Since all of Max’s life he has had a playmate. With Mally in school he lost his playmate two days a week and I hear “Momma, you play with me?” all day long. So I’ve been trying to teach him how to play by himself.
I had to unload the dishwasher so I set him up with a cookie sheet and cornmeal to drive around in.
Little did I know it was going to make a HUGE mess.
He played in that cornmeal for the longest time!
I’m afraid I haven’t brought out the cornmeal again. That was a one time fun.
The morning came! She was so excited. Hopped right out of bed when her alarm went off. She couldn’t wait. I was nervous. Very nervous. Didn’t even bother with makeup because I knew it was going to be cried off.
Jesse was able to take her to school with us. Which was so great… for me! : ) I needed my rock!
We get to school and we walk her to her classroom and there are kids and parents (what feels like) everywhere. We find where her backpack goes and hang her stuff up and her teacher says we can take her into the classroom and show her the toys and get her comfortable. We take her in and she goes to the block table and I give her a big hug and kiss and tell her I’ll be back when she is done. She says, Okay. I walk away in tears. Head down trying to get out of that classroom. Tears falling.
As I am trying to sneak out of that classroom without everyone seeing me crying. Her teacher spots me and slips me a package of M&Ms (her magic medicine) and tells me whenever I am sad today to eat them.
There were a few moments throughout the day when I would tear up when I looked at the schedule to see what she was doing at that time. When it was time to go and get her I was so excited! I couldn’t wait! I get her and the first thing she tells me is how she didn’t get to eat her cookies in her lunch and if she can eat them in the truck. : ) And to this day the first thing she always tells me is about her lunch. I pack her lunch too – so I know about her lunch already, but I try to be good about packing special items for her. I guess I’m doing a good job at it because it is the first thing she tells me about.
Max was pretty excited to have a day with just me. He is a totally different boy when it is just him and I. He is loving his special time with me.
I made this for her school folder. I put together folders for every year of school and want to take pictures of her for the cover… and this is her pre-school cover.
Inside the folder go special items/memorabilia from the school year. This will prevent me from keeping everything. : )
Every since I got my house back – I have a real hard time with messes. I really like my house to be clean and organized and nothing out of place now. I sometimes question if I have a newly found disorder.
Sometimes I just grit my teeth and take deep breaths and let this happen.
To better help me cope – I decided to show the mess off.
Mallory & I have special reading time. She loves books. Max loves books too – but not as much as Mally. So we read a few books to Max and put him to bed and then Mallory can bring as many books as she wants for me to read before she goes down for her rest/nap. Sometimes it is a huge stack and we sit there for 30 minutes… sometimes it is a short stack. This day it was a big stack!
Randomness! Mallory Randomness! She got a new towel with her name on it – so of course she needs to carry it around with her.
Rubber glove from her doctor kit (again thankyouverymuch Sister Shannon for all the million random doctor things I find around my house!) and a pompom!
Woody!
Mallory loves Toy Story! She has watched all three of them countless number of times. The couple who bought our business sent the kids this Woody & a Buzz. Mallory loves him so much! However, after watching that movie so much he kind of weirds me out! I’m always waiting for him to hop up and run around!
Last but not least her grocery list.
If I’m writing a grocery list – she needs a grocery list. She almost 90% of the time forgets her list at home though when we go. She may or may not get that from me…
We decided to send Mallory to school. It was a really hard decision for me. I wanted her to go – yet I didn’t want her to go. I wanted to homeschool – yet I didn’t want to.
It came about in kind of a funky way – we decided on the school we wanted and I thought I had signed her up for school when I went to the open house. I never received anything saying when school started and who was her teacher and what days she would be going. I called the school and found I had to fill out open-enrollment paperwork. I never knew about this stuff! The secretary also gave me this feeling that it was almost too late to get her in.
I went to school thinking she wasn’t going to be able to go. I had visions of turning my shop office into a tiny homeschool classroom. (It was really cute and super fun in my head.) Not the case. I left with my paperwork all filled out and with her signed up for school, she had a teacher, and a date and time to meet the teacher! I’ll be honest – there were a few (just a few) tears on the drive home from the school. I even told the secretary – if it is too late to get her in that is just fine with me. She said, oh no we’ll get her in.
The day rolled around for her to meet her teacher and she could not have been more excited! She was ready for this so call world of school!
