Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello First Grade!

I just realized that it was well over a month ago, but I forgot to post about the end of Jake's kindergarten year.  As with most things in life (especially since having kids) the year just took off and was gone in an instant.  I'm happy to say that even though kindergarten started out a little shaky for our little man, he worked things out and we ended the year on a positive note (aside from him crying the last week of school because he didn't want to leave his teacher...but I guess even that can be looked at as a good thing!)

Here are some comparison pictures of the first and last days of school...

First day, August 2013:

Last Day, June 2014:

A few days before school ended, I sent Jake in with a copy of Oh the Places You'll Go, along with a note to his teacher, asking if she would sign the inside of it...kind of like a yearbook message.  I'm hoping to do this every year for him (at least until he finds it to be embarrassing and begs me to stop...even then, maybe I'll just do it behind his back!)  Here is the message she wrote:

Dear Jake,

I loved having you in my kindergarten class this year!  I remember seeing you play Battleship on the first day of school, and now you can read and write!  It has been so nice to see you learn, grow, and make new friends.  You are a hard worker (and neat too!), and you have a great sense of humor (your laugh is contagious!)!!  Always stay that way :)  I can't wait to hear about your future elementary school adventures, so be sure to visit.  Maybe I'll even see you zipping past me on the ski slopes!  Best of luck!

I really feel so lucky that we were able to have such a great teacher for his first year of school!  Jake wrote her a little note for the last day, and we sent it in along with a plant and a Panera gift card:

Less than 2 months until we have a first grader....

Handmade and heartfelt Mother's Day cards

No captions necessary for these, but they are one of my favorite parts of Mother's Day every year.  When do they stop doing Mother's Day crafts in school??  Please say senior year of high school. 

from Jake, he wrote the words himself this year :)

from Liam

from Liam

Telling the truth.

Every night at dinner, Brian asks the kids what their favorite part of the day was (since he gets home so late, dinner is really the first chance he gets to talk to them in the evening)  Jake's usual response to this question is gym, recess, or lunch.  However, when Brian asked him one day last week, we were met with a brief moment of silence, followed by some shifting around in his chair, followed by this:

Jake: um....not getting on a warning space.

Me:  Oh.  Were you on a warning space yesterday?

Jake: Yes, it was my first time on a warning space.  Only one time!

Me:  Ok. Well, let's talk about it...what happened that you found yourself on the warning space?

Jake: I was talking in class.  I told on myself.

Me:  What do you mean?

Jake: Well, my teacher was trying to tell us something and I was talking, but she couldn't see me.  Giovanni gets on a warning space a lot for talking, and she thought it was him.  She was going to move him to a warning, but he wasn't talking...it was me! So I raised my hand, and I told her that it was me and not him. 

Brian looked at me at that point and just shrugged his shoulders, probably thinking the same thing as me....what do you say to that?  Do I even need to discuss the fact that he was talking, when really, I was just proud that he confessed to something that he did, rather than letting his friend take the fall?

The subject quickly changed at the table as the natives grew restless, wanting more food, more milk, or whatever the case was that night.  Brian and I talked about it while we were cleaning up the kitchen, and as we were tucking him in that night, we talked about both things to him.

It's funny the things that you find you're most proud of as a parent.

Jake's 6 year old check up, other updates

Jake had his big yearly check up a few weeks ago, and everything was right on track!

Height: 44.75 inches (36th percentile)
Weight: 41 lbs (20th percentile)

Tall and thin seems to be his consistent body type for the past few years...though if he doesn't watch out, our little bruiser, Liam is going to catch up to him soon! :)  The doctor said everything looked great, and he was pleased with his development.  We discussed a bit of nutrition stuff, since Jake is a very typical 6 year old who would survive on chicken nuggets if given the chance.  But since we don't really give him that chance, he often times will turn up his nose to a meal that he scarfed down the week before (??  I don't understand it either)  The doctor assured me that this is all completely normal, and as long as I'm offering healthy choices and (within reason) giving him options that he can fill up on (fruit, veggies, etc) then it's fine.  He said kids this age are known for eating huge portions one day, and hardly anything the next...or eating a huge lunch, then just picking at dinner.  He said he is completely ok with his growth, which has been consistent, so there's no need to press the issue.  PHEW! 

