Just a little mud-slinging

It's been raining, and raining, and raining. The girls got off the bus today and started splashing through the puddles on the way home. I asked them to stop playing in the puddles in their good clothes, so of course you know what they heard..."put on some play clothes and THEN splash in the mud!" Well, it did look like fun, so I let them enjoy it until the mud-slinging got out of hand.

Sarah's love affair

Sarah LOVES her teacher. Yesterday we went to the Dollar Tree, just for an outing, and Sarah wanted to buy a present for her teacher. She got her a little glass paperweight with an etched butterfly in it. She wrapped it carefully and took it to school with her today. I remember feeling the same way about my first grade teacher, Mrs. Towey - I loved her and I learned so much from her. I remember more about my first grade year than I do about any other year. Mr. Funny Bunny readers. A file box filled with ideas for stories. The reading corner. Visiting Mrs. Towey at her house, because she lived down the street and I liked to go say hi.
I'm happy that Sarah has the same relationship with her new teacher. And I definitely know why she feels this way - Mrs. K is really awesome.

Sarah, the Pharmaceutical Rep

This morning the girls played in Perry's office and got some of his supplies out of the closet. Sarah asked what he used them for, and Perry said he gave them to doctors to tell them about the medicine he sells.
Later, on the couch, Sarah gave me one of the pamphlets and said, "Tell the doctor if your migraine medicine doesn’t work, and he’ll give you some margarita medicine. It should work on everything and make you feel better."
I just had to post that before I forgot. And no, I don't drink a lot of margaritas!

Abby's Favorite Olympic Sport

What a wet, gray day, thanks to tropical storm Fay. It looks like we'll have quite a few days of this. We ventured out to rent a couple of movies, but that was our only outing this morning. After we all took a long, rainy day nap, we turned on the Olympics and found rhythmic gymnastics. I really didn't think this was still a sport, but I was wrong. The girls really liked it; in fact Abby loved it. They found appropriate attire and spent the next hour performing with ribbons. We watched the "pink girl" (who won the gold) five times.They even found medals and reenacted the medal ceremony, with both of them winning gold. Here are a few pics. Notice that Sarah taped her hands and wrists like the gymnasts do.





We had a birthday party at 6pm for one of Sarah's new classmates. It was supposed to be a swimming party, but the weather didn't cooperate, so it was at his house. It was good to get to know some of the other moms and kids, and everyone had fun despite the change in plans.

Emma Faith

We've been seeing some really cute pics of Emma Faith lately (Holly & Tim's baby). She is just precious and we can't wait to see her next month! Here's a preview:

A Foreign Language

A friend of mine told me that the kindergarten teachers are doing assessments this week. I really had no idea what that meant, so I emailed Abby's teacher to see if I could get some insight into the process. She told me that they were doing MMI and DIBELS this week. OK, that's great, but what does that mean? I've quickly realized that school is a whole new world, and one that I know very little about. I'm not the type to just let things happen - I have to understand the what and the why. So I've been doing some research and trying to decipher all these new acronyms. I've got DIBELS figured out; in fact there's an official website and you can even see the exact questions they ask the kids. The MMI is still a mystery, but I'm sure my sister can help me. I know it's a math assessment, and I think it stands for Mobile Math Initiative, but I don't know what types of questions are asked.

Maybe I shouldn't concern myself with things like this. I asked the girls if they were asked any questions about letters or reading or math, and Abby said "no" while Sarah said "I think so but I don't remember what the questions were about." So obviously they weren't concerned by the process. And, I know we'll be faced with assessments and standardized tests for the next 13 years. But I want to understand what's going on in the classroom. Am I the only one who has the need to know?

A funny Abby story: After dinner, she asked if we could have movie night. I really wasn't up for it - I was willing to watch a short TV show, but I didn't want an hour and a half movie. So as I paused, thinking of a compromise, she said "I really want to watch 27 Dresses." I almost choked on my tea. Where did she come up with this?! A few months ago, Perry rented this for me, and the girls knew I wanted to see it and knew that it wasn't a kid movie. But why did she remember it? So funny. Then she asked if she could watch it when she's a teenager. Too cute.

A New Day

Sorry about the frustrated post last night. It was just one of those days. Today has been much, much better. Everyone slept well last night (well, Abby was up to her usual tricks, but there were no bad dreams), our morning routine went smoothly, and we even managed to get out of the house early! My hike was great - it wasn't too hot, and I was able to get to know some of my new friends a lot better. We had a nice, relaxing family afternoon with no planned activities, and got the girls tucked into bed by 7. So maybe Wednesdays are just going to be the worst day of the week, the day when the go go go catches up with us. Thursdays will be the day we catch our breath, and then, it's Finally Friday!
Perry and I have had some good conversations about Sarah the past couple of days, and we have some thoughts about how to help her adjust and also how to manage her Type A personality. I like Lane's idea about some kid-friendly meditation/relaxation ideas for Abby, to help her settle down at night. We'll have to work on that.
Sarah watched a Radio Disney concert video this afternoon in the basement. She was dancing away, loving life, and it was so refreshing to see! She asked if we could get a disco ball to put in the basement! Perry laughed, but I love that idea! How fun!

Does it get any easier?

I was really hoping that we'd be settling into our new routine by now, but honestly this week seems worse than last week! Abby continues to stay up for an hour after we say goodnight, flipping through books. And then at 5:30am, like clockwork, I hear her flipping pages again, and soon moving to the playroom, all of which disturbs Sarah, me, and sometimes even Perry. So she's tired, and Sarah's tired, and they're both cranky, and I'm just OVER it! To make matters worse, Sarah isn't sleeping well. She had a bad dream a couple of nights ago - her first as far as I know. It's a bad feeling to wake up at 4am to someone tapping you on the shoulder! She seems anxious and overwhelmed, and I hate to see this at such a young age! Why can't we just pass along our good traits to our kids, and leave all of our baggage out of it?
I'm going to buy some black-out fabric to re-line their curtains, hoping that will somehow help Abby reset her internal clock. But I'm not sure yet what to do for Sarah. And as for me, well, tomorrow I'm going hiking. That should help.

Headaches

We took Sarah to a pediatric neurologist today. My gut told me that she's OK, she just gets headaches and that's life. But she's only 5, and I didn't get my first migraine until I was 19, and it just worries me and makes me sad that she's getting them already. So our pediatrician suggested we go talk to an expert, just to be sure, and also to get some treatment advice. Based on Sarah's responses to his questions, and a brief exam, his official diagnosis is that she's getting headaches (lately she complains about a headache almost every day), possibly due to her personality (yes...Type A like her mom), possibly due to certain triggers in her diet (one possible culprit is aged cheeses - I've never heard this one before but we do eat a lot of cheese around here and we generally avoid most of the other triggers he mentioned), and probably just because some people are prone to headaches. He also diagnosed her with migraines, but since she only gets them once a month, or even less, he gave us some treatment ideas but not much advice on how to avoid them. I'll continue to keep a journal to keep track of them, but most likely this is just going to be something she'll have to learn to cope with. Still, I'm glad we saw him - we can check in with him over the years, and he's on top of the latest headache research. I really liked that he wasn't overly aggressive - he didn't want to do any MRIs or scans, he didn't want to start either of us on daily medication, and he had several "alternative" suggestions (other than prescription drugs) that might help.
Although we weren't there to talk about my migraines, he was interested in my history and he did suggest that I add Vitamin B2 supplements to my diet to see if that cuts down on the frequency of mine. 300mg, for those of you who also get migraines. For children, the dose is 100mg, but it's only available in pills, and Sarah won't swallow a pill yet, and evidently they taste horrible.
After our appointment, we went by the library to kill a little time before the girls' first ballet/tap class. They had fun. There are only 5 girls in their class so they'll be getting plenty of one-on-one attention!

Roller Skating

We went to cousin Clay's 6th birthday party tonight at the roller rink. What fun! Once we tightened the wheels on the girls' skates, they did great. We had the whole rink to ourselves which was so awesome - just a bunch of little kids, and their parents, skating and falling, skating and falling. They also had these really neat little scooter things that the kids could ride, and that kept everyone entertained. I was even able to skate by myself for a bit and get some much-needed exercise. I think it always amazes Perry that I can skate, because I'm not the most coordinated person in the world, but my days of living on the beach forced me to learn some (very basic) skating skills! Sorry to disappoint you, though...there are no pictures of me on skates!

But I do have this adorable picture of Lanie and her grandpa Bill. Lanie is really getting big - it's amazing how fast they grow! And of course, a pic of the birthday boy. Happy Birthday, Clay!!