Kindergarten

Caleb started school last week.  He is going to Washington School, the public school that is 2 doors down from our house.  Ever since we moved here and watched the buses pull in and out each day, he has been counting down until he turned 5 and gets to start school.  Thankfully, he got to start just 2 weeks after turning 5.

Tuesday was the first day, but it was only 45 minutes and Mom and Dad got to come too.  It was great to see the classroom and meet the teacher.  He was nothing but excited.  I was holding back tears.  He wore his Spider-man shirt with his Spider-man backpack.

Wednesday he had a full day, 8:45 – 3:00.  He was so excited to finally use his Spider-man lunch box.

Normally the students are supervised in the hallway from 8:25 until 8:40 when their parents or busses drop off.  For the first day, the kindergarten teachers had their class line up outside until the whole class was present.  Lucy, Toby and I got to meet Mrs. Hugo and wait until he walked in.  

While we were waiting, Lucy got stung by a bee (her 3^rd sting this summer).  We got to take a trip to the nurses office to get an icepack!  We tell her she is too sweet and the bees just love her, the office staff said the same. I was surprised at myself for not being sad leaving him at school.  

We didn’t even get a chance to see how quiet the house is without Caleb because we had our pipes replaced that day.  The plumbers arrived an hour before we took him to school and left a half hour after he returned. Since we can see the park from the front door, I told him that I would wave to him at recess.  I tried to pick him out of the crowd, but since it was yellow day, I could not see him.  I didn’t get emotional until we picked him up.  We were waiting a few minutes before the bell rang.  Caleb’s class was the first to the door, and Caleb was one of the first three students out.  He spotted up right away and came running across the grass and jumped onto me to give me a hug.  

When I asked him about school I mostly got “nothing” answers.  He didn’t really know any of the kids names yet, just too many new kids and new things to remember!  I guess at recess he was talking to a boy for a while but he wasn’t playing so he asked a boy in his class if he wanted to play.  The boy said no and that he had already been to school there (jumpstart preschool) and he was waiting for a boy he already knew.  I was sooo sad when he told me that, but he didn’t really seem that worked up.  I almost emailed the teacher! I think that boy was just a nervous with everything new as Caleb.  The next two days they played together at recess.

   

On Thursday, he was telling me what he wanted for lunch the next few days.  When I reminded him about the weekend he was a little sad that he would not be going to school. He was begging all morning for me just to take him to school early. I will have to remind him of that when he is a teenager and wants every day to be a weekend.  

On Friday, I volunteered to help with Kindergarten lunch.  They only have three employees supervising lunch so they asked for volunteers for the first week.  I was so excited to go in and meet his class!  Caleb was beaming to see me at school, another thing I am sure I will have to remind him of.

The school day has gone surprisingly fast for me and is very quiet, especially during naptime.  Caleb has not napped regularly for the last 2 ½ years and is very much a boy.  On Thursday, when Toby was napping, I was trying to get some things organized and Lucy just sat quietly next to me organizing her bracelets.  Maybe I will be more productive during the school year. 

Lucy really misses her playmate.  Every afternoon she has asked when we are picking him up.  One morning she was in tears because she forgot to get a hug goodbye from him before he walked into school. 

Toby really enjoys walking to pick Caleb up because he gets to see the school buses up close. 

Dad enjoyed being able to go on the first day of school.  He got out of his meetings early on Friday so go to meet Caleb after school too. 

Caleb, we love you. We can’t believe that you are old enough to go to school We miss you while you are at there, but we are glad you are having fun!  

Gymnastics

Aunt Jaime told us about a gymnastics camp that was right by their house.  Nadia signed up for the whole week and we decided to sign Caleb and Lucy up for Tuesday and Thursday session.  It was from 9-11:30 each day.  We were worried about getting stuck in traffic on the way down, so we left our house as soon as everyone was awake (about 6:45 each day).  The kids ate their breakfasts in the car.  We spent a little time at Aunt Jaime's before class.  Parents we not allowed in the gym during the camp so I only have one picture. We were allowed to peak through the windows, which was fun.   

On Tuesday, the moms and the baby boys walked around the park, let the boys play at the playground and even hit up the Mexican Fine Arts Musuem. 

I guess we bored them. 

Thursday the temperatures were approaching 100 degrees so we decided to go to Home Depot instead. I forgot my camera, but the boys enjoyed riding in the big orange Home Depot car cart. 

We went back to Aunt Jaime's for lunch and to play again until it was time to go home.  It was so much fun to be able to spend so much time with sisters and cousins! 

Poncho-style Towel Cover-up

I love seeing simple projects on other people’s blogs, so I thought I would give directions to a project I just did. 

My Mother-in-law gave the kids cute towels from Lands End.  I love them! They are great because they don’t fall off or drag on the ground and the kids can walk to the car from the sprinkler park or the pool.    Lucy’s is already starting to get small on her and they are always fighting over Caleb’s, so I decided to make some.  

