edith hesterly browne.

telling the story of how a new human joins the world is overwhelming. we welcomed our sweet edie on friday, august 4, 2017 at 8:37 pm. but let me back up.

on tuesday, the 1st, i went to the doctor for my 38 week appointment. at the previous week's appointment, i was still measuring ahead a little bit, and they did an ultrasound that showed a ~7lb-ish baby and a lot of amniotic fluid. they said we'd measure again the next week. so we did another ultrasound and the fluid was still high. we also did another NST and she did fine but took longer to "pass" than she had the following week. when i got in to see the provider, she started talking about gestational diabetes and recommended an induction that night.

based on my experience with hollis's induction, i knew i had to push back a little bit. i used the excuse of my birthday on the 2nd to see how much of an "emergency" it was to get her out. the provider said we could wait, but only until thursday. hmmm. i asked for the weekend and she said no and that i needed to monitor my blood sugar (it never spiked and was totally fine through delivery).

my birthday was a great day. i got a prenatal massage while mandy and nicole watched the big kids. all three of us took a nap. justin and i got some yummy takeout for dinner. i got lots of calls and texts and sweet emails from family and friends. it was low-key, but turning 36 and being 38 weeks pregnant, i figured it would be anyway.

the afternoon of my birthday, jillian took me to get a pedicure and the ob's office called to tell me my induction was scheduled thursday night at 9pm. whew. thursday arrived and justin was able to stay home from work, thankfully. i went to another doctor's appointment where they confirmed the call to induce. i was 3cm dilated and 80% effaced, so i was hoping to make a little progress over the course of the day. i got home and went wild cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc. i was not thrilled about being induced, but i also felt like i had no choice. i could write a whole post on medical care and the fear mongering that happens during such a sensitive and emotional time, but that's a different story.

anyway. we ate dinner and bathed the kids and got them to bed with promises that daddy would be there to get them in the morning, ready to meet their baby sister. jb and i sat on the couch to watch some tv and pass the time waiting to head to the hospital. right as our neighbor was getting to our house to pull the overnight shift, the hospital called; they said they were super busy and to call back at 10. ummm, what? so we sent faye home and went for a walk. i was having tons of anxiety - at this point, i hadn't slept since the previous night and i was nervous about not even getting to the hospital until almost midnight and then trying to get things going. but that's what we attempted to do.

faye came back over at 9:40 and we headed to the hospital. we walked up to the check-in area in L&D at 10 and proceeded to get fussed at by the intake nurse. she was like "you were supposed to CALL at 10, not just show up!". i was pretty upset. i mean, either it is medically necessary to induce me or it's not, right? anyway. they stuck us in the waiting room. we sat there for about 20 minutes and justin was like...we just need to go home. so he went and talked to them and they said to show up again between 7 and 8 friday morning. we turned around and drove back home - the best decision ever.

i didn't sleep a ton thursday night (of course), but definitely got more rest than i would have at the hospital. the kids were mega confused in the morning (hollis: "where's my baby sister?"), but we had a chance to explain the situation to them quickly and then head BACK to the hospital with them safely in faye's hands. they had a great day with faye and her kids, nanny mandy and her kids, and then kk and jj when they got into town.

at the hospital, they stuck us in the waiting room AGAIN, but only for a little bit. then they pulled us into a room and we began the longest slowest process ever. it was nearly 11am before i even saw the midwife. it was kathy and she was not super friendly or excited to be working with us, it seemed. she checked me and i was still only 3cm and she said i was not effaced at all. super demoralizing. but they started the pitocin and we were off. side note: kathy was unclear as to why we were inducing, which was super upsetting, but i couldn't focus on that because we were there and two of the other providers had said it needed to happen. still frustrating, though.

