first two weeks + labor day holiday.

whew. time is just rolling on by over here at our house. the school year is off to a good start, i think. there are definitely things i'm hoping will change/shift, but i'm trying to just be patient and positive. emme seems to be adapting well and hollis is much less traumatized than i expected without having ek at the same school as him all day.

the weekend after school started, jb headed up to dallas to see the coldplay concert with his mom and brother. they were there for three nights and got to catch a rangers game, eat some fancy sushi, and see the concert, so i'd say it was a successful trip. my mom was able to get a ride in that weekend, so she and i got to hang with the kids solo and that was super fun as well. we saw pete's dragon, did lots of puzzles, went out for dinner and ice cream, and generally had a great weekend. mom left on monday, so she even got to walk emme to school, which was fantastic.

i am taking care of all the animals at ek's elementary school, which is a huge job, but one that i am loving. i have always had mammals as pets, so it's been fun to learn about the parrots and hermit crabs and snakes and turtles. we have had some animal trauma this year - we lost a rabbit right before the summer, and all the chickens got mauled and killed by something the first weekend of the school year. i was lucky that mom was in town to hang with the kids while i went to clean it all up (i had an amazing neighbor who helped me so much), but it was really devastating. i really love animals and i hate to see any creature suffer. justin fixed the coop up last week, so hopefully we will get some new hens soon.

emme has also been letting me play with her hair lately which is really fun. it's so long and easy to mess with. i love it.

other than that, we are just plugging along. we did all sorts of fun things for labor day weekend - swimming and birthday parties and dinner with friends - and we are working on exhibiting gratitude and also not flipping out when it's time to leave. well, mostly emme is working on that. sigh. parenting is hard sometimes.

kindergarten!

yesterday my sweet baby girl started kindergarten! i kind of can't believe it. i didn't cry or anything (surprisingly), but it still feels like a monumental thing. she is in the system now - a kid and not a baby anymore.

sunday we had a fun, mellow day. breakfast tacos and puzzles, then jb took the kids to a movie while i went to a friend's birthday brunch. for dinner, i let the kids make their own pizzas which they loved. we had bath time and i gave them a little melatonin so they were ready for their early bedtime. i've been trying to move their bedtime up a bit every night for the past week or so, and that was a huge help.

i woke up around 6:15 and a few minutes later i heard her little footsteps heading up the hall. she asked for cereal for breakfast and got dressed easily. then we all walked to school together and took about a million pictures. she was a little freaked out heading in to class, but tough too. no crying.

jb and i picked her up a little early and she was super happy - she told us all about everything, including that she "made 11 new friends but i don't remember any of their names". ha. she was happy about her after school program. she was less happy that her teacher wanted them to be quiet a lot. but, all in all, a great day.

we capped off the first day with a trip to get ice cream before dinner. then, a low key evening and easy dinner. i was asleep by 8, so i guess we were all pretty wiped out.

we are so proud of our big girl - this is going to be a great year!

end of school.

oh. hi. remember when i used to keep track of our lives with this little corner of the internet? yeah. me neither.

way back at the beginning of june, ek wrapped up her preK year! it was such a great year - she learned so much and i feel like she will be so much more comfortable going into kindergarten after being there all last year. mr. butler was such a great teacher for her. they really loved each other and i hope he continues to be part of our lives. her early reading and math skills are really amazing so far - i could not be more proud of her. she made all 4s, demonstrating "mastery" in all the areas they measure, but more than that, i think she is really learning a lot about how to engage with the world and what kind of person she wants to be. i can only hope kindergarten is as awesome.

fourth tooth and field trip.

kk and jj came to town last wednesday night for a quick mid-week visit. it was super fun. on thursday, they went to hollis's school and had lunch with him. friday, they were able to join me chaperoning ek's metrorail field trip where her class and the other preK classes got to ride the train to the east side and then play at an awesome park for a couple of hours. super fun.

friday night, the kids were dancing and going buck wild in the living room. hollis was flinging one of his blankets around during a prince song (they are obsessed with prince right now), and ek grabs her mouth, holds up a hand and says "hollis just knocked out my tooth!". so, the final front one is down! and thank goodness. it was so loose it was really freaking me out, but she was being super squirrely about pulling it for some reason. anyway - it was clearly mega-loose if it got knocked out by a blanket. ha. we obviously continued the ice cream tradition and everyone was happy.

saturday, my parents left after breakfast. the kids (especially emme) get super duper sad when they leave, so this time, i took ek to yoga with me right after they left. it was a great distraction and helped with the big feelings.

sickness and spring break.

my kids are never sick. it's really amazing. but when they do get sick, it's usually at the same time, though not always with the same things. hollis woke up in the middle of the night the week before spring break complaining that his ears really hurt and he needed an ice pack for them. i thought he was full of it, possibly just dreaming, so i kind of blew him off. that led to a few more wake ups and ice pack shenanigans, but i still thought he was probably fine. great mom, eh? anyway. when he got home from school that afternoon, i could tell he wasn't feeling great and he was also running a low-ish fever. he wanted to just lie down on the couch. ek took great care of him, bringing him lots of babies and blankets and reading to him and getting him cold water. i gave him ibuprofen and warm compresses for his achy ears and extra cuddles. at his doctor's appointment the next morning, they confirmed a double ear infection and prescribed omnicef, which is basically the only antibiotic he can take since he's allergic to penicillin. here's some pics of them post-haircuts, and how hollis chose to spend his sick day (in jammies, with alllll the legos).

he started feeling better quickly, but saturday evening at the annual chip party (for national potato chip day, duh), ek was looking puny. i felt her and she was definitely running a pretty high fever. we got her home and on meds and into bed. she ran fever all day sunday too. monday morning was the first day of spring break and her fever was down, but i had given her ibuprofen around 4am, so i brought her to an early doctor's appointment just in case. they determined it wasn't strep and it was too late to do anything if it was flu, so sent us home. i kept her pretty mellow for the rest of the day and by the end of monday, i could tell she was mostly back to normal. those random viral things are so obnoxious.

tuesday i worked because i hadn't planned to take spring break off. i sent hollis to school and ek did a yoga kids' camp at my studio in the afternoon. but i was pretty stressed out about being crappy at both my job and parenting for the remainder of the week, so i emailed my boss and asked for vacation days wednesday-friday. it was definitely the right call, even if i'm behind at work now.

we had a really nice break. lots of time at the park, some play dates, picnics, bagel breakfasts, a movie, and unstructured play at home. i love those times with the kids and need to be better about embracing them. saturday, we battled the traffic and crowds and went to sxsw for sxsj - south by san jose. we saw thao and the get down stay down and we also saw the golden dawn arkestra. they were nuts - the kids loooooved them. after the live music, we headed to matt's el rancho for a tex mex feast and made it to bed super late.

it was tough to get up before daylight this morning and get back to work and school, but definitely a great week.