Last week, I had the chance to go into Jake's class for what they call "Fantastic Friday"; basically, it's a chance for parents to come in and either showcase a talent that they may have, or just do a project or read a book to the kids.  Since my talents consist of analyzing celebrity gossip and discussing reality shows in depth, I was stumped and felt like I wanted to do a bit more than go in and read a random book.  A friend of mine suggested a simple magic trick (thanks, Meghan!) so I found this super easy one on the Real Simple site and the kids loved it!  I also checked out some story books about magic from the library, and printed out some magic hat/wand coloring pages.  we were set for the afternoon!  It was so much fun to see Jake in his little world, with all of his little friends.  I'm so glad that the school does that, it was really a fun afternoon.  I decided to surprise him after that since he lets out of school much earlier than I normally pick up Liam, and we went bowling! 

I would like to showcase the fact that he beat me fair and square in the second game.  With bumpers.

Game #1

Game #2.  My skills fell apart.

I leave you with a cute pic of my little Lego builder, showing off some of his finished projects recently:

Hanging in the balance.

"But why can't you just pick me up at the bus stop?  All of the other mommies are there."

Dagger in my heart.  The sentence above from Jake is on the list of things that no working mother (or father, for that matter) ever wants to hear (see also: Why were you late picking me up?  Why do I have to go to daycare, other kids get to stay home with their mommy?)

Warning: this post will be long, scattered, and probably close to incoherent at times, as it's just going to be a brain-dump of all the thoughts in my head.  Bear with me.

I'll be honest: I'm not cut out to be a stay at home mom.  I give serious credit to those who do it, because I had a brief stint as one during the time I was laid off, and it was hard work.  And no, this isn't about to turn into one of those mommy wars posts where I rant about why my kids are better off because I work outside of the home.  I don't believe that, nor do I believe the opposite. Yet at the same time, I don't work because I am some career-driven professional, who finds my personal meaning of life in the work that I do. 

So there I am, hanging in the balance. Stuck somewhere in the middle of not wanting to be at home full time, but also not being a full-blown "career woman"(wow, how 50's does that sound??)  Wanting to be there for every single school event or volunteer opportunity, and bus stop pick up, but not willing to give up my job to do so. I'm not meant to be a stay at home mom, yet I'm also not a super career mom with huge aspirations or a compulsive need to climb a corporate ladder and get ahead at work. I enjoy the work I do, and I'd like to think that I do a pretty good job when I'm here.  But that's it for me.  At the end of the day, I am a wife and a mother, a friend and a daughter.  And those are the things that matter to me most....yet there I am, at my office every day. Again, hanging in the balance.

Normally, this inner struggle is not a big deal.  I work in a very laid back office, and thankfully have a very understanding supervisor who has no issues with last minute call-offs due to sick kids, leaving early for pediatrician appointments, etc...  I don't work in a cutthroat office where everyone is racing to get ahead.  And normally, my 2 worlds of mommy vs career don't clash...until recently.

I was scheduled to attend a conference in Seattle in December; it's one that I've been to in the past and it's pretty productive, and I do come away feeling like I gained something.  Plus, I've never been to Seattle, so I had plans to attend.  Shortly before starting to book flights and hotels for the trip, I received a notice from daycare with the date for the annual Christmas pageant, which, of course, fell at the same time as the conference. So what do I do?  Stay committed to the conference that I was planning on attending, to show my coworkers that I take my professional development seriously?  Or cancel those plans and see my baby perform in his very first Christmas pageant?

I'm sure you can guess what I picked.

Seattle will still be there for another time, and there will be other conferences I can attend. 

But going back to the original quote from Jake above, it is devastating to hear those kinds of statements.  Or to hear your 2 year old say in a tiny voice at daycare pick up, "I've been wooking (looking) for you to come get me".  Or to ask your kindergartner what he did on the playground, only to have him respond, "I didn't feel like playing today, I missed you and daddy too much.  I sat by myself and thought about you".

