School!

Technically today was not the first day of school, it was the Open House, which means I went with the girls.  They’re signed up for two days a week, Tuesday and Wednesday, from 9am to noon.  Tuesday is Gym class! And Wednesday is Music class!  And I know they’re going to love it.  We visited the school back in June and I had to pry the two of them out of there.  All summer we’ve talked about school and every day for the last week Charlotte has woken up and said “Today I’m going to school!”  Ah, the anticipation.

So today’s Open House was close enough – to Katie and Lala it meant SCHOOL. 

    

They went right in, sat down at the play kitchen and never looked back.  Played with every single toy they could get their hands on, hugged and kissed the teachers, inspected the class fish, ate the donuts someone brought in for the teachers.  After about an hour, they both said they were ready to go home and headed for the door.  I said okay, say goodbye to your teacher, you’ll see her next week. 

“No.” Charlotte said “No more school, I’m done.”  Uh oh.

I told them they get to go back again (and again and again and again….) without Mommy, and they said oh no, no way.  Grandma will go with us.  Or Daddy.  Or even better, we won’t go back.  We’re done.  They don’t quite grasp the whole school concept yet, I guess.  I still think they’re going to love it….  I hope.  Tune in next Tuesday to see how the REAL first day goes. 

Good times. Mostly.

We just got back from two weeks at the beach, and it feels like we’ve been gone forever.  It was a LONG two weeks.  There were some really good times, some not so good times, and some “Is this  &#!*$&* vacation over yet?” times. 

 

I really thought going down the shore was going to be so much easier this year because in general this whole summer has been so much easier, but we had sick kids and sleep issues and rain all added in to the mix.  Charlotte was sick when we went down but she only had a fever, nothing else, and it seemed to pass pretty quickly.  This past Monday Katie woke up from her nap with a high fever and I figured she had whatever it was that Lala had been sick with, no big deal  But she was much sicker than Charlotte had been, the fever lasted all week and her stomach was a disaster (I’ll spare you the details.  You’re welcome.) 

 
Katie took a nap on the beach on Monday.  We thought it was so cute.  Little did we know, it wasn’t cute.  It was the plague.

Wednesday night I decided to take her to Urgent Care.  I wasn't overly worried about her but she seemed so miserable, i figured maybe they could do something to help her.  When the doctor examined Katie, she was concerned with how tender her stomach was on the right side, combined with her other symptoms… and so off we went to spend a fun evening at the local hospital having Katie checked for appendicitis.  Which it was determined (about oh, 1am) that it wasn’t.  Most likely stomach flu. 

We still managed to have a lot of fun though, and Katie fortunately seems much better today.  My girls both still like the beach (Katie more than Lala) and they LOVE the boardwalk and the rides. 

Charlotte in green, Katie in red.  Lala picked out the sweatshirts.  It was like Christmas in August.

I think we are all really happy to be home, back in our own beds (and near our own doctors).  And now another adventure is about to begin…. preschool! 

   

Be My Baby

Wait, what?

We’re not little babies anymore?

We don’t look like this?

 

And we don’t sleep in a crib but in a BED?

 

Well how the hell did that happen?

Wasn’t it only yesterday we were little enough to sleep together on a pillow?

No.  Almost three years.  The cribs were up for almost three years.  And tonight, they came down.

  

The girls love their new beds.  They couldn’t have been more excited.  I felt half excited for them, and half terribly sad.  I wish they could have stayed babies just a little bit longer. It’s the end for this house, I think, the end of cribs.  The end of baby things. 

I’ll miss them.

 

Mommy is tired.

The hardest part of having a baby, to me, has always been sleep.  Trying to get them to sleep, keeping them asleep and then functioning yourself without nearly enough sleep.

For awhile now my girls have been sleeping great.  Going to bed fine, sleeping all night, sleeping until 7:30 or even 8am.  Yep. 

But about a month ago, Charlotte started having some issues and it’s been downhill with her ever since. She seems to be having a lot of nightmares, and after she has one she just will NOT go back to sleep.  Or let me leave her room.  Even the nights she doesn’t have a nightmare, she still is nervous and panicky and if she wakes up will be almost impossible to get back to sleep.  When she is asleep, i can’t sleep, i lay in bed staring at her on the monitor, watching her like she’s a ticking time bomb, just waiting…. waiting…. waiting….

I’m tired.  As I tell Charlotte every single night.  Mommy is TIRED. 

I am a disaster when I’m tired.  I have no patience, i have no motivation, i have no nothing.  Even my sense of humor seems to disappear.  I’m starting to consider slipping some Benadryl into Lala’s nightly cup of milk.  (Not really, of course.  Okay maybe.  No not really.  Sort of.)

My gigantic kids are still in cribs, and Katie is still sleeping in hers fine, but we decided to try them in toddler beds and see if that helps.  So this weekend, we’ll be setting them lose at night in their own little beds and seeing if that helps Charlotte.  God help me.  Seriously, God, please, help me. I’m dreading this. 

