Time For School

Times two. Both my little guys have endured massive changes over the past few weeks. The Boy has started kindergarten and The Little Boy(my baaayyybeeeee) has started preschool. And I've only cried a little.

So far, so good. Despite my reservations about his age(he's five but one of the few kids from his preschool to skip pre-k. Stupid redshirting!) and Common Core, The Boy seems to be doing well. He's actually had a bit of homework, but he rocked writing his name and is getting better at writing his numbers - 5 is tricky, yo.

And The Little Boy is doing a bit better at preschool than he was last week. No more screaming bloody murder when we leave. Now a nice hug from a teacher calms him down just enough to get J's out the door. He's even made some art and developed a love for playdoh.

Yay boys!

Nature

It's tricky, really, us living in the suburbs and me being disabled, but the boys don't get to experience as much nature and outdoorsy stuff as I'd like. So we take exposure to flora and fauna where we can find it. Like last weekend when we took a trip to the garden center and my little guy...

... saw this little guy. Who was, as far as I'm aware, the first real live caterpillar The Boy's ever seen.

Still Little, Almost Big

The Boy is four years old. Almost five, but still four. I have, of course, been aware of how fast time flies and how quickly kids grow, but I only just now - like, thirty seconds ago - was struck by how much older five is than four. 

Four is still preschool, toddler-sized shoes and baby cartoons. But five? Kindergarten and a whole lot of other scary growing up stuff. 

I'm not ready. I have twenty-seven days to get my head round the idea that my baby, the sweet little dude that I could have sworn was born just a few days ago, is a big boy. 

Here are some piccies from this weekend of him looking like my little guy, but bigger.

Wordless Wednesday

Kids These Days

Or should I say, people. 

I got a reminder yesterday of the dumbing down of all of us. I loaded up my Amazon cart with some pretty serious books - Gogol, Plath, Chaucer, Michael Chabon(I'm a nerd and it's free shipping once you hit 35 bucks) - and before I was allowed to checkout my screen filled with an offer for a college student credit card.

This tells me two things; 1)that college students must be the last remaining readers of such classics and 2) that cookies, or whatever it is that keeps an eye on your spending habits, may be good at guessing what a target audience is for what, but it's really bad at math. 

I mean, I made my first Amazon order 13 years ago. I was teaching myself to cook and ordered a Le Creuset pot - grown up. I also had it delivered to my work, the first real job I had after college - also grown up. 

And that brings is back to college. Why are college kids the only people reading books that should be read by, well, everyone.

Bums me out, man.

I Am Not A Cool Mom

Much like I 'found myself' in the years after high school, I feel like I'm finally settling into who I am as apparent and, dare I say, as an adult. And yes, I am forty years old, married, have kids and own a house yet am only just now getting used to being an adult. So, like in those years after high school when I realized I was a coffee shop loving bookish writer and not a sorority girl, I'm finally getting it.  I'm a bit late, but I'm here. Sort of.


All that said, there is a pang of jealousy at realizing I don't really belong. The platoons of expensive stroller pushing moms out for a morning walk/jog; the small cadres of hippy moms wearing their babies while their biggest kids play nearby in a park or playground; the hipster working moms or hippy stay at home moms at The Boy's preschool drop-off. I am at best invisible to most of them and, to the horror of my inner middle-schooler who wants to be liked by everyone, eyed suspiciously as 'other' by a depressing number of them. At first I thought it was because no one wants to hang out with the crippled mom, but now I'm pretty sure it's because I am now, and have always been, a dork.


And hey, if being a dork worked for me before it can work for me again.


Working on it.

The End of an Era

It was The Boy's last day of preschool today. Per tradition, he wore his jammies and I cried a little. 

I am so very proud and can't believe how fast the time has flown. 

The Beach

A short while back we had to take a lightening-fast trip to the beach. As in, Hubs wrapped up work early one day and we were back in time for him to get back to work after lunch the next day. All I hoped for was for my boys, all three of them, to see the sunset over the Pacific.

Mission accomplished.

One Sunday in November

Oh. My. God, has it been forever. The 4th of July was my last post? Really?

 

Shameful, but Summer break, birthdays, house hunting, house buying, school starting, moving, illness, and another birthday meant I was too busy to think about my little blog.

 

So, in lieu of catching up, here are some photos from our Sunday. I wanted to do "10 on 10," but couldn't quite make it.

Happy 4th of July

Wordless Wednesday

A Bad Morning

Do you remember those mornings in high school when it all went wrong? Like not real world, starving children wrong, but Molly Ringwald wrong? The kind where the boy you like holds hands with another girl, you get a bad grade on a test then your bestie abandons you to have lunch with somebody else. This morning was one of those mornings.

