Minecraft Creepers & Minion Pudding for Valentine's Day (or "Friendship" Day)

Somehow, we're more than halfway through the school year. Oliver celebrated his 100th day at school last week, and now we're planning for Valentine's Day parties at school today & tomorrow.

Last year, I got to craft the valentines I liked best since the kids had no opinion on the matter (remember these?). This year, Oliver asked for Minecraft valentines. That sounds like a simple request, but, alas, stores don't seem to sell them. I appreciate a challenge, so I took to Pinterest to find an idea. This is what we came up with:

Andrew found some Creeper images online and adapted them so they could be printed and folded over a fun-sized Kit-Kat bar.

These are the tags I made (with a little help from Andrew). They aren't the greatest, but I don't pretend to be an expert at photoshop:

Then it was time for Jo's valentines. She loves Minions, and I'd seen some creative Minion ideas on Pinterest that involved making minions out of pudding cups. They looked cool, but I'm pretty busy these days and was spending enough time making those Minecraft valentines.

So, I decided just to get some simple store-bought valentines. Jo loves so many different cartoons and candies that it would be easy. Right? Seriously, that's easier said than done. The small grocery store by my house doesn't even sell children's valentines. I planned a trip to the bigger grocery store, but whatever they had was mostly gone when I finally got there last night (That's what I get for waiting until the last minute). I was looking for anything Jo would love: Frozen, Minions, Doc McStuffins, Peppa Pig, even Peg+Cat. Nope. The only things they had left were superheroes and My Little Pony.

What happened next is either serendipitous or just a flat-out lie for dramatic effect. I then stumbled into a sign from the mighty Valentine's Day gods (Cupid, I guess?). A big Price Chopper display of pudding snack packs: 99 cents for a 4-pack. So, I bought the stupid pudding to make minions. 

Now, my husband and I don't fight. We just don't. But after juggling the kids and going to ballet, finding time for school work, and prepping for the "Friendship Day" craft that I'd signed up to host at Jo's preschool, I now needed to run out to the craft store to buy supplies to make minions. Let's just say I was a little testy, and my children are going to grow up with issues related to Valentine's Day. But I got to Michael's, and I bought a package of googly eyes, a 70 cent sheet of silver paper, and some thin black tape to make some minions. (If you're reading this to actually do this craft yourself, make sure you also have a hot glue gun!)

I found something round in my house to trace 12 silver circles (one for each pudding) and cut those out. 

I stuck a piece of black tape around each, and then I hot-glued a googly eye onto a silver circle and glued that to the black band. Note that I accidentally bought glitter tape, and these minions are actually shedding glitter all over the table. I imagine they probably shed into the pudding as well, making these some sort of bio-hazard, I'm sure.

But they're cute, right? Maybe that was worth all the driving around. I kind of thought so. Andrew and I hugged and made-up, and I swore I'd buy store-bought valentines next year.

Then, this morning, I got to Jo's party. I swear to you, there was a table display of pudding robots set up by a parent of one of the students.

I called my husband and told him that these robots put my minions to shame. They have juice box bodies, lollipop arms, pudding heads, two googly eyes, and chocolate shoes & hair.

Bonus photo of Jo wearing the necklace she'd made at her friendship party. At least that went over well!

One kid gave the other kids a tub of Play-Doh. That was Jo's favorite (better than the Minion pudding, for sure). She made a robot out of it because the robot Valentine made such an impression on her.

Happy Friendship Day!

Kindergarten Registration

Well, we did it. Oliver is registered for kindergarten!

I have been more emotional about this than I would have expected. It's weird! When the kids were infants, it was hard for me. I wasn't good at the middle-of-the-night wake-ups, I stressed over them not napping and not getting enough sleep, and I yearned for more physical space in between all their nursings. I wanted them to get bigger and run around and play. And they did. The toddler years have been my favorite. I love these times with the kids. Jo has been building things out of LEGOs with Oliver. Here are Jo's LEGO creations (a school and a house). Pretty amazing creations for a 3 year old!

I also love how they play little games and sing songs to their stuffed animals. They help me in the kitchen and with anything else I need. They get so excited over everything. Just going outside is something to get happy about! They constantly make me laugh, and I think I drive them crazy with telling them how adorable they are and all the hugs I give them as they do hilariously cute things.