I used the Lands End towel as my example.  I am in no way a seamstress so there is probably a better way to do it, but this is what worked for me.  The Lands End ones have cute characters and such; mine are just plain.  Maybe we will look for some patches to sew on.   

1.  Choose a bath or beach towel and coordinating hand towel.  Fold it in half and make sure it is the desired length.  If it is too short on the child, it will not keep them warm.  If it is too long they will trip.  I used 30 in. by 54 in., which was perfect for my 3 and 5 year old.

2.  Lay the hand towel flat and cut 6 ½ inches from each of the finished side.  The finished sides will be the front of the hood.  Each time I cut a piece I zigzag stitched (basted?) the edge so it would not fray. (for a toddler size I would cut 6 inches, per the small Lands End one.)

3.  Overlap the pieces and sew together.  (I overlapped rather than sewing the right sides together so that I could keep the finished trim and not have too bulky of a seam.)  I sewed the top side down, turned it over and sewed the bottom flat.  (This is the front of the hood.)

4.  Cut the remaining part of the hand towel down to 11 inches wide.  Zigzag each of the cut sides. (for a toddler size I would cut 10 - 10 1/2  inches, per the small Lands End one.)

5.  Fold in half lengthwise.  Starting from fold, cut curved piece off the top. (This will be the back of the hood.)

6.  Pin right sides together and sew back of hood.

7.  Pin the front and back of the hood together (right sides together). The front will be slightly longer than the back because of the piece you trimmed off the top.  Sew together.

8.  Trim hood to desired length.  I Used 12 in. from the top seam.  Zigzag around the bottom.

9.  Cut a slit in the middle of the bath towel.  Measure the width of your finished hood to determine length.  I cut mine 11 in. Better to cut short and have to go further than to cut too far.  Zigzag around the collar.  (For a toddler size use the width of your hood as a guide.)

10.  Find the center of the back of both the collar and the hood. Pin.  Continue pinning around.  It is okay to have the front pieces of the hood overlap.  (The Lands End ones overlap, but their hoods are a little more curved).

11.  I had a small space between the two finished pieces of the hood.  I just barely angled down the finished edges before pinning and folded over the remaining inch or so of collar so that it would look finished. 

12.  Sew the hood to the collar.

13.  You can apply any ribbons, patches or whatever you want.

Sorry for the poor photos, our basement gets very little natural light. Let me know what you think.

Five

For weeks, Caleb has been anticipating his 5^th birthday.  He has asked me to call him “Birthday Boy” nearly every day because it is almost his birthday.  Although sometimes I did call him Birthday Boy, I told him I would call him it all day when it was actually his birthday. He even had a menu planned for the day, biscuits and gravy for breakfast, PB&J for lunch, and pizza for dinner.

He has been saying for a while now that he wants to be Spiderman and would be when he turned 5.  The last few weeks I had wondered what was going to happen when he turned 5 and didn’t really have the superpowers of Spiderman.  Was he going to lose his love for the superhero and be devastated?  The day before his birthday he came up to me and asked how old Peter Parker was bitten by the radioactive spider.  I said he was at least 16 because he wanted to use his money to buy a car.  Ever so sweetly Caleb said that he was not going to be Spiderman when he was 5 anymore but when he was 16. Maybe he worried about not actually being Spiderman, either way I was relived. 

He wanted a Spider-man cake again this year.  He wanted it to be a surprise though.  He came up with a plan that he would take a nap (although they are unheard of) and Lucy and I could make the cake and surprise him when he woke up.   He was awake when we baked the cake the day before his birthday and I was going to decorate it while he “napped”. 

We figured he would be up with the sun as he is many days.  Instead, he was the last of the kids to wake up.  We showed him his cake, which I had decided to decorate the night before without a bunch of little helpers and went off to church.  He opened his presents while daddy made breakfast.  I was reminded more than once not to call him Caleb because it WAS his birthday.  I have been telling him that I cannot believe he is going to be 5, and all day he said, “I can’t believe I am 5!”

We had visitors and more presents.  Grandma bought him new shoes and brought 2 pairs for him to decide, both Sketchers … his favorite.  Although both were tennis shoes one looked more like casual leather shoes.  I asked him to pick and he automatically picked the pair of gym shoes.  I asked him to try them on to make sure they fit and he suggested he try both on.  He tried the ones he liked on first and said how comfy they were and then the second pair he claimed they were very uncomfortable.  So diplomatic. 

Then we were off to Chuck E. Cheese.  Although I don’t particularly care for the place, he was just in heaven. 

Dad and Aunt Emily were also having a blast trying to win him lots of tickets.  

Caleb put on a great show for everyone pulling some awesome dance moves in front of the blue screen (which projected his image into the Chuck E. Cheese movie on screen). 

This morning, we don’t even know what time he woke up, but at 6:30 we found him quietly playing in the basement. 

It was so awesome to watch him smile all day in pure excitement.  He was so thankful for everything; such a sweet and grateful boy.  

I am so happy he was born!