First Day of School

School is in full swing now and I'm exhausted. Lily catches the bus at 7:10, which means I'm getting her up at 6:30 to get dressed and eat. Most days she gets right out of bed but this week she's been a little slower waking up. She has got to be so tired!

Also, up until this week Jamison has been sneaking into her room in the middle of the night to finish sleeping in her bed. He is such a light sleeper so he would wake up at 6:30, too. Some mornings I heard them talking and playing as early as 6. I think he's sleeping deeper at night since school started.

I drop Jamison off at pre-school at 8:45 so we have a nice time in the morning, just the two of us, for over an hour. Patrick usually has to be woken up at 8:30 for the ride to pre-school - I hate waking up sleeping babies!

Here are pictures from their first day of school, about three weeks ago.

Her bus driver's name is Sue and she is a very patient and understanding lady. I had so many reservations about Lily taking the bus and Sue treated me like I was normal - and I know I was not.

Lily's morning bus stops at another school to pick up some more kids before heading to her school. I'm ok with that. She just has to sit there. But for her afternoon bus she has to catch one bus at her school and then transfer to a second bus at another school. I did not like this arrangement but there wasn't much of a choice.

Lily's school ends at 2:50 which is right in the middle of nap time for both boys (oh yes, Jamison still takes a 2 hour nap everyday. It is a little bit of heaven.) so my mom can't pick her up. If I decide to leave work at 2:30 and pick her up I still have to drive to my moms to get the boys and then head home. I make it home about 4. If Lily takes the bus home she gets dropped off at 3:45 - I can stay a bit later at the office and I save money on gas. Plus, when the weather gets nasty it will be less time on the roads. So it just makes more sense to have her take the bus home, even though it is painful for me to let her do this.

So bus driver Sue heard my concerns and went to the effort to talk to Lily's two afternoon bus drivers so that they would keep an eye on her. She then also found another kid who will walk Lily from one bus to another. I was so impressed that Sue did this for the psycho-emotionally unhinged-mom.

Of course, I had to also have a back up plan. I explained the situation to Lily's school and they matched her up with an older girl who would also make sure she made the afternoon transfer. And then, just because I was already BEYOND mentally unstable, I actually left work that afternoon to go and sit in the transfer school parking lot to WATCH Lily make the transfer. And then I had to beat the bus home so I looked completely normal when it dropped her off.

But now that I went to all that effort with Lily I won't have to do it again for Jamison and Patrick. I promise I won't. Probably.

I forgot to mention that on the first day I DID NOT follow the bus to her school. I think that might be my only saving grace for the bus-stress that I put upon myself. I did meet the bus at the school and walk Lily to her classroom. Her class is difficult to get to and up until this week the school actually had older kids helping the kindergartners find their class.
Me: "Lily, did you remember to say thank you to your helpers today?"
Lily: SILENCE. Long pause. "No, I forgot."
Me: "How can you forget to say thank you? If you got gum for every time you said thank you, do you think you'd remember?"
Lily: "I don't know."
Me: "Why can't I have a polite 5 year old? Why is this so difficult? And what does this say for your manners when your 15?"
Lily: Stares at me. Walks away.

So here's a picture of her getting off her morning bus to go to school. You can barely see her. She's the short, pink blob.

When we got to the classroom her teacher had two little girls ready to meet her. There are 11 kids total in her class and the other 10 all went to pre-school together. So her teachers made sure Lily was welcomed. A new friend - Lenora-was wearing the same outfit. Upon introductions Lenora told us that she would like to be called Nora and that she wanted to know if I bought that outfit at Target, because she loved Target. Yes, I did buy it at Target and I love Target too, Nora.

Lily at her table.

And while I was getting the above shot Jamison wandered around the school and found the pre-school class. He was VERY interested, especially since the kids were in there, but didn't want to venture too close. (note - cast comes off next Friday!)

So tomorrow will be month #2 of school and I think we have a nice schedule going. I feel like we're moving at 100mph all the time but I better get used to it. I have two more in the ranks.

Lots O' Pictures

For two weeks (ok, maybe three. the days fly by and I really have no concept of time anymore) we've been trying to get pictures of Patrick smiling. He normally smiles immediately after eating but we're so enthralled by his expressions that we never think of getting the camera, we just sound like crazy adults talking to an infant: oooh you's smiling? yezz you are! tell me all about it! what a pretty smile! is your tummy full? yezz it is. yezz it is!

And then last week he started laughing while doing this and we just laugh back at him, the whole time forgetting that we should record these moments. I got a great shot on my phone but it is really blurry and the flash made him close one eye. So here are our attempts at getting his smile on camera. I tried to title each one just for kicks and giggles.

Blank Canvas


Kind of....no...not really...

Yes! There it is! But you can't really see it.

Hey you! Yes you! I'm talking to you!

You might think this is his smile but his REAL smile is even bigger. He's putting in minimal effort here.

And now he's done. He refuses to play with me when he gives me this look.

"I am very suspicious of you and the blinding flash on your camera."

Now I'm surprised!

Yay! I'm happy! (and a bit scary looking)

"No WAY! I just DON'T believe it!"

GRROWL!

Slightly cross-eyed....

Exhausted. It drained all his energy trying to smile for the camera.

Look at that belly!

Can you see that smile? I know it's not close up, but that's the smile I'm talking about.

This is as close as I've gotten to capture his best smile - it's not too bad! I'll keep working on it, though.

Patrick turned two months old today and celebrated by sleeping last night from 8pm until I had to wake him at 8:30am to take Jamison to school. His well child appointment is next week and I'll post his stats then.

And no, we have NO IDEA who he looks like.

Broken

Anyone want to guess what this is an x-ray of? See on the left side where there is that horizontal dark line where it should be a solid white bone? That's right! It's Jamison's broken wrist!

I had wanted some privacy when I was feeding the baby so I closed the bedroom door. I know, crazy - right??! Why should I expect privacy?! Jamison didn't like the idea of the privacy part, the door being shut part, or me feeding the baby alone part and decided to ram into the closed door.

He SCREAMED. I wrapped it in an Ace bandage and gave him some Tylenol. The wrist was clearly not broken since he could still move it. Isn't that a sign of just a bad sprain? I thought so, too.

For the next week (or two....I'll be honest, it took me a while) his wrist was usable, just sensitive. Why spend the money on a co-pay if they're just going to tell me it's a bad sprain? So finally Brian and my mother basically told me that it had gone on a little too long and he needed to see our primary. Our doctor was just as upset as I was that it wasn't a sprain.

He can't get it wet so bath time is incredibly fast. Which is unfortunate since he normally stayed in the bath for 20 precious minutes. We wrap it in plastic, secure it with tape or a rubber band, and it still gets wet.

The cast hasn't slowed him down at all (unfortunately). He has problems putting on his socks, shoes, and long sleeve shirts but that's it. He also hasn't complained an iota - which is wonderfully unexpected.

There is one small problem with the cast....he has no idea how hard it is. Especially when he is flinging his little body onto the blanket that the baby is laying on, barely missing the baby's fragile, and not completely closed up skull with the incredibly hard cast. Can a two month old get a concussion? Hopefully we won't find out.