Preschool Co-op

This year Kiran & I participated in a preschool co-op.

5 preschoolers, 4 moms

The moms took turns teaching- 2 weeks every 8 weeks. We used letters and numbers to give us some structure but it was pretty free for the interpreting. 

We had a blast. It was a great compromise for us between full time preschool and doing nothing.

Today we had their end of year party.

And with the little sisters:

There are 4 little brothers also but they were sleeping.

Three of the five will be starting kindergarten in the fall. K is one of the two that will not. She misses the cut-off by 7 days. I’m not sure yet what we will pursue for next year. I’m sure we’ll come up with something exciting.

Not Identical Anymore

Rhys was tired of no one being able to tell he and his brother apart so he took matters into his own hands.

Now you can tell them apart. Rhys is the one with the big scrape on his nose.

Sorry about the poor quality of the photo- we had to take it with J’s phone since we lent our camera to my parents for my niece’s dance recital since they had lent their camera to my bro and sis-in-law who are currently on a cruise ship in ALASKA. Sigh.

The Middle of the Night

The other night- as I lay awake way past when I should have been snoozing- I heard Sienna cry out.

I went to her and she couldn’t tell me anything that was hurting or anything that had scared her so I retucked her into bed and slid back into mine, hoping sleep would come this time.

She did it again. And a third time. That third time I asked her if she wanted me to lay with her. Surprisingly my need-personal-space daughter said yeah. We lay in the dark not speaking. Just barely touching. Crammed onto a trundle bed that gets pulled out every night and pushed back in every morning.

I treasured those moments with her. I took the time to smell her scent and feel her chubby fingers as they stroked her bunny. I wasn’t thinking about sleep or to-dos or tomorrow. Just her. A daughter, a middle child. And I didn’t mind curling my adult body beside her tiny one even if it was in the middle of the night because I know there are days coming where a snuggle with Mommy won’t be enough to solve her problems. Her disappointments will be too deep for my embrace to resolve. Her fears will be things that haunt me too.

So I chose to relish that moment when a Mommy’s arms were more than enough to soothe an innocent heart back to sleep. Even if she did tell me after 20 minutes I could go back to my bed. I think it was the personal space thing.

I love…

…cooking dinner while being serenaded by Needtobreathe

….simple dinners: Pineapple Ham

…how Kiran waits eagerly every month for her new High Five magazine and is captivated by it for at least an hour when it arrives

…the 4 hour simultaneous naps my twins took today

…chopping fresh veggies from the farms near our house

…picking strawberries with friends

What are you loving today?

At Our House…

we start ‘em young.

Your Input, Please

I was doing an exercise and it said to name your three favorite movies and find the common theme between them.

So

1. 10 Things I Hate About You

2. Remember the Titans

3. Sound of Music

Besides having fantastic soundtracks, what common themes do these three movies have in common???

We Did It!

We finally cancelled our satellite TV service.

We had been talking it over for months, debating the pros and cons. We put that DVR to good use during the first year of the twins’ lives. We watched many House Hunters International during dreamfeeds and caught up on House and 1000 Places to See Before You Die during the middle of the night feeds. We ran through a Sesame Street phase, a Sid the Science kid phase, a Super Why phase and finally a Dora phase with the girls.

But… the kids are older. No more middle of the night feeds. No more dreamfeeds. No more nursing at all (but that’s a whole ‘nother post). We’re busy and we decided to pull the plug.

And.

I love it.

The first few weeks we didn’t even have the antenna up and I didn’t miss it. I enjoyed the quiet and the extra time I found in my day. We are checking out DVDs from the library for the girls screen time and we actually hooked up the VCR from college and watched our wedding video for the first time ever! I also watched part of the cruise video from high school…. yet another post.

We’ve got the antenna hooked up now and receive the basic channels (although still no ch 7 which is in fact the closest one). I’m glad we’ll be able to watch some sporting events live or turn on the news for updates. But perhaps the best benefit of all is that it should afford me more time to blog!