preschool

while i knew that miss kayley would not be ours forever, my heart did not want think about sending my baby out into the world....alone. she's still so little. or even think about elsie and kayley not spending days together because they love each other very much and have so much fun together. so i've spent the last several months enjoying our arrangement - kayley and elsie love each other and 'some day' elsie will go to preschool, but let's not think about that now. of course now kayley has been presented with a good opportunity. the very real chance that we will be losing her to a very fortunate bunch of children at a school in sammamish, forced my head into the conversation. time to find a school. and quickly. this will be good for her, it's time she started!

now i am very fortunate to have a group of girlfriends that i've known for many years, some since kindergarten, no joke. three of them are educators and one of those three owns her own preschool. the other two teach at that preschool. (www.thediscoverypreschool.com) perfect, elsie will go there. i know them, they know elsie, they are moms, what's not to love? she has to be three......not three pretty soon, but three. so she can't enroll there until next fall. hmmm, no good. after some long discussion with one of those teacher-friends, montessori sounded like a good fit for preschool.

the search begins. and let me tell you, there are a lot of preschools these days. some have infant programs, some require that she be potty trained, some are montessori and some are of completely different philosophies that i haven't spent the time learning about. all i can say is we found our school.

moments before our scheduled visit, i said to kayley, "i want it to be like my wedding gown, i just knew when i put it on that i would be getting married in it." (yes, the second time around anyway, thank you very much, as that experience escaped me the first time.) anyway, we then walked into lakeside montessori, pine lake campus, and met with a wonderful woman who gave us a lovely tour. the classrooms are beautiful, the people are friendly, warm, and calm. the outside play area puts to shame any park elsie has ever seen. it just feels right. to confirm it all, charles, kayley and i watched as miss elsie quickly made herself at home talking to the teachers, exploring the classrooms, and even walking up to the kids having lunch at their tables, begging to be invited into the group. now our girl is usually kind of shy in new situations, takes her a while to warm up and all that. but she was immediately more confident in this place more quickly than in any other situation we've seen. it's a sign.

the best way i came up with to describe what i was feeling is this: lakeside feels like a school, the other places we visited felt like daycares.

i am going there tomorrow morning with all of the completed paperwork to enroll her for real. i'm very excited. but the most exciting part is that the cute little pink butterfly lunchbox I ordered will be delivered to us on thursday....complete with her name embroidered on the front. now i'm just excited and no longer emotional. i know, that comes back on her first day.

www.lakesidemontessori.com (she'll be at the pine lake campus).

welcome baby ali du

baby ali du was born this morning at 1:30 after much waiting and anticipating (she was almost two weeks late). she weighs 8 lbs. 4 oz., and measures 21 inches long. annie and josh are doing great, very happy to have their baby girl in their arms....finally. she's absolutely gorgeous and her parents look very peaceful and fulfilled (although a little sleepy).

congratulations annie & josh! it will be an amazing journey for you and we'll enjoy watching you become the incredible parents you were meant to be. we love you very much. hugs.

some things about my girl.

as my baby becomes a girl, her little personality emerges and she shows us some quirky things about herself that i think are worth sharing. i don't know where these things come from, but they are her and they are pretty cute.

1. she likes to have socks on her feet for bedtime. it could be 96 degrees and feel like a sauna in her room, but she wants socks on her feet. and she's adamant about it until we give in. "socks on!" ok.

2. elsie is a very polite girl (most of the time), saying please and thank you without much prompting. she's also picked up "may" rather than "can," from us and from her bff sophie (fosie) next door. "may i have some juice?" "yes you may." so when i ask her if i may do something she may not want me to do, like put piggies in her hair for instance, she says, "no yes you may." pretty cute.

3. bath time is stressful because she hates having her hair washed. hates the water dumped on her head, not that i can blame her much. she will actually stand up and bend so that her head is over the floor rather than over the tub, knowing i won't dump water on her head if it is headed for the floor. she gets mad and protests big when i fill the cup with water. stresses me out, which makes the whole thing worse. and it happens every time without fail. we're trying like crazy to teach her to look at the ceiling so the water runs off the back of her head rather than over her face, even showing her how to do this in the shower, but as soon as she feels the water on her hair, she straightens up again and the water runs down her face.

4. she's still getting m&ms after using her big girl potty. my intention was to phase this out of the routine, but she's 2.5 and we're talking about the girl's chocolate. she gets one for going pee and three for poop. and if you don't believe me, just ask her. i will only give them to her now if she reminds me because, as i said, i'm trying to phase it out. as soon as we're done washing hands she says to me, "i forgot m&ms!" oh did you now. and don't even try with the peanut or the peanut butter or any other kind, it's the straight chocolate she likes and let's remember that.