the pitocin was ok. i spent a lot of energy getting to a mental place where i thought i could handle being on that stuff again, and i think i really did pretty well. the contractions cranked up regularly, but they were really manageable. around 3 or 3:30, kathy came back in to check me again. she offered to not because she didn't want me to be discouraged, but i really wanted information. sadly, i was still at 3cm, but soft and thinning, maybe 50% she said. ugh. she said baby's head was still high and floating, so because she wasn't engaged, i wasn't dilating. because of the excess amniotic fluid, breaking my water was not an option because of the risk of a chord prolapse. but because of the excess fluid, there wasn't anything to help her descend. frustrating to say the least.

the other thing that happened around this time (i think) is that kathy said there was "something else" near the baby's head. ummm, what? as jb said...this is something you don't say to a woman in labor. she speculated the baby may have flipped to breech, so she got an ultrasound machine. thankfully, she was still head down, and kathy thought it was maybe just an arm in front of her head or something. in any case, this was additional discouraging information, as i knew it would be even harder for her head to engage if she had her arm in front of her face.

at this point, i sought the wisdom of the internet because i didn't feel like i was really getting suggestions from anywhere else. spinning babies suggested a move called the lift & tuck to help baby's head descend and engage. it consisted of standing and lifting my belly about 2 inches at the start of each contraction, then tilting my hips forward through the contraction. they said to do this for 10 contractions in a row, so i did. i don't know if this is what did it (by this point, the pit was up to 11), but by the end of that, the contractions were brutal and i was having some intense back labor and having to moan through each contraction. the contractions were also coming super frequently - like each minute - and felt like they were lasting an eternity. i also felt a trickle at whatever point and realized my water had started leaking, which i felt like was great but also made the contractions even worse.

around 6 or so was the end of kathy's shift and these mega contractions had been going on for over an hour. the leak had started right after 5pm, so i was hoping this had kicked some things into gear. kathy came in one last time and checked me and i was 4cm. kill me. i started getting super demoralized at that point, trying to calculate how much longer i could deal with contractions this close and this intense to get all the way to 10cm. yeesh.

a little later (time ceases to exist for me at this point), danielle, the new midwife on call, came in. she was amazing and i liked her immediately. she said i was maybe 4.5cm and i said i may want the epidural. i immediately began apologizing and she was like "you have absolutely nothing to prove". justin also reminded me that i was super codependent to be in the state i was in and apologizing to other people for wanting the epidural. ha.

the epidural gets ordered and what followed was the longest hour of my life. they pumped all the fluids in and i continued to have insane contractions every 20 seconds. finally FINALLY the anesthesiologist shows up and he's fast and all business. i was scared and also still having psychotic contractions, so that was all a bit intense, but he got it done. the relief was pretty much immediate and i could not believe it. i looked at justin and told him i could cry from how happy i was to have that relief. seriously amazing.

i chilled in the bed for maybe 30 minutes, relishing the difference between what had been going on and what was happening post-epidural. i could still move my feet and feel that contractions were happening, but it was like it was happening through a shield. at about this time, i told our nurse mandy that i was feeling pressure and may be ready to push soon. she got danielle a few minutes later.

when danielle checked, she said i was 9.5 cm and she could manually take me to 10 if i wanted. i said absolutely, let's do this. they got my legs up in the stirrups and jb held my right leg while mandy counted and danielle talked me through it all. pushing was very natural and we went through about 3 rounds of counting to 10 and her head was out. danielle delivered her shoulders and then told me i could grab her and pull her onto me, so i did. it was absolutely incredible. she cried for a couple of seconds and then calmed right down and i just rubbed her and looked at her while we let the cord pulse. justin cut the cord when it was done and we got to get a better look at her. she had a decent amount of vernix, and my immediate reaction was that she was way smaller than emme or hollis (they were both 7lbs 14oz). i guess you forget how tiny babies really are because when they weighed her a few minutes later, she was 8lbs 5oz, 21.25 inches. holy cow! her apgars were 8 and 9 and she was gloriously pink.

