Over The Heat

I gotta say, I'm OVER the heat and humidity here in AZ. This last week has sucked ass and has been extremely humid. It's monsoon season. Don't let the word 'monsoon' fool you. When I think of monsoon, I think of rain and a lot of it. I think it's the wrong word. We live in the damn desert. It doesn't rain in monsoon quantity. We get more blowing sand and dust than rain. And let me just tell you I LOVE that (insert an extreme amount of sarcasm here, as much as you can possibly muster and multiply it by 100).

We did get a lot of rain over the winter (no complaints from me!) but that was probably some weird weather freak of nature. It's like we got it all then and nothing now. I mean come on spread the raining love over the year.

On a different note, Sweet Girl is doing better with the school drop off. She still really doesn't talk to any kids while standing in line. I wish she would, I guess I would feel better if she had a friend. But it is only the 4th day and it will probably take her a little longer to make friends.

2nd Day Not As Good As the First

Second day of school droop off was not as good as the first. I guess she knew what she was in for and it caused her some more nervousness and apprehension.

The drop off started off bad as someone tapped my bumper in the parking lot line as I was pulling in. No damage but really WTF lady, pay attention. And seriously this would ONLY happen to me on the second day of school.

The Sweet Girl was not as happy and excited today to wait in line. I tried to time it so we only had to wait a few minutes. But even in those few minutes she complained of a tummy ache and would not let go of my arm or hand. Yesterday I was able to get out of line and let her walk in. Today there were tears and I had to walk with her to almost the building.

She wouldn't talk to the other girls standing in line around her. Yesterday she said she talked to some girls but really I wonder if she did.

Little Man also had a first day at his new "school" as well. He did fine. I don't worry about him interacting and participating. He is outgoing and talks. His status sheet said he had a great day and enjoyed playing with paint.

It's funny, I do worry about both of them but they are for the exact opposite reasons. The ones strength is the other ones weakness. I would never worry about Little Man taking long to adapt to a new situation, even with people he doesn't know. But I DO worry about his academics. That kid has NO desire to practice his letters. He can't spell his name. They practices X's in school yesterday and he tried making them H's. Sigh. This would be my last worry about Sweet Girl, that kid could spell her name at 2.5. She already knows and can spell all the sight words they have to know for this year. But new social situations, forget it. I worry until I'm almost sick. All this unbeknownst to either one. And I know boys are different, don't compare your kids, blah blah blah. I get it. I would never say you need to be more like Little Man or Sweet Girl to either one of them. They are individuals. I just think it's funny how the strength of one is the weakness of the other. I guess it all balances out. At least I only have one major worry per kid. And maybe that kid can be an example. Although that hasn't really worked yet, probably because I haven't pointed it out. Nor do I plan to, so I'm back to where I started.

I wonder if I kept Little Man home with me instead of working if he would learn more? But I'm Mom and playmate. Not Mom the Official Teacher. Not that I don't teach him things because I do, we've just never had structured teaching/learning time at home. Not sure how that transition would go for either of us. And he does like interacting with the other kids.

Ah the joys of parenting. It's a never ending quest for balance, happiness, and all that without guilt!

The Beginning of A New Era

Well it's done, Sweet Girl has crossed the threshold that begins her academic career. Yesterday was her first day of first grade.

I was so proud of her. I was proud of myself too, for holding it together and not breaking down like one of the kindergartners.

I gave her a charm bracelet with some charms. Each one signifying something special. A cupcake because she is sweet and special. A snow cone because she is one super cool kid. An owl as her good luck charm so whenever she is nervous at school about doing something, she is to hold the charm and say to herself "I can do it". The owl is significant because he is ALL OVER their classroom. He is their class "pet" and stands for Our World of Learning. The last charm was a Friends 4 Ever from a couple of her friends to signify she will always have friends and will make new ones. I think it really helped her.

She stood in line and we stepped out of the way. She turned back once for a wave and then she was off walking with her class to her new room.

No tears.

A big girl.

A 1st grader.

Sigh

I have to say again, I'm not really sure I am ready for my Sweet Girl to be starting first grade. I don't let her know about my anxiety around it, I am always upbeat and excited when I talk about it. How exciting it will be to go to the new school, to make new friends and all that. I'm doing that in hopes that she will be excited too, looking forward to the new year. And while I know she is probably excited, nerves and being afraid are starting to tip the scales. I can see it happening. I know she's feeling that way because she is unfortunately just like me. I hated school in the beginning. HATED IT. I hope it's not like that for her. It makes me hurt thinking of her feeling that way.