5. she loves to clean. she squirts the vinegar from the water bottle onto the window for me. and when i'm all done wiping the window, she does it again. (we're working on this part.) she also takes issue with crumbs or yogurt blobs on the counter. she makes us clean them up before moving on to the next bite, pointing at the counter, "mom!" she'll even wipe the crumbs with one hand into the other hand and place them back on her plate. i'm not sure i've seen a toddler take such pride in these things, but she's pretty anal about it.

6. "my mommy" is someone she likes to tell me stories about as though "mommy" isn't me. charles, elsie and i were driving in the car yesterday and she was telling us a story. "my mommy coming over today in my mommy car...i ride in my mommy car....my mommy go work downtown in my mommy car." oh? she rattled on about this for the entire 15 minute drive nonstop, no joke.

7. when kayley comes over to take care of her, elsie hides her face. not all the time, but a lot of the time. as soon as kayley walks into the toom, elsie will put her hands over her face or she'll bury her face in my leg. she sometimes even runs to the couch or chair and buries her face there. if kayley talks to her, she'll say "no look at me!" ok. so kayley ignores her for two minutes and then elsie is begging for her attention, asking if she'll take her "upstairs to see my big girl bed?" this behavior is mostly saved for kayley, which is good because kayley is a very good sport about this.

8. olivia the pig. one of elsie's favorite books. she especially likes, "olivia gets up, and moves the cat, and brushes her teeth, and combs her ears, and moves the cat..." she belly laughs every time and often talks about it when she sees our kitty, josie.

9. she loves her balloons. i mean the girl is obsessed, honestly. she asks for one every time we go to the grocery store and sometimes even when we are shopping where they don't sell balloons but maybe have some on display for an ad (home depot). "can i have doom?" she asks. i've often told her, "no, you have one at home." today while we were out, she saw a giant display of balloons outside at the home depot. "i no have balloon kapuz i have one at home." very good my girl.

10. elsie is very affectionate. she gives me hugs and kisses all the time, and she likes to cuddle with us. when she leaves the house without me, she always says goodbye with a hug and a kiss. not just a hug, not just a kiss. she'll kiss me then say "hug too." sometimes she'll just come give me a kiss and say "lolo mommy" (love you mommy). she also loves it when her dad and i lay in her big girl bed with her when she first wakes up. she gets very excited and wants to "talk about my day."

she's really growing up fast, leaving all "baby" behind it seems. when she's tired though, or when she's in a situation where she's feeling unsure of herself, she grabs hold of her "demma" and rubs his ear against her nose. she did that when she was very tiny and no matter how big she gets, it will always remind me of when she was a baby.

big girl bed

we converted her crib to a big-girl bed! this actually isn't news. we did it way back on wednesday 7/28 but i'm just now getting to this post. truth be told, i'm not very good about loading the pics from our camera so i was putting off the post.

as i've mentioned, this was elsie's larger reward for learning to use her big-girl potty, which she seems to have mastered. we talked about it a lot and tried to prepare her, but of course she had no idea what this was going to do to her room. after making the conversion, we brought her upstairs and unveiled our work. very fun! she gasped with delight and ran for her bed. "my big-girl bed!" then she climbed up onto her bed and started saying, "thank you mommy, daddy" over and over and over again. so cute. she was so excited she was giggling uncontrollably. she noticed that we'd positioned her favorite dog, LeMutt, and her Demma (best friend bunny rabbit) at the head of the bed. She pointed them out to us, "and my MaNutt, and my Demmas!"

waiting for the unveiling.

very excited!

i think she likes it.

this was followed by jumping on the bed, of course.

overall she's made the transition very well. she fell out of bed the first night, which was a minor bump in the road (or on her head), but she slept in it by herself all night after that. we left for long beach on thursday (i know, mean of us to do this the night before leaving on vaca) and were gone until sunday. she slept in our bed while we were away so upon returning home, she asked that we sleep in her bed with her. of course i did. but she's back to sleeping by herself again like a big girl and still seems very excited about the whole thing.

favorite

driving home saturday night after dinner with my bff, just me and elsie in the car. she's cracking me up with her stories and being very cute with her lady gaga tunes blaring. i turn around to look at her and she smiles at me.

me: i love you, elsie.

elsie: thank you, mommy!

me: you're welcome, sweetie.

elsie: you're sweet, mommy.

me: thank you, elsie.

elsie: welcome mommy. you my fav-ite.