so that's it. 8:37pm after the longest day ever. i will never again talk about how short/fast my labors are. ha. it was rough but so unbelievably worth it. she is perfection and we are completely in love.

hi there 2017.

a lot has been going on. i mean, clearly in 6ish months some things are bound to happen. writing has not been one of those things, but i do miss the exercise of chronicling our lives and whatnot, so i am going to attempt to catch back up and re-commit to this little corner of the interwebs.

i lost my job in november. it was a routine layoff, part of the divestiture of my company away from dell. they laid off something like 1/3 of the employees, so i guess i was in good company. it still sucked. i think i have made it through all the stages of grief with that whole thing - probably not in order, but i am working on it. anyway. i've run the gamut of emotions from relief to devastation to complacency to self-doubt (times a million) to anger to...well, you get the idea. i thought i would jump right back into the workforce without really having to try, but that hasn't been the case.

shortly after getting laid off, i found out i was pregnant. again. after four losses in 2016. so, needless to say, there was a lot of mental and emotional stuff there. i had switched doctors after my fourth miscarriage because i felt like my former practice (that i loved) was not taking my situation seriously at all and i knew i could not abide another loss. i had some tests run in september and everything looked fine, thankfully. my new doctor prescribed progesterone for when/if i became pregnant again. she recommended taking it beginning with a positive pregnancy test along with a baby aspirin. so i did. and it worked. and now here i am, 23 weeks pregnant with a healthy baby girl. it feels like a miracle, though i guess life is always a miracle, right?

anyway. between those two major events/shifts happening concurrently, public discussion of what's going on (i.e. blogging) hasn't seemed ideal. i felt pretty terrible and also quite terrified for the bulk of the first trimester. and then i was trying to get hired somewhere asap before i started showing in the second trimester. and now...well, now i am trying to get hired in the mid-late second trimester while sporting a sweet belly. the universe works in mysterious ways.

i have had some amazing support and solidarity (justin, many of the friends who've been "in the know", my family), and some disappointingly, very upsettingly unsupportive encounters. i waffle between the intense desire to explain myself (i know how babies are made; yes, this was planned - maybe not the timing, but the baby for sure; the layoff wasn't expected; i really do like/need to work and taking a year off BEFORE a baby is born is not ideal; how would you feel in my situation; etc.) and the very real feeling that it's nobody's business. i guess pregnancy is normally filled with all the feelings, and this one is no exception, even if the feelings are different/bigger than i would have anticipated.

so those are the big things. beyond that, we had some incredible holidays, hollis turned four, emme has rocked her kindergarten year, and we are generally extremely happy and healthy and thankful for everything that's going on in this sweet little life of ours. i'll back date some pictures and other updates soon.

farewell, 2015.

i think this is the first time in the history of this blog that i've written an end-of-year post on the last day of the year. typically i don't even bother with a post but even the few times that i have, i've back-dated them from some time in january. i hope this is a sign of how on top of things i'll be in 2016...

this year was a blur for me - i cannot even fathom that the whole year is gone already. i remember being a kid and hearing adults talk about how fast time moves as you get older and not believing or understanding that at all, but it's clearly a thing. 

it was a good year, i think. no major changes in terms of living arrangements or jobs. emme started preK and hollis transitioned to a new school. we started reading chapter books together as a family. we took an awesome vacation to the mountains to see lots of family. we had trips to lafayette and wichita and i got to go to japan. we did a whole30 and got on and fell off the healthy eating train a few times. we went on lots of family walks and spent time cuddling and playing and fighting and singing and sliding and cooking and watching too much tv and just living. i took a course this year on the science of happiness and it talked a lot about happiness vs. meaningfulness. i don't know that we lived meaningfully in the grand scheme, but i'd like to think there was meaning in the everyday - enough that we can hold on to and try to make it even more so in the next year.

so that's it! out with the old, in with the new. cheers to deliberate living, less screen time, more patience with ourselves and others, and getting outside as much as possible. 

first full day.

