First Day of Preschool!

Makena's enrolled in this fabulous "preschool" where the kids attend one day a week, and it's only from 9-11:30, AND their parent attends with them. (That's why I put preschool in quotes!) It's located right by my old high school, which makes me very nostalgic because it's so "it's a small world"-y. The first 45 minutes is spent just playing indoors or out, or doing an art project or two. The parents check the bulletin board and read the assigned pages in our workbook, then write a response to the questions provided. Today our task was to observe how our child acts in the new surrounding, how they respond to the other children, and what emotions they (and we) were feeling on this first day.
 
I can't wait to read the whole journal at the end of the year!! It's extremely easy for me to write, especially in a school setting, but this wasn't to please anyone but myself. I ran out of room because I wanted to be as detailed as possible! The "homework" (quotes because we aren't meant to take it home) is also a chance for us to focus on something other than hovering over our child.

I had told Makena that when we go to school we get to wear a special yellow button with our name on it, and that her teacher will pin it on her shirt. During the parent orientation that was explained to us, and I wanted to give Makena an idea about something to expect. That morning Makena was beside herself with excitement. We ate a nice family breakfast and then she got up and grabbed her lunch box and said she was ready for school. So we took photos of her because that's just what you HAVE to do!! Such a fun milestone!

Before getting in the car she was getting impatient and we took about 20 photos, I think this last one is my favorite-

At the front gate. I loved how eager she was to go in. Not a bit nervous-

Then we walked into the classroom and the teacher greeted Makena by name. She was all smiles, and loved the name tag button.We said hello to our friends who were there, I'm so glad Makena has someone she knows in her class! Then she wanted to read a book with Pam. Pam took the morning off her own preschool job to attend class with us. How lucky is Makena?!

 Next she did the art project and decorated a shirt. The glue was the best part.

And finally she was ready to go explore outside! I couldn't wait for her to see how awesome it is, she had the greatest time playing with everything. She loved the tire swing.

She pretty much just ran all over the place practically squealing with joy!

She loved the play house. At one point another kid came in and was playing with some dishes and Makena said "Noooo! I'm playing!!" but then we showed her there was plenty to share. Good ol' only child syndrome...

 She loved the gas station/mechanic shop, and especially the goggles and keyboard inside-

Pam took her on a wagon ride-

She painted a picture... and I know I have full permission to brag, but out of all the paintings, hers was the only one that wasn't a scribble of paint. She drew a shape then proceeded to color it in, staying inside the lines and making sure to get every spot of white. The little hand washing station was fun too, full of warm bubbly water and a towel to dry hands on.

After the free-play it's time for circle time. We sang songs and marched around the room (Makena hates doing that for some reason, she always asks me to hold her.)

Then snack time!! She was so excited to sit down with her lunch box and eat her snacks. She unzipped it by herself and opened the container and we just were so proud of her. So fun! Another my-kid-is-awesome point- I didn't notice any other kid eating veggies. ;) 

She ran outside to play again and had fun with her friend. A little boy started to play with the basket ball hoop she was using, and she got annoyed by him until Pam reminded her how to share and take turns. Then she ran off to play on the side and the boy followed her. Pam said, "Look, you made a new friend!" and Makena was just smitten. Another little girl climbed up on the play structure and Makena exclaimed, "Now me have TWO new friends!!" :)

Normally the last 30 minutes of class are when the parents go with the teacher to another room for a little adults only class. The kids stay at the preschool with whatever rotating parent helper is on duty and with the 2 classroom aides, one of which is me! So while I'm very thrilled with the reduced tuition fee in exchange for being an aide, I do hope to swap a few times so that Makena gets to experience me not being there. The teacher said I'm more than welcome to do so, especially if there is a class topic that particularly interests me. We'll see!

At bedtime Makena said her favorite parts were "making my new friend Jimmy" and "teacher Mindy said hi and bye to me!" She just beamed the whole time we were there, and asked to go back again the next day. I wish it was more than once a week! She went to bed tonight very excited that tomorrow is a school day!