But they keep getting bigger. I am so sad about the idea of Oliver being in school full time this fall. I mean, I don't want my kids to not grow up and be independent and happy and have their own lives. I absolutely want them to. It just seems like it's happened so fast. That's such a cliche, but it's also true. I've been so lucky to have these years at home with my kids, and it feels like a punch to the gut that it's coming to an end. For a (very) brief moment, I even considered homeschooling, but I realized I'd be doing that for purely selfish reasons. I know Oliver is ready for this next challenge. I just can't believe that time is almost here.

I hope I love this next stage, too. The next decade is going to be so busy with sports and after-school activities and friends and play dates. In the mean time, I just have to say, "Poor Joanna." I have a feeling she's going to be babied a lot over the next couple years.

Valentines from the Kids

As the kids have gotten older, I've found it hard that we're starting to live our own little lives apart from each other. Oliver's gone to school 4 days a week, and Jo is in class a couple mornings a week while I do school practicum. It's not all negative, though. I absolutely love that we get to do fun things like plan valentines for them to give to their friends! This one is a simple idea that I saw on Facebook and Pinterest.

                         

It was easy enough to do, especially since their class size is so small. I bought a bag of cheap lollipops, and then I took pictures of the kids making a fist.

I printed out a sheet of twelve (after adding a side border), and then I used scissors to poke a hole (a hole puncher probably would have made the job a lot easier).

We Have a Preschooler!

Oliver started preschool this week! He goes as part of the Des Moines' schools "universal preschool" program which pays for all preschoolers in the city to attend part-time school at age 4. I know this is a big deal. Even part-time preschools offered in public schools in the Denver area cost at least $300/month, so we are very happy to take advantage of the universal preschool program here! The drive to his school is short, his neighbor & friend is in his class, and the class only has about ten kids and two teachers!

Here's our Ollie Bear on his very first day:

Here's his preschool! It's one of the few private schools that are part of the public universal preschool option. We chose it because the classes offered at the elementary schools looked much larger.

So far, Oliver seems to like preschool. His first day started out well, but when a teacher told him that he wasn't listening, he started to cry. From what I gather, a teacher asked him what was wrong, and when he tried to articulate it, he said, "Someone told me to do something naughty," instead of, "Someone told me I did something naughty." I think the teachers were a little freaked out and pulled me into the class later to talk about it. Once I figured out what the matter was, I told them and said he was probably just embarrassed about being told he was doing something wrong. He's not used to hearing feedback from anyone but me, so it's going to take some time for him to get used to listening to teachers.

The last two days have gone much smoother, and Oliver tells us all about the songs they sing and the question of the day and the games they play at school (including playing grocery store!). He seems to like it, but then he also seems reluctant to have to go back. It'll just take some time to adjust. I need time to adjust, too! Every day, I ask the teachers how Oliver did that day. Every day, they tell me a problem and never give positive feedback. Yesterday, it was that he got hungry and cranky and the end of the day. Today, they told me, "He got hungry at 11:10." I feed him breakfast, and they give him a snack when the kids arrive, so I think it'll just take time for his stomach to get used to a more rigid meal schedule. I feel like I'm the one reassuring the teachers of that, though, instead of the other way around.

Next week, I'm determined to work up the courage to ask for positive feedback from them. If they insist on telling me something minor that went wrong, I think I'll just say, "And did he model any good behaviors?" It's frustrating because I'd promised him he could have a book today if he did a good job in school, and I explained that a "good job" meant listening to his teachers. When he came out of class, I asked him if he did well, and he said, "Yeah!" Then he started telling me about a gumball machine. Then I asked the teacher how he did, and she just said, "He got hungry at 11:10." I don't really know what to make of that, so I later told Oliver he earned his book.

I know the road will be a little bumpy for a few weeks as we all adjust to his schedule, but I think Oliver's really going to like preschool. And that's the most important thing to me!