We go to the school and see her classroom and meet her teacher and the teacher aide. As we are walking into the classroom her teacher says “Hi Miss Mallory! I remember you!” I was blown away! We met this teacher last Fall/Winter. And there were 100s of kids there. How did she remember meeting Mallory!
Mallory and Max find the toys and start playing up a storm. The teacher gives us the run down of what goes on in a typical day/year. Gives us more paperwork. Then she talks to each family individually. We were the second to the last family. The last family I had seen a few times during story hour and we causally spoke before. And actually our kids took Mommy & Me swim classes together (when they were tiny babies) and here we are sending them off to preschool together! Small World!
Her teacher starts talking and the tears start to come for me. She looks at me and says “Do you have allergies?” Um… no. I tell her that I am having a hard time with this. She is so positive and encouraging and upbeat and loving and just awesome! This other Mom says she is struggling too – however she is way stronger then me though because she doesn’t shed a tear!!
Her teacher tells me that these kids are her kids when they are in her classroom. She loves on them and treats them just like she would her own children. Then she tells me that she gives them “magic medicine” when they cry, miss a parent, or get hurt. She says she will have magic medicine for me when I come to drop her off on her first day.
We leave and Mallory can’t wait until she gets to really go and go for a whole day!!! She is so excited about being able to spend a whole day there! She has a count down started on when she can go! Did I mention she can’t wait?! : )
Max was in the office with me one night and he found this dead spider and it cracked me up so I started recording him.
I love when he laughs about the dead spider then instantly gets sad about it. Love when he tells me he is not brave and that he is not big enough!
Jesse’s Mom took the girls (Ellyn & Mally) shopping for new school clothes. Well Mallory found the exact outfit that Ellyn wears and she talked Grandma Mary into getting it for her.
On Ellyn’s last day with us they dressed in their matching outfits and they both needed their hair braided.
I would have to say that Ellyn had the best summer of her life. She loved every minute of it here and didn’t want to go home! She was able to take 4 weeks of summer school where she learned cooking and swimming. She didn’t know how to swim when she got here – she left knowing how to swim! Cooking… that’s still a little risky.
She was able to travel the country a bit. I think she was only out of Wisconsin once and that was to the twin cities.
My kids also loved having her here! It never got old for them. It did for Ellyn sometimes. She wanted her alone time and time for 10-year old stuff. For the most part though she did an awesome job with them.
She is already planning next summer… and it is staying with us again. I keep telling her that she might be old enough by then to spend the summer at home. She doesn’t think so.
Setting: Eating lunch at the counter talking about getting older. I’m telling Mallory she will be 4 forever, she can’t get any older then 4.
Mallory: I wanna be a momma when I’m big.
Me: Yup. I know you want to be a momma.
Little bit of silence…
Mallory: Then I can give them time-outs while daddy is at work.
Me: You want to be a momma so you can give time-outs?
Mallory: Well if they are naughty they will have to have a time-out.
So apparently the highlight of growing up and being a momma is handing out time-outs…
We came home from Florida via Nashville. It was a long day in a vehicle and we pulled into Nashville at 9:30pm. Max was crying since 9pm – he wanted out of that carseat! We went straight to the hotel – got in our beds and watched a little bit of TV and then lights out.
The next morning (Friday) we went down main street of Nashville to see all the music joints. It would be so fun to go back there to go to those bars and watch these up and comers trying to make it. However we had three kids with us – so we just kept on driving and never got out.
We texted our friends, Brandon & Natalie, in Indianapolis to see if they were going to be home and if we could come stay with them for a night. They were and we were welcome to come.
Brandon & Natalie had two tickets to an outdoor concert – Dirks Bentley & Miranda Lambert… which Natalie asked if I wanted to go with her. I told her no. I would love to go, however it was our anniversary – it was the end of the vacation – kids were exhausted – I didn’t want to leave Jesse with the kids – I didn’t want to leave Jesse on our anniversary. So I tell Natalie no and hang up. I tell Jesse and he tells me to go. The kids are just going to play and he knows Natalie and I would love it. I call her back and tell her that Jesse says we need to go!
We got our country on and took their Jeep without the top.
Natalie and I had a blast. All the kids had a blast playing. The Dads also had a great time.
The next morning we got up to leave to go home. We weren’t even at our friends for 24 hours. The kids were so mad when it was time to go. They wanted to stay and play longer. I was so mad too. : )
It was a great family vacation. Tons of memories were made. Talk of doing this again next year is happening!