admittedly, i have had some nerves about this week. there are a lot of changes and a lot is riding on scheduling coordination during times when i am sitting at my office, and that makes me nervous. and then, this afternoon, this happened:

after-after school care called me

they were like "why isn't your kid on the bus?" (this bus is the source of all my afterschool angst, i swear)

i'm like...she should be on the bus, blah blah

so i call debra

the pre-after school coordinator person

and she's in a room like "amy? amy? has anyone seen amy?"

and i'm like it's EMME

and then she's like "i'm going to have to call you back"

so then i am freaking out and about to get in the car

and then after after school calls me back and they're like "never mind she is on the bus now"

this whole ordeal was like 4 minutes

but still

all my worst fears about this arrangement were realized in this 4 minute period.

also, i am so glad this is not a cautionary tale. 

in other news, last night before bed, hollis said "i have a secret, mommy. my eyes are very fancy." 

first day! preK!

dear emme,

today was the first day of a huge new chapter in your life: elementary school. this is, to a large extent, what you'll be doing for the next fourteen years or so. it's a big deal.

your teacher is mr. butler and, though you were a bit reserved with him initially (your usual MO), you warmed up to him during the first day and had lots of stories about his silliness. you even gave him a hug on the way out the door!

your capacity to get on board with new situations and people is amazing to me - that adaptability is a great quality that will serve you well throughout your life. you don't dive head first, but you approach change with thoughtfulness and acceptance.

i know you are sad to leave your old school behind. you've told me so, and i've seen the fun you've had there - the attachments you've formed with other kids and many of the teachers. you've been comfortable and safe there, and you've learned a lot. but this is just the first of many times when you will have to leave the comfort and safety of one environment to venture into something new, and i am immensely proud of the way you're approaching it.

i have so many hopes for you this year. i hope every day ends with you full of stories about yoga and books and silly dancing and all the shells you found on the playground. i hope you continue to love the thrill of sitting in the cafeteria. i hope you grow in compassion and kindness toward your friends and classmates and your love of learning continues to blossom.

i love you so much little goose, and i am so excited to stand by you this year and experience all that it has in store.

love,

mom.

school things.

my sweet baby first-born child starts preK in the fall. i kind of can't believe it, even though she will be five in november, it just feels so so fast. in many (most?) ways, i am crazy excited for her. she is becoming such a voracious little learner and i think she will love school the way i did. the preK program at our neighborhood elementary is really incredible, too - they go on field trips, do mindfulness work, do daily yoga and affirmations, have access to media and science resources that are super exciting...it's going to be great.

what has me on a little bit of a stress attack is the whole after-school care thing. which is going to be a thing for, like, forever. um, what? it's completely overwhelming to think about (for me, right now).

here's the deal. when you are a working parent with young (not yet school-age) children, you know that childcare costs are a given. and somewhere in your brain you think into the future, to the time of school, and for some reason, that time feels like it will offer some respite. in some ways, not all. but definitely in the financial way. or at least, this is how my brain thought about it. like: it will be so crazy because she'll be so big/old/it's going so fast BUT childcare costs will not be an issue, so that's the silver lining.

except that's not true. because kids don't go to school the same hours that you work. so you still have to pay. and it's not even really about the money (money is hard, but it's never the root issue for emotional stuff).

for us, for this preK adventure, it's about trusting that our kidlet is going to be ok - that she's going to be able to handle the load of a school day, topped with a bus ride to her after school care location and whatever she has to handle there. that it's not going to be over-the-top stressful for her or exhausting or brain-overwhelming.

anyway...this is life, i know. kids grow, we adapt to new normals and whatever the reality of whatever we're doing now entails. and this will be no different - it will even be amazing, i think! i'm just about my baby riding a bus all by herself.

happy hallow-weaning.

i will post copious amounts of our little elsa and olaf at some point, but i wanted to reflect a moment on this week.