Growing Up, Life Changes, and Starting School

I think everyone in our family is entering into a new stage of life. It's not even September, but 2014 has been such a big time of change. Obviously, we moved hundreds of miles away to a new city and state. We got a new house in an urban area. Andrew obviously got a new job with new responsibilities. Everything is so different, and there are more changes to come!

I'll start with the youngest family member: Jo. Joanna has been out of diapers for about two months now, thankfully! She continues to get more and more independent and will even go upstairs and play in her room with her toys by herself. She enjoys playing with Oliver, too, and enjoys spending time with the family, but her independence is remarkable. As the youngest, her growing up sometimes hits me hard.

Oliver has big, big change this year. He's starting preschool! Preschool is fully paid by the city here, so he will go to the four day a week program at no cost to us. He has a friend down the block who is going to class with him. Unlike Jo, Oliver wasn't a very independent toddler at all, so I wasn't sure how he'd do with going to school. I think it would have been a disaster if we took him last year, but he's really been maturing lately. We took him to preschool open house, and he happily wandered off from us to explore his class and play with his soon-to-be classmates. I feel so absolutely proud of him and how hard he works do figure things out and do things by himself. I read him a little list of things he'll be expected to do every day when he gets to class (like wash his hands), and he went straight to the sink in his class to practice and make sure he could do it all by himself.

Knowing Oliver is going to preschool has really affected me more than I'd thought. I'm sometimes dealing with feelings of extreme anxiety and sometimes sadness (and sometimes pride and excitement, too). I've been a stay-at-home mom for almost five years now, and my kids' entire lives have pretty much been with me. We spend our days together, garden together, snuggle together, sit together for meals. And now he's going off to preschool four days a week! I'm dealing some some practical potential problems in my mind, like will he do a good job listening to his teachers? Will he do a good job asking them for help if he can't do something, or will he just get mad? Will he do a good job taking turns with other kids and working with them? I completely, 100% want him to succeed and love school, but there's also this little voice in the back of my head wondering if he's going to miss me. I know I'll still be there! We will have our afternoons together and weekends together and everything else. There's no doubting, though, that this is a bit of a milestone, and he's going to start to have his own life separate from mine. That's a very good thing, of course, but it still makes me feel so sad.

I guess I've started to see this change as a big change for me, too. As I said, I've been home with the kids for five years. That's five years of no work experience! In just two short years, it'll be Jo going off to preschool. What am I going to do? The plan has always been for me to go back to work. It's definitely what I want to do, but I didn't expect the prospect of going back to work to be so terrifying. So, I've decided to try out a couple of classes to see about pursuing a master's degree. I think going back to school will help me get a job again once Jo starts full time school. It seems like such a good plan, but now that it's time to start classes, I'm starting to panic! I find myself worrying about so many stupid things, like do all students bring laptops to class now? Will I be the weird one with a notepad and pen? I'm also thinking about how crazy it's going to be that I'm going to have to somewhere to be at a specific time, and I'm going to have to drive there even if there's a total downpour or snow on the ground. I mean, I have had the luxury of choosing not to drive on days that are too hot or wet or snowy.

It took me a long time to adjust to life as a stay-at-home mom. It's not easy being home so much and not having people to talk to during the day. But now, that is my normal. Now that I'm used to always being at home with the kids and always deciding what to do on what day and not having to talk very much, the idea of spending more time out of the house is a bit scary. I think it's going to take me a long time to adjust back into a life outside of the home.

From 2009 to 2014, my life was about my babies. I was pregnant or breastfeeding for nearly four years. I was home caring for babies and toddlers and wiping butts and potty training, too. I was a mom of babies. This year is marking a distinct change in our roles in life. It's going to be weird doing things for myself and working on my future now, and it's going to be weird taking Oliver to school and saying goodbye for *hours* during the day. I know his growing independence is a good thing, and I definitely wouldn't want to keep him from growing as a person, but the upcoming changes are going to be hard. My plan is to do my best and put one foot in front of the other until these changes become our new normal.

As for everyone else, if your babies aren't in school yet, enjoy this time as much as you can (poop and all) because it really is over before you know it. If your kids have already been to school, I hope it's a fun and easy back-to-school year. For moms in my shoes with little ones going off to school for the first time--good luck, and I hope school is a wonderful experience!