**Todd Parr book GIVEAWAY!**

Do you love Todd Parr??

Hopefully you know who Todd Parr is. But if you are suffering from an episode of mommy-brain I'll give you a hint... he's a super awesome children's book author and illustrator. His books are easily recognizable by their bright colors, adorably simple drawings, and hilarious/heartwarming text. The underlying message is always about acceptance- of others and yourself.

Perhaps you've seen this little book?

I bought The Best Friends Book at a garage sale while I was pregnant with Makena. We were in full baby planning mode, and one of the most important things I focused on was getting her shelves stocked with books. I remember looking at a few great books at that garage sale, but I put them all back in the bin based solely on their condition. Yes, that's right. I judged those books by their covers and pages that were stuck together with layers of drool. I wanted the baby friendly board books but they all seemed to have been gnawed on by 87 million children who ate steady diets of chocolate and lollipops. Then I saw The Best Friends Book. Clean cover! Pages intact! Small format! Fun to read! And as an added bonus it has a very sweet inscription on the front page from Stella (who signed her name with a star next to it) to her "very bestest friend in the whole world!" Alas. We all know how those grade school friendships go, so it's no surprise Stella's BFF eventually tossed the thoughtful gift into the unwanted pile.

All the better for me! I snatched it up and happily added it to Makena's new bookcase.

Two of my favorite classes I ever took were about children's literature. In one of those classes our final project was to work with a group to submit an annotated bibliography about the best children's books for three different ages, as determined by the criteria we'd learned about. One of the sections I had was books about diversity. I set to work researching books that included same-sex families, and quickly found The Family Book.

I knew I'd have to remember it for when Pam and I had a baby someday. By the time Makena was born we had gathered/been given a few books that portrayed our family. The Family Book remains one of our favorites, and there is only one page that mentions two moms! The rest of the book is just such a joy to read, it really captures the joy of families of all shapes and sizes. It makes me get teary sometimes when I read it and think about how lucky I am.

A few months ago our library was hosting a Todd Parr book signing, and Makena and I took along her copy of The Family Book. I explained to her that Todd is the person who wrote this book, and she loved watching him draw and talk. She especially loved taking home her signed book. For a couple weeks she wanted to read the "Todd book!!" each night before bed, and she'd open to the front and read "To Makena, love Todd! T-O-D-D spells Todd! A heart means love!" She feels so special when she sees her name and that he loves her. :)

We left the book signing with a new book! I didn't realize they would be handing out copies of It's Okay To Be Different. 

At the back of each book there is an important message from Todd. Usually while reading these I start to choke up a bit and hold back tears. These are exactly the words I'd write in a book for my own child. Each message is touching and insightful:

If only every child had the chance to be told those powerful words. I have no doubt that Todd is planting seeds of acceptance and understanding with each book he writes, and then to wrap it all up with these affirmations is just icing on the cake.

So, NOW do you love Todd Parr??

Are you itching to get your hands on a book of his? First check the library, ours has many copies of his over 30 different books. We've recently read The I Love You Book and The Peace Book, both of which are winners of course! Could there possibly be better subjects than love and peace?! Just imagine what our world could be if every person knew the meanings of those two words.

You can also visit the website www.toddparr.com to take a look around and buy a book!

Todd sent me a copy of The Underwear Book his most recent book to review... and another copy to give to a blog reader of mine!

Aside from the cover, The Underwear Book is almost identical to the Underwear Do's and Dont's book, but that went out of print years ago and wasn't in this nice full-sized paperback format! It's full of practical yet silly advice. Anything about underwear is automatically hilarious to children, (and sometimes 30 year old moms too...) so it's pretty much a given your child will love this book!!

And now for the exciting part, one lucky person who leaves a comment will win a free copy of The Underwear Book!!* AND it's signed!! Todd Parr even loves YOU!!

To enter to win, leave a comment with your favorite Todd Parr book, and let me know if you own any! I'll pick a winner by either choosing whoever gives me the best answer or by selecting someone randomly if it's too hard to choose! I'm super curious how many people even read this blog, so go for it! Leave a comment now and enter to win! This is so fun! :) Winner will be selected on 9/24. That gives you a whole week, but why dilly-dally, just leave a comment right now!