We have the meet the teacher night tomorrow. I hope this helps her, we can talk about more of what to expect over the weekend. That generally helps her deal when she has an idea of what's coming.

I never expected my kids going to school to have this effect on me.

Cloud Cover

Summer in Arizona is not my favorite time of year. My acceptance of triple digit temps lasts about a week and then it's annoyingly tolerated. Mostly because what other choice do I have at this point? The past couple weeks have been particularly brutal with temps of 115 on multiple days. The pool isn't even refreshing and actual feels hot. I prefer to just sit in the house and watch TV when it's that hot out. But thankfully the temps like that are short lived (and really if they were not I would not be living here) and we'll be back to cooler temps soon. Yeah soon = probably 3 months but still there is at least relief in sight.

Today we had cloud cover and even some rain (by AZ standards). I was pleased to see the blue sky covered with a nice layer of cloud cover and the blue grey rain clouds. I wish I could have sat on the patio and just stared at the cloud covered sky. But alas I was stuck on conference calls most of the morning and now it appears the sun is back out. Yay. You know how they say people in Seattle tire of the rain, well I have the same feeling about the sun. Too much of a good thing is bad in my opinion. Jeez I'm jonesing for cloud cover to hide the giant hot ass ball of gas for a few days.

There are a lot of changes coming up for us. This may mean some good blog topics which inspire me to write more often. Sweet Girl starts first grade on Monday. I'll be a big giant emotional ball of mess trying to hold myself together so she doesn't notice. Little Man goes to a new day care/preschool on Monday too. He'll be fine, no worries about him. He talks to everyone and does fine in new situations. Other changes coming which I'm sure will be a new adventure and stress that will need to be dealt with by writing. More on that later. But no I'm not pregnant. Let's just get that one out there now, that's not the change.

Here's to more cloud cover!

Long Time No Write

So again I'm slacker blogger. Like you need any reminders of that. If anyone is even left reading it.

We've had a fun few weeks. We headed to the beach, the Florida Gulf Coast. Yes the coast that has oil. We called it our disaster tour.

We started out in Nashville and Middle TN (disaster 1 = flood) where we had a b'day party for Little Man who turned 4 on the 4th of July. It was a good party, at the Pump It Up. Always fun to let the kids jump themselves silly. A little touch and go there for a minute as Little Man almost puked just before we had to leave for the party. Impeccable timing that kid has. He went pale white and lost all color in his lips. I think it was because he hadn't eaten all morning. And so I gave that kid some coke, a cheese stick and some goldfish. He seemed better. Although honestly I was expecting him to ralph in the bounce houses (he didn't but it wouldn't have shocked me at that point...). We shipped home a small toy store from his b'day gifts...

We then proceeded to disaster area #2 - The Gulf Coast. I obsessively watched all the sites, trajectory maps, everything to see if that oil was going to affect our vacation. I mean seriously we didn't fly 2000 miles across the country to go to the beach when we couldn't even actually GO to the beach. Everything was looking good, it was looking to avoid the area, until two days before we were going to arrive. We went anyway, praying. We got to the beach and thankfully there was no oil lapping on shore, but we do have a few tar balls on shore. The water itself was clear most days, a couple days we dealt with some June grass, but it was clear mostly. So we swam. Hopefully in 6 months we don't find out that swimming was a bad idea. It was fun, we enjoyed the beach pretty much every day.
Except for the time when Leo, myself and Sweet Girl were all puking. Oh yes, no vacation of ours is complete without vomit. And we got it. Lots of it. Good times. I'll spare you the details. Ironically our normal puker, Little Man, was spared. How odd. I expect the next trip will be two times as bad for him. Poor kid, poor me.

The vacation motto: Is that a tar ball? and Are you going to throw up? I made Little Man nuts with asking him this. I was just waiting and waiting for him to puke. And alas he did not. And no one else that went with us puked either. I was happy to not share that with anyone.

We loved visiting with our friends and family on our trip. It was great and fun. And while I don't have that same feeling of longing anymore when we drive around the Nashville area, I do have that longing feeling for all my friends and family. Having them all together for Garrett's b'day and some came over to my parents was so nice. I miss them all terribly. I love being around everyone.

I was happy to get home. But wish I was at the beach still. Maybe that means I need a house at the beach? I think that sounds lovely.

We then celebrated Little Man's official b'day on the 4th. We tried to stay up and watch the fireworks that were "just for him" but both kids totally crashed out in the back of the truck while we were waiting. And then they slept until 8 AM the next day. Sweetness!

And now it's back to the norm. School and work. I liked when the norm was what time should we go to the beach today?