It's my party but my brother will cry when he wants to...

We had so much fun at Dawson's first birthday party. It was much simpler than Bennett's first, but that will probably be the story of his life. I've always done a full meal for Bennett's parties and it was really nice not to worry about that this time around. We just had cupcakes and snacks with all our family. It was very relaxing...save for Bennett's outrageous behavior followed by a meltdown that occurred every 20 minutes or so. Either he was sleep-deprived or he was throwing out all the stops to steal the spotlight from the birthday boy! He spent about half the party in time-outs.

But besides that, it was so much fun. These first birthdays are really more for me than for the baby anyway, so I love it! Happy-I-survived-the-first-year-of-your-life-day to me!!

And as usual, I recruited my ever creative MIL to create some adorable party decorations. She even made the hats!

The "circus tent":


Ready to dig in!:

He scarfed that thing down in about two minutes.


They turn one and think they can sit at the big kids table. Sorry kids...not til your feet touch the ground:

Where there's Aunt Kayla, there will be mustaches!!:

All the cousins:

The crime scene:

Possibly an ape trying to ration out our supply of bananas among his friends?

Nope. Just a three year old left to his own devices for too long.

Preschool update...

Bennett has now completed his first real week of preschool. Last week was meet the teacher day on Wednesday and a hour of free play on Friday while we had a parent's meeting. This week was the real deal. And it was also back to work for me. I'm working 3 days a week (2 half days and a full day) back at America's Family Coaches. Its fun to be back and remove my "mom" hat for a little while. That hat has felt heavier lately with my emotional three year old and my very mobile almost one year old.
Bennett loves preschool. I didn't even get the chance to kiss him goodbye when I dropped him off today! He just jumped in the circle with all the kids. It was fun to ask him about his first day and try to imagine him in there with all those kids. I can't wait til his assigned snack days when I get to be a helper and sit in the classroom!
So on Wednesday I was asking him all kinds of questions and he was answering all of them. Then he says, "and there's something with a kid I don't want to tell you." Oh dear...I got a little tense. I knew he meant he did something he knew he shouldn't have. I'd heard that phrase a couple times recently, as in, "Mom, there's something with Dawson I can't tell you." And then as any easily manipulated three-year old would, he confesses what he did. Usually involves hitting his brother with a toy.
Me: "what did you do?"
B: "I can't tell you"
Me: "Yes, you can, Bennett. You can tell Mommy anything."
B: "No, Mom. You'll be mad."
And then I pulled out the infamous parenting line: "You can tell me. I won't be mad at you."
B: "I was fighting."
Me: "Who were you fighting with?"
B: "A boy about a block"
Me: "Did you hit him??"
B: "NO, Mom!"

Phew....instant relief. A little fight over a block. He didn't deck the kid. Thank heavens I wasn't the mom of the child who hit a kid the first day of preschool. We talked about the appropriate way to handle the situation.

Day 2: His homework is late. He was supposed to bring back a page covered in pictures of things he likes and we didn't get it done. This is not good. I was the WORST procrastinator in school. Let's hope I didn't just set the standard for the rest of his life as a student. I better email his teacher and ask for an extension!! :)

PS. Upcoming blogworthy event...Dawson turns 1 next week!!

First Day

I apologize ahead of time for all the details...I know our moms will love reading about it!

Today was meet the teacher day for Bennett's preschool. It was basically a walk-through of what their day will look like. I was so excited as we were getting ready to go. I was actually ready to go early so there was no rushing around. I seriously cannot remember the last time we had time to spare in the morning. I need to remember that 15 or 20 minutes of extra sleep are not worth it! It was wonderful. (It really helped that Bennett went to bed early last night so Jon and I had a good two hours together after the kids were asleep and went to bed early ourselves. The later our kids are up, the later I want to stay up)

I actually got a little choked up at one point during the walk-through, which surprised me. This has been one of the things I've looked forward to more than anything else since Bennett was born.
There are several parts to their day and they move to different rooms, which seems great to keep them focused and engaged. They have to wash their hands in the bathroom and go potty, then they go into a small classroom and find their hook with their name (Bennett found his all by himself!) to hang their bag up. They spend 10 - 15 minutes in there for focused learning. Then they have gym time. They get a full half hour to run around and play in a huge gym and work on gross motor skills like balancing and riding trikes. Then they go to the Choice Room (below) where they have some less structured learning time and then play time at the center of their choice.

His teacher, on the right, Miss Heidi, and the asst teacher, Miss Dawn:

The playdough table- this is what Bennett's looking forward to the most!


Man, I wish I could remember more of my preschool years. It looks so darn fun! All I remember is a boy named Sawyer or Samuel accusing me of wearing lipstick to school in K-4 because my lips were really red. I was so embarrassed.

