concerned for me and will come over to hug me when I'm done and say "I really don't like it when you have to do that" or "I'm really sorry that you keep doing that". She also has worriedly said a few times "when I have a baby in my tummy, will I have to throw up all the time?". Gosh I hope not, Teresa. Hopefully by the time she starts having babies there will be more effective nausea treatments out there. 

Both girls are always asking to help me make dinner or pretty much whatever else I'm doing in the kitchen. Luckily for them, I realized how easy it is to let them make boxed brownies, and they have been loving it. Seriously, they can pretty much do the whole thing themselves, it's great. And of course, they get the bowl nice and clean afterward, too :). 

Avocados. Teresa thinks that she does not like them. She always tries to talk me out of buying them when we're at the store. She complains when I put some on her plate. But then I tell her it is good for her, and she needs to eat her one small piece, and she does and says "oh, yeah, it's yummy". But always declines more. She loves guacamole, though. Silly girl. They both devoured this avocado pasta. Though, it's possible I told her there were not any avocados in it. She is rightfully suspicious of anything green at our house. 

   

Teresa's been asking to go back to the beach since July, and we finally made it happen again this past week. We were planning to go to Ocean City, but when we got there we saw that Assateague Island was only another seven miles away. I've always, always wanted to go see the wild ponies there, but I thought it was so much farther away from us than it is, so we took the opportunity and went there instead. 

We saw some ponies right away, the girls were so excited! I was a little less excited by all the warning signs telling you that they will bite and kick you - they even had some pretty gruesome pictures of people that had been bitten by the ponies, so we made sure not to get too close. 

This summer has had such weird weather, it was only in the 70's when we were there -  almost too cool for swimming, though that didn't stop the T at all. I think it is so funny how much of a water bug she is this year, it is so opposite from last summer. Gives us hope for Nora. She mostly stuck with the sand again, and loved collecting sea shells. 

She did surprise us at the end and decided to get wet after all - I love hearing her cute giggles as she anticipated the waves coming for her. She got cold pretty fast, though.

More ponies, just hanging out on the side of the road. I guess there are some conflicting opinions on how all the wild ponies came to be there, but most people seem to think they are the result of Spanish ships that sunk way back in the day when people were first coming to America. 

After we left I asked them what their favorite part of the day was. They both said the ponies, but then Teresa asked if we could go find some regular horses that she could actually touch. Nora has been asking all week to go back and see them again. 

Teresa has been drawing a ton lately. We got a drawing/chalkboard easel from Ikea a few weeks ago, and it has totally unleashed her creativity. I'm loving it - she had such little interest in drawing for so long, and it is so fun now to see what she comes up with. Below is a picture of her and Nora riding on "a pony with a horn" - NOT a unicorn. Seriously, don't call it that. 

I'm just hanging out, being pregnant. It's been rough. Marc came home from PT one morning and said "wow, why do you look so bad?" He quickly tried to back track and said "I mean, why do you look like you feel so bad", but the damage was done. I'm very, very ready for the little dude to get here so I can start sleeping again. I had some Braxton-Hicks on Sunday, which was totally lame, because it made it really hard to not get our hopes up that he would show up a bit early. I never really had any contractions with the girls before I was actually in labor with them, so it was a bit disappointing to have some fake ones this time.

We are actually ready for him, now, as Marc was able to get his car seat base installed in the back of our Camry. We struggled with it for about an hour a few weeks ago, and finally gave up for the time being. Then Marc headed out on Friday to try again, and I was totally surprised when he came inside less than 10 minutes later having been successful. So. Three car seats do fit comfortably in the back of our car, but we will have to see how it works out when there are actually three children filling them up. I'm thinking baby brother won't be doing a lot of sleeping when he's in the car.