After signing The Boy in at school I found him with two other boys. My love was showing one of his teddy bears to the boys and one of the boys said, 'I don't like that bear. His paws are scary.'

The Boy responded sweetly, 'but he's a really nice bear. He's just waving.' But the other boys seemed unconvinced. My heart hurt a little. I wanted those boys to accept The Boy and his bear and hoped desperately that his feelings weren't hurt.

Not wanting to embarrass him by hovering, I turned and left. As I headed out I saw two moms, one of whom I've spoken two several times before, having a chat. They'd been chatting when The Boy and I arrived too. No big deal, right? But coming on the heals of the mean boys being mean to The Boy, I just felt. like I was an invisible teenager again.

And just like in high school I wanted to come home, cry into my pillow and tell my cat how much I was hurting. I didn't, but this still sucks. I hate that my already shaky confidence is made even shakier by the fact that I'm disabled. I hate that the normal growing up and getting out into the world stuff The Boy is going through has to be experienced, by both of us, with me being the weird mom that no one wants to talk to.

I feel blue.

Travel

THIS post, written  by Andrea forever ago, brought back back bad memories of our flight back from Heathrow almost two years ago. We had an 11 AM flight and checked in in a daze before racing to the terminal before breakfast assuming we'd grab something to eat near our departure gate. We arrived a half hour before boarding only to realize, it being Heathrow and all, there was nothing AT the gate. No restaurant, cafe or shop, just a few crappy vending machines. So, awesome parents that we are, we gave The Boy some chips(crisps) and chocolate hoping to tide him over until we were given lunch on the plane.

Fast forward an hour and we were sitting on the plane with a child screaming from hunger, smiling sheepishly and apologizing while the rest of the passengers shot us eye-daggers as they boarded.

It looked something like this

It sucked, and we learned our lesson.

Since then we've avoided plane-travel but have begun our annual trip to San Francisco and have added another baby to take with us, but we're trying to keep things as simple as we can - in life and travel. But this is a big year. The Little Boy is turning one and I'm turning forty, both occasions to be marked by travel and, when added to our regular trips turn '13 into a pricey year. And this is supposed to be a cheap year as we save for a trip to Europe next year. Blerg.

Still, it's all worth it. Our Little Boy birthday trip is booked and my turning old trip will be booked within the next two weeks. I'm excited to book our San Francisco trip and starting to daydream about our trip to Europe next year. The reason it's all worth it is because this is what I do. I travel, and think about travel, and plan travel. Even now, when I'm dealing with a tempermental three year old and a broken body, travel's as essential to me as breathing.

I can only hope at least one of boys inherits my wanderlust.

School's Out

 

It' hard to believe how fast this year rushed by. Nine months ago we took my little buddy to his first day of school and he clenched his jaw, held back tears, asked us to stay, let tears flow and broke our hearts.

 

It was tough on all of us.

 

 

Last week, the end of the school year, was a different story. I took pics of The Boy, wandering non-chalantly into school - in his jammies, because they were having a pyjama party, but it took THIS POST on Andrea's blog to inspiredme to make a similar post comparing Day 1 to Day... whatever the last day was.



So now, on to Summer School!

And so it begins

Coffee with Grandpa.

Nearly forty years of following my dad to cafes, three years, interupted by school, of The Boy and I meeting my dad for coffee, and now it's The Little Boy's turn to inherit our family's soft spot for cafe society.

Honestly, The Little Boy and I have been enjoying outings with Grandpa for a while, but The Boy's brief break from school last week afforded us the first ever opportunity to get all four of us out together, without Hubs or friends or Step Mom.

Hooray!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

It Feels More Like Work Now

Well, sort of. The Little Boy is pulling himself up on anything and everything so we purged my dilapidated, death trap of a desk and got a tiny yet solid desk for my little corner in our living room. Now I may be inspired to write a lot and blog a little.

Happy Day After Mother's Day

After years, only four years but whatever, of being disappointed by Hubs' lack of initiative regarding Mother's Day I finally took it upon myself to tell him what would make me a happy mama on Mother' Day - flowers and a nice brunch with my boys.

Mission accomplished as Hubs returned from shopping with some pink roses on Saturday and booked our standard fancy pants restaurant for brunch.

It was lovely. Hot, but lovely. And my boys held it together remarkably well. We came thisclose to needing to leave before dessert, but we managed to finish our meal and to avoid too much in the way of angry glares from fellow diners.

So, from me and my boys, Happy Belated Mother's Day!

Wordless Wednesday