My favorite

I've read a couple of articles in parenting magazines talking about the hidden truth of parenting: that you'll probably have a favorite kid. But the good part is, your favorite child will be in constant rotation. I've found this to be so completely accurate in my short year of parenting two.
When Dawson was born, he was such an easy newborn. I LOVED his first 8 weeks (probably more so because of the hell I went through during Bennett's first 8 weeks). He pretty much never cried and nursed better and slept longer than Bennett did. At that time, it seemed so overwhelming to parent Bennett. I didn't want to be his mom at the moment. He was at the peak of terrible twos and would start bawling his eyes out if I looked at him wrong. Dawson was by far my favorite.
Then Bennett mellowed out...and Dawson UN-mellowed. He started teething at 5 months and turned into a very difficult baby. He cried constantly and wanted to be held constantly. And he would scream relentlessly if he had to wait in his chair for food. He was so not my favorite for at least 3 or 4 months.
Now the tables are turning again. After Dawson cut his first 6 teeth, he was back to his happy baby self. He loves to wrestle with Bennett and climb on furniture and feed himself and dance to music. And he gloriously naps for a combined 4 hours every day. Bennett however is in a funk. I don't know what his deal is these days but I find myself losing patience with him so quickly. He's driving me crazy. He's a terrible listener right now, and he's not a people-pleaser (aka: pushover) with his friends anymore. He hits and bites when somebody takes something from him. He desperately needs a nap during the day but if he sleeps for even 20 minutes, he'll take an extra hour or more to fall asleep at night and the cycle worsens. Needless to say, he's not my favorite at the moment.
I have no real point to all this ranting, but its nice to remind myself that childhood phases are SO short-lived. Before you know it, they've moved beyond whatever miserable phase they're in and morph back into the child you know and love (and secretly call your favorite).


But...despite not being my favorite at the moment, Bennett's finally entered the phase of hilarious one-liners. I've always loved hearing the goofy stuff other 3 and 4 year olds come up with but its so much funnier from the mouth of your own :)
A couple of his best ones lately:

• When my mom was watching him one day, they were both going to eat a popsicle together. Bennett tells her, "You have to take your shirt off first, Nonny."
• One day he had to do his business in the potty. I was in there with him and as he's sitting there he says, "Oh boy. This is gonna be a quick one!"
• Then yesterday my mom calls me laughing because she took him potty the other day and he's sitting there and tells her, "This is gonna be a long one, Nonny." It cracked me up that he can tell that already. Maybe he'll learn to be prepared for the "long ones" and bring a book with him.

Ramblings

A couple things I'm excited about lately:

• Preschool!! Bennett starts preschool next week and I'm giddy as a school girl (pun intended). I just loved school (up until about 8th grade when I got my first F on a history test and realized I would actually have to study for stuff...blech) and I cannot wait for Bennett to experience it. I know he's going to love it. Every time I've gotten some school papers in the mail for him, I get all excited. I have this weird love for filling out forms (pretty sure that classifies me as a nerd) and the fact that they're forms for Bennett's preschool is like birthday cake on Christmas. Its strange that his school years are starting. He's only going 2 days a week for 2 hours, so it'll be a perfect introduction. Before your kids are in school, there's no official start and end to summer. I always stretched it out in my mind for as long as I could wear flip-flops. But no more. It will be dictated by the school year. I seriously think it'll make this winter more bearable though, with preschool to keep it rolling along and fun. (Here's hoping, anyway).
• Vacations on the horizon. We haven't been anywhere since January of 2009 and for us that feels like a long stretch. I live to travel and I hate when we don't have something planned in the next 6 months. We're taking a family trip to Florida in October (possibly without Dawson, possibly with friends. We'll see how it pans out). We'll use our timeshare and drive. Then we'll use our remaining airline miles sometime this winter to go somewhere in the Caribbean, just the two of us. This makes me very happy.

And in normal life news...excited to check out the new Wal-Mart this afternoon thats only about 6 minutes from our house. Apparently its practically the Neiman Marcus of Wal Marts. That's what I hear anyway. I wonder if they have Valet service...

Piper's here for the afternoon after my sister split her head open and required 3 staples!! Sheesh. 3 year olds aren't so great on pounding headaches. So Bennett and Piper are going to have a sleepover. Here are the many moods of those two:

And this is how I just found them:

Nothing like a post-swim naked romp in a sandbox. That's what i always say.

Since I haven't updated my book list in a while, I thought I better do a blog post about it so you'll know to look at it. I add books to that list very hesitantly. I save that for the ones that impact me in a big way. I've read a few mediocre books lately and was waiting for the next great one. I finished one recently that up until about 2/3 into the book, I absolutely did not think it was going on the list. Then the story shifted and it left me haunted thinking about what kind of pain people can endure in one life. I finished it a couple weeks ago and still keep thinking about it. So anyway...stick with it. Its so worth it.