New school

Since we moved into our "new" house almost 3 years ago I've been very excited about the fact that they are building a brand new elementary school just a couple blocks away. We've had fun watching the buildings being built (its going to be an entire "campus" with a public library and community center along with the school) and watching all the progress. Almost every time we drive past Alyssa points out her "pink school". (The insulation they used was pink, so before they put up the outside walls, it looked like it was going to be a pink school ... I think she may be disappointed when she realizes that its going to be brick) This morning I was reading a thread on my October mom's board where one of the moms commented that it was much hard than expected when they took their oldest to school. To the school where they had walked by hundreds of times and she had told her son that that was where he was going to go to school someday. And then suddenly someday was there and off he went.

That got me to thinking about being at our house without Alyssa (or heaven-forbid without Joel ... I got through the first day of preschool because I still had Joel to clutch on to, I don't even want to *think* about leaving him at school) and being able to look out the windows and see the big-bad-monster school that has snatched my babies away from me. I wonder how difficult it would be to transfer them somewhere else ...

Must not think of this ... still a year and a half away ...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Actually, I just wanted an excuse to show off the beautiful daffodils that my handsome hubby bought me, but they are flanked by my some of my St Patrick's day decor, so I'm making it work. :) And offering a sneak preview of the new paint color in the entry way for anyone who cares!

So giving ...

This weekend while grocery shopping I picked up a new box of "cookies" for Alyssa and Joel. They're actually mini ritz crackers with frosting stuff in the middle. So tonight Alyssa was looking for a bedtime snack, so I pulled them out and let her try them. I told her that she could have more if she wanted, but that she needed to share them with Joel. About 5 minutes later she told me that she was being a very good sharer ... she licked the frosting out of the middle and then Joel's job was to eat the crackers.

Nice.

The crocuses are coming! The crocuses are coming!!!

With promises of a high of 64 today, I looked out the front door and longingly imagined our front yard filled with its rainbow of tulips, daffodils and other random flowers that I can't remember the names for. But I didn't expect to see the best "news" I've gotten in a long time ... my crocuses are coming up!!! The first little harbinger of spring, I've been anxiously awaiting my little orange beauties to pop their head out of the ground and they're coming! They are just tiny little shoots of green so far, but maybe this there is hope for this LOOONNNGG winter to come to an end before we all go crazy.

Dear World:

Would it be easier to keep my house clean if it were smaller because it would take less time to clean? Or would it be even worse then because we have so much stuff that we wouldn't have room for everything and there would just constantly be "stuff" without a place that would be messing the house up?

Signed,
Wondering on 150th St.

PS - I got the kids' rooms cleaned (picked up, vacuumed, dusted, windows washed, and febreezed - because it smells like dog after we vacuum) and the kids' bathroom cleaned this morning while Alyssa was a pre-school. Felt SO great. Until I walked around the corner to see the rest of the house in all its glorious chaos. I can't remember the last time my entire house was picked up. If ever. Maybe when we walked through it for the first time when we were house shopping.

What's wrong with this conversation?

Me: Alyssa, you've already had 3 fruit snacks today, you're not having anymore.
Alyssa: (while holding fruit snack) I'm just going to take this upstairs to my room to look at it.
Me: If you eat that you're going to be in very big trouble.
Alyssa: I'm just so hungry!
Me: I'm going to go upstairs to change my clothes and then I'll find you something to eat.
Alyssa: NO!
Me: You have three choices: You can eat that fruit snack and get in very big trouble, you can eat nothing, or you can wait 2 minutes for me to find you something to eat.

Guess who is in very big trouble and proud of it. At least she admitted to me that she ate the fruit snack, right?

I probably shouldn't have even given her the option of getting into very big trouble.

The "after" shots

Per requests ... pictures of Alyssa's handiwork.

Haircuts

Alyssa and Joel have an appointment with Ms. Sharon on Tuesday to have their hair cut, but evidently Alyssa thought that they needed them asap. As in tonight. So she took matters into her own hands. I don't think she cut anything but her bangs and Joel's bangs; thankfully I didn't see any place that looked like she had cut her sides/back.

I know its basically a rite of passage for a kid and that almost everyone has done it/will do it, but I didn't realize how stressful it would be on me as a parent. I wonder now if we punished her appropriately, if I handled the situation correctly (or to the best of my ability), etc. As I was putting her to bed she told me that she didn't want to go to preschool or swimming lessons tomorrow, so I think she's embarrassed by what she did. Which on one hand I'm glad that she realizes that she did something wrong and realizes that there are consequences to her actions and I hope that she's just embarrassed because she did something wrong, not because she looks silly. Because that's not a pressure that I want my 4 year old to feel.

It makes me sad to have to punish her because this went beyond the "naughty corner" in our (or at least my) parenting book and I'm not used to dealing with those situations. She didn't seem overly upset by her punishment (straight to bed about 40 minutes early, no books/cuddle time with mommy), so I feel like maybe it fit the "crime" because I think she knew better than to argue. I keep telling myself that if I were being *too* hard on her there would have been a lot more tears and carrying on rather than just acceptance.

She did ask me why Joel was getting to watch "Olivia" all by himself because "his hair is short, too!". I told her that he didn't cut his own hair, or his little brother's hair, for that matter and she muttered "I shouldn't have cut Joel's hair" before rolling over and going to sleep. I wonder if I would have reacted that same way if she would have just cut her own hair.