Those kinds of statements from my kids are the ones that fly around in my head when I'm at work.  They're the sentences that echo in my brain when I'm faced with decisions like the one about the conference.  I hate those sentences, and they make me feel sad...but at the same time they can be a blessing, because they make some things easy.  Turning down the trip to Seattle to see Liam's little show was a no-brainer.   Signing up to help out with a party at Jake's school?  Easy choice. 

I don't think there's any clear cut method to maintaining a work/home balance.  I think that, as parents, we are doing what we can, the best way we know how to do it.  I have failures and successes, but I'm there when I can be.  And when I do make the wrong choice and mess up? And when I do spend time feeling guilty for working outside of the home?  I'm learning to forgive myself. 

Recent work from Jake and parent-teacher conference

Jake comes home with a lot of worksheets and art from school, which I love seeing.  Yesterday, he came home with two that I wanted to share....the first one he made in art class and he had to pick out pictures of his favorite areas of school (he chose his classroom, the playground, the gym, the cafeteria, and the library), then write what he does in those areas:

We learned during our recent parent-teacher conference that they are working a lot on sounding out words and writing them down with no assistance.  The teacher said that it doesn't matter if they get the spelling correct, that the point of the exercise is to work on sounding out the words and being able to write them down as best they can while sounding them out.  They've sent home a few of these exercises where they are given open ended statements that they have to complete:

In case you can't see it, the statement given was I like the....and Jake completed it with "character Mickey".  I told you he was going through severe Disney withdrawal! I know I'm biased, but I think his little drawing is fantastic...he told me it was a picture of him and Liam at Disney when they met Mickey on the first day and got his autograph.

The parent-teacher conference was a few weeks ago, and the teacher is very pleased with Jake's progress.  She said he's very quickly picking up on the reading concepts and also seems to enjoy math.  She said he seems to be adjusting well socially, and has a few friends in the class that he always pals around with.  Her one area that she suggested for improvement would be that he sometimes forgets that he can't talk to his friends while class is going on and she's trying to teach, though she said as soon as she says something to him, he does stop. I mentioned it to Jake at home and told him he really needs to work on not talking during class.  He said sometimes he's asking the person sitting next to him a question about what the teacher is saying, and other times he wants to tell his friend something and he's afraid he will forget :)  We talked about how he can raise his hand if he has a question for the teacher, if he doesn't understand what she's saying, but if it's just something he needs to tell his friend, it has to wait until an appropriate time. 

All in all, a successful first conference!

That is special.

Jake comes home with a lot of projects and worksheets from kindergarten, and while I love looking at all of them, the one that came home last night was a real gem.  In case you can't see it clearly in the picture, the instructions say to draw a picture of something special you can do.  The teacher then wrote out the words below, and Jake traced them. (I want to clarify that here, I posted this pic on facebook last night without that disclaimer about the tracing and people thought he had better handwriting than most adults)

Yep.  Sports Center, baby. Da-na-na, da-na-na!!

The Road to Kindergarten: Part 3

Catching up on our road to kindergarten?  Read part one and part two!

So, we're about a month into kindergarten and some of it's been easy and some parts of have been oh so very hard.  Like, harder than I imagined they would be. 

The easy parts: no more tears when he goes to leave the house like he had on the first day, woohoo!  Homework so far has not been a fight; in fact, he seems excited to do it every night, and proud of himself when he finishes it all by himself.  (Liam joins in the fun every night by getting a notebook and crayon and "doing his homework" at the table beside Jake)  He seems to have had a pretty easy time making friends, and he often talks about playing games with friends and talking to them at lunch.  He's branched out to buying lunches from the cafeteria a few times, which makes me insanely happy.  5+ years of packing lunches every.single.day is right up at the top of my list of "biggest first-world problems that affect me".

Now...the hard parts.  Let's see, where to start....the attitude, the poor choices in the evening when it comes to behavior, etc...etc....you get the picture. I should back-track a bit here and say that it's not all bad....and not every night is like this.  But when it is?  Oh boy, watch out!  Sometimes the "off" days seem to start as soon as I pick him up from school, other days we'll go all evening and have a great time, then all of a sudden, POOF!  A switch goes off and it's like a Jekyll/Hyde situation out of nowhere.