 *I'll ship this book anywhere within the US after contacting the winner and confirming their address. Please be sure to leave me a way to contact you in your comment!! (Unless you've received a Christmas card from me, because then I already know where you live. I'm actually standing outside your window right now. I can see you at your computer. Just kidding!! Did you turn around to check?!) Okay that was a creepy ending...

Here, let's end with a photo of a cute kid instead! It's Makena, of course. I just spent 20 minutes scrolling through cute kid photos and realized I had a plethora to choose from in my own files. I love her. And she loves me. And Todd.

**UPDATE!** Out of a whopping 4 entries, we have a winner!! Congrats to Daxle, aka commenter #2! This is fitting because she once sent me a set of really amazing reusable produce bags, which we love to use! Oh how I love paying it forward! :)

September!

 I need to make this post quickly because we're already almost halfway through September and I've been slacking. And I have lots to report! I had really wanted to go to Raging Waters this summer, but we couldn't afford it. I was bummed out, but at least we did a lot of fun things on our summer list! The only other thing we couldn't do was the SF Academy of Sciences. But that doesn't have to be a summer thing, so we'll get there eventually. I really want Makena to see the butterflies, and Pam wants to see the earthquake exhibit.

But anyways, Raging Waters! I am a fan of their facebook page and they were posting contests all summer. I entered a few times but didn't win. Then they posted the final contest of the season and I knew for certain that I won. I was the first person to post the photo they asked for and name the ride. And then they said congrats to someone else, and I looked at the time stamps and my entry was in a good 7 minutes before the other guy. So I emailed them and mentioned that, and he said I was right, I should've won, and he gave me 2 free tickets! YAY! I was so excited. Makena gets in free so it was awesome to have a free day out! Well except for parking and food. The website said you can't bring food in, but we saw SO many people eating full picnics so next time we'll do that for sure. Besides, their pizza and garlic fries were not delicious.

We had a blast, Makena was having so much fun. She loved it, she loved the wave pool and the tubes on the lazy river and splashing in the water playgrounds. She was braver than I expected, she went down a slide that I thought she wouldn't! Then I wanted to go on the big wide slide with a tube, and I swear we saw other kids on laps, but we got to the top and they said she had to ride alone. She didn't want to, and we didn't want her to anyways, so we walked down again. She was super disappointed, especially because the tubes for that ride were painted like pink doughnuts with sprinkles, which she thought was way too cool. 

Lately we've been getting used to our new schedules since Pam's started her preschool job again. She's also going to start working her Saturday soccer again soon and that's going to be a pain. It was so nice to have her home for the full weekend during the summer. We really had a great summer and as we move into the fall it's a tough transition. I've said it a million times, but sharing one car is really very difficult. I think we do exceptionally well, but it's hard on all of us. There are early morning wake ups to drive Pam to work so we can use the car to go to work later, and there's a lot of waiting around or making Pam wait after work. And a lot of driving, which is still difficult sometimes. Thankfully Makena is MUCH better in the car now but sometimes we lose our sanity a little. We do have the DVD player back there for her and sometimes we really rely on that to get us through a day with a lot of car rides. I'm looking forward to having our routine in place, I feel like I've been so busy recently! I miss the days of just sitting around at home with Makena and walking to the library/park. And with the new work schedules comes a smaller paycheck, and that's been an adjustment. Plus, now Pam is going to be attending a night class once a week. Lots of changes coming up!

At home we've been gearing up for a garage sale, so we've been going through boxes and the house is a mess. That always makes me feel anxious and disorganized. We have two boxes of papers and files that came from the filing cabinets when we moved, and instead of putting the files back into the cabinets we've been meaning to go through the papers to be sure we're only keeping things we need to. So we've been here for 4 months now, and the boxes haven't been touched yet. I'm determined to get this done by the end of the month!! The other day I couldn't find some medical paperwork I needed and I would love to have that squared away.

