My Baby

So I had a small meltdown this morning. I just found out that Caroline will be going to all day Pre-K. It is so hard for be to believe that she will be at the "big kid school." She looked at me and said "Well mommy, you are not sad that sissy goes to big kid school." But she is my baby. I can't imagine her being gone all day Monday thru Friday. I really can't picture her eating lunch in the cafeteria. In my mind she is too little to carry her lunch tray! I will be a mess the first day of school. I guess it is a good thing I have some time to adjust to the idea.

Caroline's New School

Caroline started a new school at our church on August 18th. She will go to this school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She will still go to her old school on Wednesdays. The day before school started we went to the open house. There were kids and parents everywhere. It really was a zoo. Caroline was the only child there that refused to get down and play. She had her little hand as far in her mouth as she could make it go (the hand goes in the mouth when she is nervous or uncomfortable - not just a finger, the entire hand!). I was not sure how things would go the next morning.

Tuesday morning she was excited to go to her new school. She was hesitant because she thought none of the other kids would play with her, but she was ready. She insisted on the princess dress and braids. I can't believe she already has such strong opinions on her clothes and hair. We are in trouble! It was finally time to go, so that means time for pictures. So I say "Caroline, stand up nice and tall so I can take your picture."

This is her version of nice and tall.

I try to correct myself by saying "Not on your tip-toes. You need to put your heels down.

I guess she did what I asked of her!

Here is what we ended up with. Such a big girl!

She was very excited about getting to wear her name tag necklace. We must have tried it on a hundred times the week before.

She walked right in to her classroom. There is a baby gate across the door so the parents don't actually enter the room. You say goodbye in the hall and the child goes on in. Once she was in she did turn around and look at me with a look that said "Wait a minute. How did I end up in here." She was not crying, so I took off.

She finished her first day. Here she is being walked to the car by one of her teachers. She had a great day!

Quack, Quack

I just looked at Jenny's facebook page. She put something on there about going to see the "chick flick" Julie & Julia. It reminded me of a funny story. When we were in Waco over the weekend Andy and I started talking about what movie we should go see. Andy's dad said we should go see Julie & Julia. Andy was very quick in saying he did not want to see that because it is a chick flick. I said "Hello, I am a chick!" Caroline quite frankly replied "Hello, I am a duck...quack, quack." It was hilarious. She is a funny little girl. We all got a good laugh out of it!

"It Hurts!"

It was only 18 short days ago that we were at the Urgent Care Clinic with Kayla. For a very brief moment this afternoon I thought we might be making a trip there again. Caroline fell and slammed her face against the corner of the wall outside her bedroom door. There was lots of bleeding right at first, and a LOT of screaming. But she is just fine - she does look a little rough though!

Here she is a few minutes after falling.

Here she is about 3 hours later. Poor baby...

Big Girl

This picture is from October, but it works for this post. We are very excited in our house. Caroline has gone poo poo (that is the technical term) in the potty two days in a row now!!! I did not think that was ever going to happen. Both days she just went in and got on the potty on her own. We did not even know she was in there until we heard "Mommy, I went poo poo." That statement caused instant frustration for me. It means having to clean out another pair of panties. But she was in sitting on the potty. Yay Caroline!

First Day of Swim Lessons

Yes, I know, these are terrible pictures. It is all I have. We were running a little late and things were very chaotic.

Today was the first day of swim lessons. Here are both girls before we went in. Caroline refused to look at me. Typical 3 year old behavior! Her lesson was first. When you go in the kids line up along a wall with their towel. Caroline got in line, but she had absolutely no clue what was going on. I tried explaining swim lessons to her. I am pretty sure she still thought that the two of us were going swimming. Here she is in line. Sorry for the blurry pic!

There were 3 girls and 2 boys. There were 3 teachers that I knew of, but Kayla told me there were 5. Anyway, Caroline would have been fine if it were not for her sister. Kayla kept going up to her and asking "Are you ok? Are you scared?" I got really frustrated because Caroline did not know there was a reason to be scared. So she kept getting out of line and coming over to me, whimpering but not crying. I just put her back in line. She went right in with the teacher when it was time to go. Parents do not get to watch until the last lesson.

It was a long 45 minute wait for me. I wanted to know what they were doing. When Caroline came out she had a blank expression on her face. Here was the descriptive and informative conversation that took place:

Mom: "Caroline, how were swim lessons?"
Caroline: "Good."
Mom: "What did you do?"
Carolne: "I swimmed"

That was about it. She did tell me that she blew bubbles. She told me she did not put her head under the water, but her entire head was soaked when she came out. A friend said "Maybe SHE did not put her head under..." The true test will be what happens tomorrow when it is time to go back.

Not to leave Kayla out, she said her lessons went well. She said only 2 kids got to play in the deep end during free-play and she was one of them. That made her day. That is about all I was able to get out of her.

Dance Rehearsal - Caroline's Birthday - Dance Recital

The last weekend in May was a crazy busy weekend for us. Friday night I went and helped my friend Jennifer with her dance recital. Saturday morning was rehearsal day for Kayla. We started her makeup at 8 am. Then it was off to the auditorium to wait.
Then we got to do some more waiting in the dressing room. This makes for a really long day.

Ballet

Tap

Kayla always amazes me at recital. She is never nervous and she knows her dances. She is one of the few that can stay with the music and she is always smiling.

We finished up with rehearsal around 2:00. That gave us a little time to relax before we started all over again at 4:30. Saturday night was Recital Night 1. Kayla was only in tumbling and gymnastics that night so we were not there very long.

Ready for Gymnastics

In the meantime it was Caroline's birthday. We managed to have a little celebration with cupcakes and a present. Thank you Dad and Sue for doing that for her.

There was a certain doll that Caroline really wanted. She drove me crazy every time she saw a commercial for it. "I want that swimming baby." That is what she got from her big sister.

Sunday morning we went to church and then at noon it was time to get ready again! It was Recital Night 2. She was in the opener, ballet, tap, and the finale. I think the whole show lasted about 3 hours that night. Kayla did a great job. She was really upset about making a small mistake in her tap dance. She has never messed up in recital before. I honestly don't know how she did as well as she did. The girl next to her in tap was very spastic. She was all over the place and kept running into Kayla. I am not sure how Kayla could concentrate on her own dancing, but she did a great job.

No recital is complete without flowers from daddy!

Good job, Kayla!