It's been trying, for sure.  And we are doing our best to be patient, while rocking back and forth in the fetal position repeating the phrase, "this too shall pass, this too shall pass".  When we're not doing that, we're talking about what's happening and trying to come up with a game plan.  Positive reinforcement for good behavior, appropriate consequences for negative behavior...but who knows if we're doing it right?  Where is that foolproof manual when you need it??

 
I hate to end on a negative note, so I'll throw this out there: when he first started school, there was another kid who was hitting everyone.  He was acting out in class, and just being generally disruptive.  We were assured that the situation was being handled, and sure enough, Jake eventually said that this kid had stopped hitting in class.  Just this past weekend, I asked Jake to name some of his new friends at school, and one of the names was that kid.  I let him finish talking, then said "I'm so glad to hear that (insert kid name here) is your friend now, do you like to play with him?" and his response was, "Yeah, mommy.  I talked to him one day when he was by himself...I think he had such a hard time at the beginning because he just needed a friend.  I'm his friend now"

So, for as much as I feel like I'm screwing it up a lot of the time, moments like that assure me that I'm doing something right.

The Road to Kindergarten: Part 2

When we last left off, I was feeling a teensy bit better about this whole kindergarten thing, having gone through parents orientation AND Jake's orientation.  Jake seemed to be feeling better, too; prior to that, he was nervous, and had a million questions (who will I sit with at lunch?  how will I find my desk?  What if I can't find my way around the school?  When will I get to go to gym class?)

The big day rolled around, and we all felt confident and ready.  Jake was looking devastatingly handsome (if I do say so myself) in his outfit that I painstakingly selected.  He had his backpack ready and stocked with supplies (in a surprising turn of events, he didn't want a new backpack and kept his superhero one that he had carried to preschool) and his lunch was packed in his awesome new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle lunchbox.  (WHEN WILL I EVER BE ABLE TO STOP PACKING LUNCHES?!?) Everything seemed to be going well, we were right on schedule....time to take the mandatory back to school pictures!!  *cue the hysterical crying here*

Yep, he went from calm, cool, and collected to hysterical, just like that.  I don't know if the reality sunk in for him or what, but whatever it was, he was not a happy camper.  He was sobbing that he didn't want to go, he would miss me, he wanted to go back to preschool, he missed his friends....ugh!  as if this morning wasn't hard enough for me as it was, I was barely holding it together before he started crying.  Somehow, I managed to keep from crying myself and telling him I'd just homeschool him.  What ended up saving the day was a water bottle, of all things.  I had bought him a new Superman water bottle to take in his lunch box and had forgotten to show it to him; I remembered this, told him I had a surprise and busted it out for him.  Sobs turned to sniffles within seconds....crisis averted.  Picture time!!!

That adorable first day of kindergarten sign can be found here.  (thank you, pinterest!)



We got through the trauma of getting Jake's meltdown only to face another meltdown: Liam!!  As I suspected, Liam had a terrible time with his brother's departure.  Liam is completely obsessed with Jake, and at daycare they would often tell me how excited Liam would be to spot Jake during the day, or how much they loved it if they were doing a whole-center activity and got to play together.  I knew it wasn't going to be easy on the little guy, yet somehow, it was worse than I expected.  He was literally sobbing, "No Jakey!  Don't leave me!  Don't go!"  There I was at the bus stop, trying to hold it all together for the sake of everyone, telling my first baby goodbye and trying to keep my second baby from having a nervous breakdown over the whole thing.

Brian then took Liam into daycare; I had the day off and a million errands to run, but I gave myself a time-out at home first.  I cried, looked at some pictures of Jake when he was a baby (that didn't help matters, just for the record), then tried to not fall down the rabbit hole. Letting your kids go is  one of those things as a mother where you start to feel like you're Alice falling down the rabbit hole.  Today it's kindergarten, next it's middle school, then high school, what if he gets a concussion playing sports?,  then they're going to prom and OMG what if his date isn't nice?,  and then college, then they're getting married, and so on and so forth.  Everyone does this right?  Right?

But he was ready for kindergarten.  And he'll be ready for all of that other stuff, too.  But I'm trying to not worry about that right now.  Right now, he is in kindergarten, and he still misses me when he leaves.  Right now, he's in kindergarten and he was the most excited kid in the world when I surprised him with a trip to the ice cream shop after picking him up on his first day.