Speaking of that, we had Makena's speech evaluated today. I'd been slightly concerned about her speech for a while, I brought it up to her pediatrician a few times but he said she was fine, too young to worry about it. Our county offers a free assessment and services for children under 3, and I finally made the appointment. First I had to fill out an insane questionnaire that asked me to list every single work she says, and asked all sorts of strange things. I was getting annoyed because the questions seemed to beyond ridiculous, and it made me feel like we'd be wasting their time. "Can your child put two words together? Can they follow a one step direction?" But I sent the paperwork in and they called us to schedule an evaluation. We went in and signed stuff and answered questions with one lady while another lady played with Makena and took notes of what she was doing. She built a tower with blocks, matched shapes, identified everything in a book of pictures, blew bubbles, threw a ball, etc. Super simple stuff. They told us it would take 1-1.5 hours but we were done within 45 minutes. They said she wasn't eligible because her scores were off the charts, and she was the most advanced kid they've ever screened. So that was awesome! Makena does have articulation issues, she usually only says the first sound of a word, but they understood her and said articulation wasn't something to be concerned about until after age 5. We left feeling a little sheepish, but mostly proud. ;)

Last weekend we went to the Art & Wine Festival, and it was great to be able to walk over and not deal with parking! We were meeting my mom at the kids area, and as we waited Makena was fascinated by the bungee trampoline, so we spent the time watching people on it. Then she said she wanted to jump, and I thought she was way too young but we saw a few little kids jumping. I asked if there was an age or weight limit and the operator said nope, that yesterday they had a 15 month old do it. That seems crazy to me, but they adjust the harness and tension by weight. So when my mom arrived (didn't want her to miss it!) we shelled out $10 for a 3 minute session.

I wasn't sure Makena would actually go through with it. She can be timid around new people but she went up on the trampoline and let the guy strap her in and listened to his instructions. And she slowly started to bounce, then jump a little higher. We were laughing because she had zero expression on her face, she does that a lot on rides, and it's hilarious. It almost looks like she's bored and then at the end she talks happily about how fun it was. Then she started going higher and higher. I couldn't believe she was fine with going so high!

Her time went on for a few extra minutes, she had gathered quite a crowd of onlookers, and as we left the line had grown much longer! We joked with the guy that she was good for business and he said that's why she got extra time. Afterwards she kept talking about her "big big BIG" jumps and how brave she was. :) We bought some tickets and rode a few of the little carnival rides, then we got some garlic fries and frozen fruit dipped in chocolate. And we oohed and ahhed over the beautiful overpriced crafts for sale.

It was also grandparents day and we gave my mom a picture frame that we covered with puzzle pieces that Makena and I painted. Then we took a photo of Makena holding a sign that said, "Grandmo, I love you to pieces!" My mom loves puzzles so it was an extra cute idea.

The other day at work I was rocking C to sleep and Makena was sitting next to us in the chair. I was singing Baby Beluga and she started to sing along, then she asked for milk. I saw her reach over and hold his hand, and she was rubbing her thumb across it slowly in such a sweet little gesture. He fell asleep and for a moment she fell asleep too, but then she woke and I put him in the crib. Makena rarely naps these days. The great part is that she is ready for bed at 7pm on the dot and falls asleep super easily. A couple weeks ago she was tired and napped at 10am, for only 40 minutes... and she was up until 10:30 pm that night!! She's been showing some real kindness lately towards others. I think she definitely has a great dose of empathy. She will give hugs when a friend is crying or bring a toy over to cheer them up. I just really love her so much! She's getting older and less babyish and she's turning into this darling little girl who I always dreamed of. I'm so incredibly lucky!

Makena crane. ;) Haha.

She's thrilled that the sunflowers she and Pam planted have finally bloomed. That one broke, but the stem healed itself and it grew at an angle. Nature is pretty darn awesome!

This was a birthday cake that she built. (I helped a little.)

And this is her right at this minute. She asked to sleep on her crib tonight. Every once in a while she says that. Of course she ends up snuggled next to me during the night!