Are you SERIOUS?

I love this picture.

Right before I decided to take a photo, I realized my face was contorting into something very unpleasant all because of what I was hearing.  Then I looked over and realized my homies each had their very own rendition of YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME faces on.

At this moment we are being told that the kids need to come forward and there is going to be a big Chinese New Year fireworks finale…inside.

The mom with THAT kid

This morning was the morning that the train came right off the tracks.

PJ missed the bus, which puts everyone waaay behind the eight-ball.  Typically we have a whole hour for the boys to finish breakfast, get dressed, brush teeth, etc.  But if she misses the bus and it goes by without her, everyone has to be ready to pile in the car within five minutes.  That means they need to be ready for the day to start and yes, that includes me and my swim suit to haul it over to the gym to teach lessons.

So when we left, I at least knew KP was having pajama and pancake day at school.  I also knew that he was in PJ’s, which is one step better than last week’s GREEN day, which I forgot to put him in green all together.

After almost losing my voice from barking demands at my children, we got in the car.  We got PJ dropped off at school, and then CT, and finally KP with three minutes to spare.

So we sat outside of his classroom and I had a chance to take a look at him.   This is what I saw:  Spider-Man PJ top, two short sleeve t-shirts underneath that, green and blue dinosaur bottoms rolled over three times to ensure a good fit, too small tan and orange smartwool socks, three wrist watches, unbrushed teeth, non-combed hair and a crusty nose.

With that I walked him in, kissed him on the forehead and told him to have a GREAT day.

Lunch & coffee with Mrs. Bickerson

Whit headed off to have lunch with girls yesterday.  Here’s a glimps of it.

And today, Lucy and I went over for a little doggy playdate.  I can’t believe I did not take any pictures.  Needless to say, Lucy has been sound asleep for the past two hours.

Thanks Whit!

First day of the second year of preschool

I mean seriously…aren’t you just dying at how cute KP is in this photo of his first day of preschool 08?

Oh yeah, I don’t have one.

Why don’t I have one you might wonder?  Well, let me tell you.  Three minutes before we needed to get into the car, to get him to school, he started having a hissy-fit about the long sleeve shirt he had put on.  Mind you, this was the third outfit of the morning.  KP likes layers.  His dad doesn’t.  His dad was helping him get dressed (nicely).  And once they came to a truce on what that was, he liked it, for a little while, until he had to go to school.

Two minutes before he has to go to school, he continues crying over the shirt, then crying because he can’t find his backpack and then crying about his shoes.  I’m no help at this point because I’m annoyed and in a oh so motherly and nice way I say, “Well, if you had put it in it’s home, it would be where it is suppose to be.”  This causes more crying.

One minute before we are suppose to go, he wants his vesteses (for those of you who don’t know what vesteses is or are, it is when one wears more than one vest at a time – preferably two or three).  I then choose to ignore him and simply say, I’m getting in the car.

Once the tears were wiped and he got to school, he jumped in with so much excitment that you would have never ever known he almost didn’t make it.

Way to overcome KP, way to overcome.

I’ll fill in a fake photo later, he’ll never know.

First Day Of School!

This one is happy.

This one is mad.

And that little one in blue, he has no idea what to do.

The Passage of Kindergarden

It was right here, in this moment, the moment that was drummed up the night before by email saying ever so casually that you might want to come and see the teachers hand out certificates to the students.

It was as I was standing there, taking this photo, that my eyes swelled up with tears and all the emotions of making this major decision to send PJ to Chinese school came flooding back.

It was a hard decision, a leap of faith. Not all our questions were answered but we jumped anyway.

And as we jumped with a little bit of unease, she took hold with all her might and soared.

Hen hao PJ, hen hao!

Third kid

This is a photo of KP on the last day of school, during the last song of the preschool concert.

If he was my first child, I would have been mortified. The entire concert he was a screwing around, haming it up, trying to make other kids laugh, singing falsetto and working some dramatic dance movements into all the songs.

I, of course, could not stop laughing. Adam kept telling me I was terrible and nudging me with his elbow to stop.

At the bitter end of it all, when the music stopped and the kids stopped signing, he droped to the ground (as shown above) and yells, “AMEN…AAAAMMMMEENNNNNN!”

And then we left for summer break.

Sing it loud & proud

Here is PJ’s friend and classmate.  Chinese has never sounded so cute.

It’s hard to go back

Today I overheard a woman say to her friend:

So I asked Jack what he wanted for breakfast this morning and he said, I want a big’ol bowl of I DON’T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL!

Introduced by the 7 year old

I went to CT’s school this afternoon to read stories to his class. 

His teacher (Mr. D) had me sit in the “teacher” chair and had CT stand by my side.   Mr. D asked CT to introduce me and then tell the class two things that he would know about me that they wouldn’t.

CT put one hand on my shoulder and the other hand up to his mouth with his pointer finger tapping on his lips (showing he was really thinking on this one). 

He said, “Hmmmm let’s see…her name is Mary and she is really, REALLY good at sports.  But, she is NOT good at ball sports, NONE, no ball sports AT ALL. Oh and let’s see, she’s nice.