He's in kindergarten, and he still brings home things like this to me:

He's in kindergarten, and we're so proud of the little boy he's becoming.

The Road to Kindergarten: Part 1

I was in the kitchen, doing my usual morning routine: sip of coffee....get out vitamins for kids...sip of coffee...who needs a glass of milk?....sip of coffee.....get Gracie her breakfast....look at the time and realize that I need to chug the remainder of the coffee....as I'm putting my mug in the sink, I happened to glance at the calendar...time to flip it over!  August.  It was here.  Brian came up the stairs having finished ironing his work clothes, and I said "well...it's August.  The official Month of Kindergarten.  Countdown is ON!" Brian made a cheers-ing motion with his coffee, in salute to the fact that we would be slicing our daycare bill in half with Jake's departure.

And just like that, we flew through August...back to school shopping for supplies (this made me happier than I care to admit), figuring out first day of school outfits and orientation outfits, and what does one wear to a parents orientation??  All of this preparation, and then the week rolled around.

I'm not sure who was more anxious, me or Jake.  We were both excited for sure...he was anxious about making friends, finding someone to eat with at lunch, whether or not he would like his teacher.  I was anxious about all of those things for him PLUS anxiety over the unknown.  For me, that's always the worst part of anything new....I hate not knowing what I'm getting in to.  This goes for big things, like the first day of school or a new presentation that I have to do for work....and trivial things, like if I go to a different Target than I'm used to and I don't know where anything is.  Honestly, I think it should be a corporate rule of some sort that any big box store has to have the exact same layout no matter the location.  I'm onto something there, right? Right??

Totally off track, sorry.  So I had a lot of anxiety; going to parents orientation calmed down a lot of that for me, and it helped that I felt like I won the lottery in terms of the teacher he got.  No joke, when they announced who was in her class, I saw a few parents do the little silent fist pump to themselves in victory!  When the woman next to me saw which teacher we had, she tapped me on the shoulder with a desperate look in her eye and asked if we could trade folders so that her kid could have Jake's teacher, that she had been hoping all summer that's who she'd be assigned to.  Needless to say, I walked out of orientation feeling like I won the big prize of the night.

Jake had his orientation a few days later; unfortunately, I had a work event that I needed to be there for, so Brian was on his own.  Jake loved his teacher, and made a few new friends.  And I think that just seeing the way everything worked, the layout of the school, etc...really helped his anxiety about the new adventure, too.  (Like mother, like son!)

Working on the classroom scavenger hunt

They have little lockers: you just died from the level of cuteness, right??

After the classroom fun, they got to go test out the school bus!!

He looks so small in comparison to the giant bus!

Definitely a successful orientation! 

The road to kindergarten...to be continued....

Here I am!!

You've missed me terribly, yes?  Dry your tears, I'm back! 

My last post was on August 8th; prior to that, I wrote a post about how I was being a blog slacker due to the fact that it was summer, and the fact that I had recently become Scandal-obsessed.  I'm pleased to announce that the madness of August is past us....we had another successful luau party (I promise a post with pics soon), did some other fun summer stuff during the last official month of summer, and got Jake started at kindergarten.  YES, kindergarten.  A post to follow about that, I promise. 

In the time since I last posted, I finished up watching Scandal (2 seasons of back-to-back episode binge watching = a girl who is VERY excited for season 3 to start at the beginning of October), read a few books, fed my family a lot of things that would not be considered a real meal (though I received the award for "coolest mom ever" the day that I slapped some fruit and cupcakes on the table and called it dinner).....which has led me to realize that I need to get my act together and get back into the habit of meal planning/prep on the weekends (or that I just need to hit the lottery and find myself a personal assistant, chauffeur, and cook, which would solve a lot of my problems) but I digress.....and I've sent my first baby off to school on the big cheese wagon and he's survived the first few days.  And so have I.  Barely at times, but we're all still here.  Much more to come on that later.

Just wanted to get a post out there to assure everyone that we are alive and well....and looking forward to fall, for sure.  Cheers with your PSL!!!!!!!!!