this is the week i decided to wean hollis. i'm going to resist the temptation to justify my choices and the path we've gone down (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not so much), even though that's my nature. i breastfed hollis for 21 months and 22 days. that's a really long time in some respects, and a blip in many others. but it was an amazing experience over all.

i decided to stop because i was only nursing him in the morning and i felt like it was interrupting the quality of his sleep - he has been waking up at 5 or earlier most of his life, and i really feel like it had a lot to do with his anticipation of nursing. he loved it. but other areas of his life were suffering because of it, and that's not what it's about. he also hasn't been eating super well, and i need for him to learn that food is where our nutrition comes from, and it's important to get what we need from the food we eat. no, he doesn't need to wean to learn that, but he's a stubborn dude and i felt like he needed a push. additionally, he was never satisfied. for months now (i don't know how long because it's been going on for a long while), every time i would cut him off, he would cry and freak out - sometimes hitting me and usually pulling on my clothes and being fairly bratty about the whole thing. even on days when i had time to just let him nurse, it didn't matter how long i'd let him, he was never happy and content when it was over. so. i was left feeling guilty and weird even though he nursed a ton and i had plenty of milk.

and then of course there's me. the least of the reasons, but still. i have been pregnant and/or breastfeeding for the last 4 years and 9 months, and i am ready to not have to worry about which meds i can take for a cough or if i can have tea with ginseng in it. it just feels like it's time. and since this is a relationship between two people, i made the decision.

but still. this has been a fairly hard transition for us. last sunday was the last day i nursed him - he woke up at 5 and we curled under a blanket in the dark on the couch in the den. it was sweet, until i was ready to stop and he got super mad. monday morning i held him and kissed him and talked to him as he cried and asked to nurse over and over again. rough, man.

i've spent this week trying to give him extra time and extra love and cuddles. so he doesn't think i'm withholding love or punishing him in any way. and also for me - i need that extra time with him right now. i've been trying to be fairly gentle with myself as i mourn this ending. with emme, i knew we would (or we would try to) have another child. i was optimistic i'd be able to nurse that child as well, and my hopes were fulfilled with my little duder. but this time, everything is up in the air. who knows if i will ever breastfeed again?

i'm sure a lot of people aren't as nostalgic and sappy about this as i am. but nursing has been one of the great joys of my life. in talking to my mom about it the other day, she said "you really did take to it like a true mammal". ha. and it's true. it wasn't the easiest thing at first, but it really did come fairly naturally to me and to my niblets. and for that i am eternally grateful. because i have loved every day of being able to give this to my children, and every day of being able to receive this gift from them.

33.

pretty much every day my brain chronicles all the things i want to be doing/improving. but i never really write any of it down, so it's mostly just my own battle with myself of ways i want to be better and ways i'm falling short.

one of the basic (and, honestly, annoying) things they teach us in business school, early on, is about goal setting. and one of the models of how to set goals is to set SMART goals - specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound. so, you can't just say "i am going to grow revenue in FY15", you have to say "i'm going to grow revenue by 15% by Q3 of FY15 because i've calculated these projections and feel like with x and y plan, this is an attainable stretch goal". or whatever. better life example would be "i'm going to run a half marathon in january with a training program that starts this week".

so. i thought for my 33rd birthday i would set some goals. and write them down to add accountability. not all of them are SMART goals, but i've tried to make them as smart as possible. ha. in no particular order:

