baby book

Random photo that I love since this blog is the closest I will probably ever come to baby books.
Dear Maia and JD, when you are teenagers and cry that your life is hard I will blow this picture up and hang it up in your room. Boom. Eating ice cream cones on the pier and getting it all over your face = your life is awesome. :-) Love our summer evenings together and PS summer where we live lasts for 10 months out of the year.

Auntie Kay-Kay

The kids and I love Auntie Kay-Kay and she came for a visit our first weekend after Debbi left. We had a great time especially spending all day Saturday at Aliso Creek beach in Laguna. Did not get nearly enough pictures....especially when three police cars and two fire trucks came for a BOMB THREAT in the kids' playground area and JD thought he had died and gone to heaven. The amazing firemen of Laguna Beach talked to him and showed him their truck. I have never seen his eyes so big!

 

Can you even see the facial expressions in these Iphone pictures? Because JD & Maia would wait for the water to come around the rock from the waves with more joy on their little faces than you can imagine. Did this for quite a while...

 

 

PS And we (and by we I mean I) found a place in Long Beach to watch the planes come and go. And I let them watch for 40 minutes. Cool mom award please

 

on our own

 

For the first time in my entire life I live alone....well with two toddlers of course but void of adult company. I had roommates until I got married and have had a live-in nanny since I got unmarried.

12 days flying solo and we are off the ground. Missing Debbi a ton but we are doing it....made it out the door Thursday without a single meltdown incident (me or the kids haha).

This week JD prayed before bed "Heavenly Father please bless Debbi to come home because I love her so much." May or may not have made me cry! I work too much and Debbi has spent more time with these two in the past couple of years than I have. Kids are doing well though. And so am I.

blame game

Question: When do kids develop awareness that they can shift consequences to someone else?

So not exactly logical but cracks me up (even though I don't let her see me laugh preferably because it's lying, right?) that Maia has realized she can blame things on others. The crazy thing is she hasn't blamed anything on JD yet, she blames it on people that aren't there.

Glitter all over (and I mean ALL OVER) my room - floor, bed, bathroom, everything? It was baby Hazel our cousin. Yes, she came over in the middle of the night.

Someone pulled one of the seatbelt-type straps off the stroller - like ripped it right off? I didn't even care, didn't even ask, but she held it up and told me Baby Norah broke her stroller (a friend's daughter).

Apparently non-present babies create a lot of havoc at our house. Watch out.

Swimming Lessons

I like to just do everything at once....so never mind that we are transitioning from live-in nanny to full-day preschool, I am still getting in the swing of things at my new job (not to mention in the middle of my first quarter close), and we're still kind of potty training.....let's do swim lessons too. :-) The past two weeks of swim have been SO fun but we are also VERY excited to have slow, hang-out-at-home afternoons/evenings all next week....

JD and Maia have gotten a lot better at sitting still and waiting their turn - still have a little trouble with it but better this week than last - thanks to their lovely teacher Miss Allegra. Twins moms have to decide whether to put their kids in the same class or separate them (at lessons, daycare, school, church etc) and I have chosen to keep them together at this point. When their teacher had to yell at JD "JD, we don't hold our sister's head under water!!!!" I thought Hmmmmm.....maybe separating them might be a good idea.....

They have learned how to go under water blowing bubbles, do superman floats with kicks, do assisted back floats, and "crab walk" along the side of the pool where they can't touch. Sitting on the side watching them so happy and loving it is the happiest half hour of my day. :-)

Preschool

After 2.5 years of having the kids at home full time with a nanny, we had our first week at preschool. This week and next they are doing 4 hours at preschool and then home with their nanny for the afternoon; after that they start 8 hour days four days a week. I have been pretty nervous for the transition but as seems to be the trend in my life my anxiety levels were way worse than the situation called for.....the kids have done great and although yes, it is a transition for both of them, they are totally fine.

This week was the end of a "semester" and so they had parent night to show off all of their work, which was all related to water and oceans. JD and Maia had only been there for a week but still had some fun things to show me. I was so impressed with both their teachers, the classroom, the activities, the other kids there, and the parents I met. Here's what JD & Maia were most excited about.....

Practicing fine motor skills dropping little stars into an ice cube tray with plastic tweezers

Montessori preschool is like paying for full-day Pinterest in real life. All the stuff I see online and think "what a great idea for a toddler" but don't have time to do because I am at work all day. :-)

Practicing fine motor skills grating a bar of soap:

Coloring and erasing with chalk

Transferring ocean-themed toys from one dish to another

Miss Nicole told me that a bigger kid showed JD how to do this "tray-work" - use the medicine dropper to put one drop of water in each little suction cup - and clean up any spills with the sponge. Miss Nicole was watching JD while he was practicing. She said he was totally in his own little world, and would just laugh and smile with joy when he got it right. :-) What a sweet kid and what an awesome teacher for making my day with that story.

Maia and JD showing me their pictures on their classroom wall

Playing with ocean figures

They love the little sinks that are the perfect height for 3-year-olds