Congratulations! You Made It Through The Whole Year!

Since the beginning of the month MiniM.E. has been looking forward to preschool graduation.  Possibly because she likes events and really enjoys the anticipation of something fun, but more likely because she made it through the whole year and after graduation there's just a playground party day.  No more school for the whole summer.  

I am so proud of her for making it through the whole year of school. Compared to the first couple weeks full of crying and tears, she has really come a long way.  She looks forward to school and loves her teacher, talks about her friends and always has a good time... even though she was still crying at drop off on Monday.  She is really proud of herself too.  In our anticipation of graduation where I pretend to be her teacher and she is graduating, I always have to say, "Congratulations! You made it through the whole year!"  It was so important to her that I said it that way every time I had to let Mrs. O'Shea know that's what she had to say too.  She knows MiniM.E. and was on board.

The kids had a regular day for the first half of preschool yesterday and then walked over to the room that graduation would be held in.  Most of the parents and some grandparents (like Gram) met the kids over there.

It started with a slideshow of photos from the whole year (bring on the tears moms!)

And then each student was called up to receive their graduation award and get a hug from Mrs. O'Shea:

As usual, MiniM.E. was contemplative and less than smiley for the whole event, but I know she'll be talking about it for days and how much fun it was.

Gram brought flowers

A congratulations hug

Miss you over the summer!

After a year together MiniM.E. loves Mrs. O'Shea.  We are fortunate that MiniM.E. will have Mrs. O'Shea as a teacher next year too.  Already she says she will miss school over the summer, though I know a big part of her is relieved that she has a few months free from school.

Congratulations MiniM.E.!!

Our NH Long Weekend

We had a great weekend in NH.  Bob and I went out on a date night, we took walks, played on the swingset, went in the hot tub and the kiddie pool on the deck and MiniM.E. even braved the pool.  

Cutest conversation:
MiniM.E.: "I'm going to brave the pool!"
Gram: "I'm going to brave the hot tub."
MiniM.E.: "Gram, the hot tub isn't braveable, it's already hot!"

A Long Drive to NH

We drove to NH Friday after MiniM.E. was done with school.  LittleL.G. is doing really well with sleep training, so against my better-mommy-judgement, I took the advice to let her sleep at home for her major naps and we left after she woke up from her second nap assuming she would be well rested and happy for a couple hours and then take a catnap for the last leg of the trip.

Well, mommy-judgement should always be trusted because the trip was the worst trip to NH we have made yet.  There was a really bad trip when I was driving solo with MiniM.E. when she was just older than LittleL.G. and it was hot and she was sweaty and she cried for 45 minutes and I finally stopped to take a break and she ended up being fine the rest of the way.  There was the time we left home and LittleL.G. screamed for almost an hour before we stopped at McDonald's to get dinner and she ate and slept the rest of the way.  There was the time that LittleL.G. cried a lot for half an hour and that made MiniM.E. cry too so we had two crying kids.  But Friday's trip: takes the cake.

LittleL.G. was happy in the car on the way to pick up MiniM.E. from school: so far, so good.  LittleL.G. was happy to see MiniM.E. and happily played with her toys while we were stuck in traffic for half an hour waiting to get on the highway: so far, so good.  We finally started driving more than 10mph and LittleL.G. started getting a little fussy, but no screaming: so far, so good.  Before we even left Saratoga LittleL.G. started throwing her toys and wasn't happy playing with anything: not as good.  And when we were only half an hour from home (even though we'd been in the car for almost an hour and a half) she started crying inconsolably: not good.  Crying continued for the next hour and a half: want to pull hair out.  We stopped for dinner and LittleL.G. was fine as soon as I picked her up.  I was sure a break and some food would put her to sleep for the rest of the trip... but no.  More crying and more crying.  She finally slept for about 20 minutes after another half hour bout of crying but it didn't last long and there was another half hour of crying before we arrived at Gram and Grumpy's.  Note: leaving AFTER a nap. DOES. NOT. WORK.

Plan for the drive home: leave FOR her afternoon nap.  Fingers crossed!

no permanent damaged caused... still a happy baby!

Almost Crawling

LittleL.G. is mobile and can pretty much get wherever she wants to go.  She started spinning on her stomach, and then moved on to army crawling.  Now she can scoot on her bum, drag herself pretty speedily around and gets into the crawling and sitting position from her belly.

MiniM.E. is really excited for her to start crawling... So she's helping with the training:

Baths

When MiniM.E. was a baby I used to bathe her every day.  With two kids running around and our new early bedtimes, finding time for a bath seems like an almost impossible task.  Now that LittleL.G. is bigger, I usually throw them in together sometime at the end of the day when MiniM.E. just wants to keep playing and when I should really be making dinner, but something has to give every few days... I don't want to be the mom with the smelly kids.

This week was the first time in a long time that we did separate baths.  Which gave me an extra hand to take a few photos.

Ice Cream, Sandbox and Baby Ducks

Playgrounds and Spraygrounds

That's what summers are made of.  (and pools and lakes, but not in this post)

We made our first trip of the summer to the "Triangle Playground" which was MiniM.E.'s favorite when we lived closer to it.

tire swinging

pumping high!

swinging together

MiniM.E.'s new favorite way to swing in our yard

 The sprayground at West Side Rec was finally open over the weekend and MiniM.E. was literally jumping for joy:

LittleL.G. was less than impressed

chewing on a water bottle was way more fun

and swinging took the cake

 Gavin Park: