My seventeen year old trapped in a kindergartener's body......

We seem to be moving at warp speed around here in the maturity department. It feels like I dropped off a Kindergartener and pick up a High Schooler. Here is how our conversations go when I pick up Emma from school.....

Me: Hi Honey how was school?

Emma: Fine.

Me: What did you do today?

Emma: Not much.

Me: No I mean really, what did you do? did you have fun?

Emma: Yeah.

So then we have to commence with the tickling until she spills all the details. Im hoping that will still work when she is in High School, although I am afraid that by then she may have figured out how truley uncool I really am....

First Day of School

Yesterday was Emma's first day of school. It is so hard for me to believe that she is actually going to Kindergarten. The pictures came out a little foggy because our camera lens was having problems adjusting to the muggy weather. Emma was definately more calm than I was. She is doing beautifully. She loves her teacher, really enjoyed her first day of school and was actually up this morning before her alarm clock dancing around shouting "I get to go back to school!!!!" She really does not get that from me, I don't wake up that way. Instead of dancing and shouting, I am more inclined to shuffle and mumble while im trying to find the coffee machine.

























Emma decided this morning that she wanted to walk into the school all by herself. At first, I was reluctant because I had all the images of a lost daughter in my head and phone calls from the school.....(as though she would wander out of the school and into the street!). I got a grip on myself and decided it was much better for her to be able to as Ms Frizzle says : "Take Chances, make mistakes, and get messy!!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Frizzle).

Which was a dilema that has repeated itself in my parenting journey, because I had made a concious choice to start parenting Ms. Frizzle style when Emma was about 2, and I noticed how reluctant she was to branch out on her own. I didn't want to change her, but I did want to develope her more adventurous, social, daring side in an effort to boost her self confidence and self reliance. I started a playgroup, and started taking the kids on adventures all over town and tried to hang back as much as I possibly could to give her room to spread her own wings. I am so incredibly proud of the girl she is today, and it is all one hundred percent her own doing!

Cultural Night: China

You can clearly see I haven't nailed the ability to turn the photos in blogger! So please mail me all the bills for your chiropracter from your neck damage! Each month or two we are having the kids pick out a culture that we read books about, research a little, learn phrases from, and try to visit something from that culture as well. We also try to have a meal from the location, which stretches my culinary skills to the brink. So this month was CHINA. WHich worked out well because Daddy was traveling there. It was SOOO much fun. The kids loved the Asian grocery store, and the bubble tea. (In case you don't know bubble tea has little tapioca "bubbles" in it that come up the straw with the tea. The kids loved that. They have also decided that they really really like drinking hot tea. Which has been great, because it makes it so easy to give them really healthy green tea.



















You can't see it in this picture, but John's outfit has this little yarn braid that runs down from his hat. It makes him look like the last emporer. He isn't arguing with the title either.
We had our good friends the Ridge's over for dinner. They are just the most fun!!! The kids were so excited and everyone had a good time, well, except at the end of the evening. Emma's teeth made contact with John's head when they were playing sailboat on the couch. Unfortunately, this pushed her two front teeth back into her mouth. That wasn't fun, it involved alot of screaming and blood. It was also a very sweet moment though. Her friend Noah held her hand to make her feel better and her brother was very worried too and rubbed her back. Then Brian and I told her about the tooth fairy. and at first she wanted money, but then she asked if the tooth fairy would bring her another baby brother
or sister.



















Ms Toothfairy, if you are reading this, she did NOT mean that!!! We are all full up on babies over here