I love the beds we bought them, but I am so sad to see the cribs go.  It’s like the last piece of babyhood we have left.  The last thing we once had three of.  Those three white cribs, all lined up waiting for their tiny owners to come sleep in them.  I can’t believe that part of our lives is over.  It went so fast.  I am absolutely crazy about my smart, funny, sweet almost three year olds.  But  I miss my babies, all three of them.

Wake me up when August ends

People always talk about the ‘terrible twos.’  Now that we are most of the way through TWO (times two) I can say that I honestly haven’t found it terrible at all.  I’ve loved the age of two, loved.  This summer especially has been so much fun, and it’s amazing how much easier it’s been to go places and do things compared to last summer.

BUT

We’ve hit a little snag this week.  I’ve heard a lot of rumblings from mom friends lately about three.  That the age of three, actually, is way way more ‘terrible’ than two.  I wonder if we’ve started to hit the dreaded THREE a little bit early.  My sweet little Charlotte has become unbelievably defiant, and while I’ve always known she’s stubborn, lately it’s like living with a mule.  She YELLS at me.  Attitude! And all of a sudden she does not want to sleep.  At all.  Ever.  Poor Katie, who has always loved sleep and will ask to take a nap, is so sleep deprived, I've actually heard her tell Charlotte “I’m TIRED Lala!  Be quiet!!”  Yes, Lala, please, listen to Katie. 

The last few days aside, the summer of fun has continued.  I had all these plans of things I was going to do before the end of summer, including REALLY potty training the girls and I've yet to check one thing off that list.  But the other list, the great summer list?

Pool-

CHECK! 

Boardwalk-

CHECK!

Aquarium-

CHECK!

Park-

CHECK! 

Zoo-

CHECK!

Carnival-

CHECK!     

Baseball Game-

CHECK!

The beach is soon to come – vacation the end of August.  It’s been a pretty jam packed (awesome) summer so far.  One month left…. I think we will ALL be ready for fall.  And PRE-SCHOOL! 

Summertime

I keep starting a post then losing steam.

I was going to write about taking the girls to their first movie (Toy Story 3) and how they LOVED it and totally shocked me by sitting through the entire thing and being incredibly well behaved (the giant bucket of popcorn helped).  But that happened weeks ago and it feels like the moment has passed.

Same with the fireworks. I was prepared for disaster when we took them, since loud noises still freak them out (they’re STILL scared of the vacuum and don't you dare use the hand dryer in the ladies room, I’ll have to peel Katie off the ceiling).  I talked the fireworks up, how fun they were, and beautiful!  I brought up the ever popular Max and Ruby and how they LOVED fireworks.  I got them earplugs.  They loved the pre fireworks festivities, and once the actual fireworks started they…. freaked out a little.  Katie kept saying “OK Mommy, I’m ready to go home.  Let’s go home!”  But within about two minutes she was oohing and aahing and saying WOW!  I like the green ones!  Charlotte never really warmed up to them, she pretty much kept her head buried in my mom’s shoulder, but she did sit through them and now says she liked them but they were loud.  And a little scary.

 

So there’s the fireworks in a nutshell. 

There’s not much else going on.  We go to the pool almost every nice day and they swim likes fishes (really, they swim, it’s amazing). 

This is them on Monday on their way into the pool.  Charlotte insisted on wearing dress up plastic shoes and it just wasn’t worth fighting over.  Not to be left out, Katie had to wear her Jets baseball hat.  Backwards.  Oh and a necklace. They made quite the duo.

Did I mention Charlotte’s shoes were both right feet?  Yep.

I hope everyone is having as much summer fun as we are. :)

Blonde and tan and trouble

This is Charlotte.

(She told me to take her picture this afternoon, saying “CHEESE MOMMY!”)

She is (I must say) adorable.  She is also tan.  I have girls that tan, despite copious amounts of sunscreen. 

(After I took these she said “Thank you Mommy!” I tried to take Katie’s too but she wasn’t having it.  But here’s one of her from earlier in the day showing how cute she is too.  And tan.)

The girls are so tan because they love to be outside, and love anything to do with water.  We all love our town pool.

Charlotte especially loves the BIG pool.  She will sometimes play in the Kiddie pool but she would much rather play in the BIG pool.  She can’t go in the BIG pool without Mommy though, and so sometimes, when Mommy won’t take her in, she just sits on a bench and pouts.

(This picture is called “Mommy Stinks.  So does the Kiddie Pool.”)

While Katie plays in the Kiddie pool, sweet as could be, having a nice little tea party. 

Charlotte is stubborn.    

    

She sat on this bench for a good half hour. 

    

She gazed longingly at the big pool.

Did i mention she’s stubborn?

And adorable.  And oh yeah…. tan.