School!

Austin is officially a KINDERGARTNER! Kindof. His school says you need to be 5 before mid September to enter Kindergarten. And he just missed the cutoff. BUT they also offer Transitional Kindergarten, for kids turning 5 between the cutoff day and December. So that means there is an extra class comprised of older 4s, who get a practice year before they start for real. And this sounded great to us. He started last Wednesday, the 12th and goes for a half day until September, when they'll go for full days. So here's a mosaic of pictures all about his first week of school :)

 

Starting on the top left corner and working clockwise:

We are close enough to walk him to school, which is awesome. Sophie has gone with us every day, but her legs don't seem to work at 8 AM

All the Kinders are supposed to line up in the morning when the bell rings. Austin used to be afraid of the bell, so I was a little worried he still would be. But when he heard it that morning, he looked up at me and exclaimed, "It's not scary!"

Every morning, I draw a little picture to put in his lunch. Which he occasionally eats a little bit of.

Here he is emerging at the end of the school day. 

That evening, we took him to Chuck E Cheese to celebrate his first day of TK and Sophie's first week of preschool without her brother.

We gave them each a little present. Austin got a copy of "Where the Sidewalk Ends." He likes Hungry Mungry.

Meeting the principal! 

His school mascot is the owl, so on the first day of school, the lawn had a whole herd of those plastic owls you get to scare pigeons. Daddy and I wondered if any schools are the flamingos.

And in the center, I took a picture of the quarter someone has glued to the sidewalk on our journey to school. Poor Austin was extremely sad and confused about why someone would do this <3

We're Back!

Not from anywhere in any literal sense. Last year, there came a point where I just couldn't write. When I had the time, I couldn't get my attention and thoughts to cooperate. Mostly I didn't have the time. My computer was running out of memory and all my pictures have been terminally trapped on my phone since Christmas.

It made me really sad, mostly because Sophie has grown so much in the past months and I just didn't have the energy to write about it. And someday she'll read this blog and see that I posted so much about Austin's first two years, and almost nothing of her's. And someday maybe she'll have two kids herself and suddenly understand how the time gets away from you, and how, when you have a second or two to yourself all you want to do is look at Facebook or lolcats, or maybe you just stare off into space, before you're dragged back under to break up a fight or tell someone not to climb something, and so you really never get into a narrative frame of mind. But I have taken pictures. So many pictures. And I have stories. And hopefully, now that they're both going to be in school for a few hours, three days a week, I'll actually have time to share them.

Oh yeah. They're in school. Together. Today was Sophie's first day of school.

That's how you bury the lede, friends ;)