1. take better care of my skin. specifically: drink 2-4 quarts of water every day; wash face and apply moisturizer and eye cream every night; use sunscreen daily; moisturize arms and legs after shower. 
2. spend more time outside. specifically: take dogs for walk or run 4 days/week; get outside while at the office - eat lunch outside, away from my desk/computer, do walking meetings, take 10 minutes to do a lap around the building once or twice a day; eat dinner and/or breakfast on the porch with the kids. 
3. be more intentional about what i eat: specifically: meal plan and stick to it; prep lunches and bulk stuff on sundays; bring lunch a minimum of 3 days/week; eat at home on friday evenings; eat breakfast; throw cash saved by not eating out into a box; involve kids in meal prep even more.
4. do stuff in the evenings. specifically: don't just lay on the couch after the kids go to bed; pick a project each week and work on it a little bit every evening; make more social commitments; take turns with jb to run when it cools down a little.
5. exercise (more/consistently): weight training twice a week; running 4 times per week. no excuses.
6. be a better friend/communicator: write letters; send packages; make time for people; don't just rely on facebook and instagram lurking to know what people are up to. 
7. take pictures: lots of pictures. learn how to use one of the DSLRs. in manual. before halloween. 
8. be a better wife: plan dates. have a consistent babysitting night (start with one/month). do little nice things to show love. 
9. spend one on one time with each kidlet: 3-4 days each week. 15-20 minutes. go on a walk with just one of them, or work on a little project with just ek. get on the floor with hollis and play with his trucks. let one of them "own" dinner prep with me. 
10. read more (non-YA) novels: YA novels are great, but let's have a one for one relationship - one cheesy teen novel for one piece of real literature. maybe join a bookclub? 

whew. let the games begin!

one week in.

i'm trying hard to process through what is most important to me/our family when it comes to our kids. the easy answer is everything - i want everything for them. if i have to be away from them all day every day, i want them to be in an environment that nurtures them. i want them to have opportunities to learn at their own speed, in their own style. i want them to be inspired and filled with awe and wonder for learning and discovering. i want them to be with peers and caretakers who love and support them and make them feel free to be their authentic selves. it seems like a lot of that might be lofty or touchy-feely or whatever, but i think all of those things are important.

i also want them to learn practical life skills. it's one of the primary reasons we chose a montessori environment for them. i believe that my kids will learn to read, whether they're 4 or they're 7, but i think a foundation of grace and courtesy and independence are super important and need to be established really early on.

so. we're five days in to their new school, which is a "montessori" school, and the best way i can describe it is that it's not a montessori school, it's a daycare. and i don't mean that in a disparaging way, i'm just having a hard time.

there are a few tenets that we've established at our house that aren't overly rigid or crazy (i don't think), but that are pretty important to our family's values. we don't really watch tv during the week, as a general rule. emme didn't watch tv at all to speak of until she was two. it's harder with hollis, but there is very very limited screen time at our house. i just think my kids will eventually learn how to play on an ipad and they'll learn who elmo is and all of that regardless of anything else. so i don't make an active effort to expose them to those things; instead, we read lots of books, spend time outside, cook together, that sort of thing. as a working mom, i have a couple of hours with my kids on work days and that's IT. i don't want 30 minutes of it monopolized by dora the explorer. and again...i am not disparaging anyone whose kidlets watch tv nonstop. my working mom guilt is pretty intense and this is one way i assuage it.

another thing is a limit to treats. so, things like pizza, sweets, processed foods as much as possible, all of that...are limited at our house. there are still WAY more treats than i'd like to have in a perfect universe, but the point is that it's at my discretion.

anyway. a couple of things have gone down this week that have upset me and i'm just trying to keep a level head and not jump to any conclusions.

the first is that there's a tv in the classroom. in every classroom. including hollis's. this was something that wasn't indicated or mentioned during the school tour. i noticed emme's on day one and was told it was only used "10-15 minutes a day before nap while the area is being prepared for nap, and only educational programming". i bit my tongue even though i take issue with that on so many levels. on wednesday, i took hollis to his 18-month doctor's appointment. when i dropped him back off around 11:40, all the little 18-month to 2 year-olds were sitting on the floor staring up at a tv screen. um, what? even if i can bite my tongue about my 3.5 year old, the APA says no screens for kids under two, period. this should not be happening in a school or daycare environment, and especially not in a place touting a "montessori" title. i called the director and tried to nicely express my concern. i said i would much rather have my kids prepare the nap area (again with that whole practical life thing we're supposed to be jointly instilling) or be read to than have them stuck in front of a screen. the director said she would talk to the teachers, so i am just assuming nothing is happening.

the next thing is hollis. he's struggling SO much with this change. i honestly think he would be struggling with any change, but this is next level. i don't love his lead teacher - she is not warm or loving with him. the work in his classroom is crappy and not deliberate at all. another time i walked in, the teacher was sitting on a chair playing a CD for the kids. not singing or clapping or giving them instruments to work with or anything. just having them sit and be quiet and listen to a recorded song. she's made several unsavory comments about our cloth diapering and this morning she picked hollis (while he was crying) up by his forearms and moved his body. i don't love any of that.

there are some other minor things too that i won't get into right now because i have to stop overthinking everything. i don't know what i'm going to do, but i just wanted to record everything because that's what this whole blogging thing is for. sigh.

*i will say that emme is responding quite well, mainly because her class size is so much smaller. she was also in a situation at her old school where there was a lot of mean talk between the kids and she really internalized that stuff, so i think it's good for her to be away from that.

parenting is hard.

last day.

friday was the kids' last day at school before we move to the new school down the street. i tried to hold it together, but it hurt me. i think mostly because it's the only place they've ever known and it's where they go every day where i know they (mostly) have fun and feel safe, where i feel safe sending them. and now they're off to a new world, new place, new experience...which i know will ultimately be ok. and probably hopefully more than ok. but they are just so little and the world is so big and i'm sentimental.

anyway. i made mini fruit kabobs for ek to share during farewell circle and strawberries (hollis's favorite) for him to share. i picked them up at 11:30 so we could drive to houston to meet my parents for a long weekend, and they each did really well with the whole thing. honestly, even though we talked about it and i've explained it several times over the course of the last several days, i don't think either kidlet (even emme) actually gets it. because they have no context for any other school environment. which brings me back to why i was super emotional about the whole thing.

it turns out going to houston and having a week off with fun family time has been the best thing that could have happened to lead up to the change, but more about that later. for now, a little transcript of hollis's teacher's note to him, written on the turtle he painted during his farewell (turtles are his fave):

oh, hollis. it's been such a pleasure to spend time with you. we will miss you! you're a funny little fellow, with your old-man shuffle and set routines. you light up whenever we put new animals of any kind in our classroom, and you know all of their names. you can say a lot of words, even long words like 'nap mat' and 'lunchbox'. you like to be inside or outside, but you want to make sure there are always books available to read. and you are very literate - it's so cute to see your whole-body participation in circle time. we wish you the best, friend.

 we will miss our friends and teachers at hms.

ch-ch-ch-changes.

i just dropped off the deposit check for the kidlets at their new school.  they will start in early july, so their last days at their current montessori school will be at the end of june.  

i know all of the reasons we made this decision.  it's closer to home (a lot closer).  it's less expensive (significant factor, though i wish it weren't).  it offers a montessori curriculum as well as the possibility of kids who will be in the same elementary environment as ours.  

but.  i am still sad.  i am a deeply loyal person and this school has been our kids' home for the vast majority of their lives.  they've spent way more waking hours there than at our actual home.  the teachers at their school have, for the most part, been encouraging and supportive and nurturing towards our little beans.  both our kids learned to walk there.  emme potty-trained there.  they've taken countless naps and had snacks and lunches and skinned knees and water play.  they've forged friendships and attachments and conducted their own independent little lives.  it's a big deal to say goodbye to all of this.  

but say goodbye we will, in just a few short months.  time keeps moving on, i guess.  it will be amazing to let them sleep for 20 extra minutes in the morning.  it will be incredible to hop in the car and be there in 5 minutes instead of 25.  it will be exciting to foster new relationships for us and them.  it will be huge for justin to be able to do a leg of the pick-up/drop-off, and for me to be able to explore job options closer to home.  

it will be good.  but it's still hard.