Elijah's First Day of Kindergarten

Wow, writing that title felt surreal. Of course, he started Kindergarten a few months ago and we've happily settled into our new daily routine. But, still, writing the title felt so official and strange. I'm flooded with that lately. I see Elijah as the elementary student that he is, but I also have strong memories of the baby and toddler he once was. Everyone always comments on how quickly these precious days zoom by. Yet, saying that doesn't even seem to do it justice. It all moves at such a breathtaking, break neck speed. It seems to have only sped up since Keira was born...

Elijah's first day went off without a hitch. I was able to snap a few pictures of Elijah before we left. I'm going to try to take a picture of the kids on the front rockers on every first day of school to track their growth.





I also took a few of Elijah and Keira holding hands as we headed out. I purposely dressed her up a bit for the momentous occasion. I love how in the second picture he seems to be walking away from her toward school.



Once we got to school, we met his class and teachers in the cafeteria. It was a little excruciating to wait. Fortunately, one of Scottie's friends took over his class for a few minutes so he could spend a few minutes with us.


I wasn't sure if we'd be able to accompany the kids to the classroom that first day, but nope, they left us in the cafeteria. Elijah lined up with his class, and walked in line down the hall to his new classroom and new life. I cried. I even feel a little tightening in my chest right now as I type this. It was a very emotional day. I was full of mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was excited for him. But, I was also sad that Keira and I would miss him, now more than ever since we really seemed to have hit our stride together. Also, Elijah was only ever lukewarm about preschool and I was hoping that he'd like Kindergarten and school, since school is such a big part of a child's life. But, I was also looking forward to spending more quality time with my girl.


When we got home we spent a long time enjoying our rocking chair front porch, rocking in the chairs and reading a giant pile of books while she snuggled on my lap.

Paint and Glitter

Imagine It inspired us to pull out the paint and glitter on the weekend before Elijah started Kindergarten. As I said in my last post, Keira was absolutely enamored with painting, so I definitely wanted to give it a shot at home. While Keira painted, Elijah experimented with glitter. Eventually, he tried his hand at some painting, too.





I savored my last week with both kids and we had a magical time. I was feeling conflicted about Elijah starting Kindergarten. On the one hand, I was excited for him. As I told him, I LOVED elementary school. But, also, I felt like I had finally gotten the hand of being home with both of them. That week we swam at the pool, played and read for hours in the house and obviously painted and played with glitter, too. I even attempted a solo trip to Atlanta with both kids. We went to Trader Joe's. And, surprisingly it went off without a hitch. Elijah was extremely helpful. He held, read, and crossed off the shopping list for me. I was worry about the logistics of the long drive and the long shopping trip. We don't go to Trader Joe's very often and when we do, we STOCK UP. I told Elijah he had the choice of sitting in the back of the shopping cart with groceries piled around and on top of him or walking. He chose the cart and we laughed our way through the store while his pile grew bigger and bigger. He was such a big help.

Imagine It

On the last weekend before Daddy went back to work I wanted to do something special. We decided to visit Imagine It again. We had a great day. Interestingly, Scott and I thought the museum was a little run down and worse for the wear (possibly related to the economy), but the kids didn't care. They had an absolute ball. Keira had a blast running around and exploring everything as it was her first visit. She enjoyed playing with it all including the moon sand and the kitchen.



But, Keira's overwhelming favorite was the painting wall. I'm almost a little embarrassed to say that she'd never painted before. We'd done lots of coloring with crayons and markers, but never paint. She loved it! We went back multiple times to that area where she would carefully, and with alert concentration, paint with one color then the next. She outstayed most of the kids each time and had to go up several times to refill her palette. I loved watching her rapt attention and careful technique. Elijah visited his sister at her favorite spot and did a little painting of his own. I love watching him paint and draw now -- he seems very interested in depicting something now, rather than just playing with color. Fortunately, it seems Elijah got Scott's gift of realistic depiction, I was never very good at that.




As in the past, Elijah's favorite destination was probably the ball machine. He spent most of his time refilling the ball machine and watching where they came out. This trip he seemed to have a much more sophisticated understanding of the different routes and how to interact with the machine in different ways. Yet, he also enjoyed the store and playing an intricate game with the cash register and scales. I got the best Elijah smiles of the day from a little milk display. It was a wall mounted center that showed the process milk takes from the cow to the store. At the end, it burst out in song "I love Milk!" To Elijah's amusement it was based on one of our favorite Kid's Place Live Songs.




One of Elijah's favorite parts of visiting Imagine It is playing at the park across the street. Even though it was HOT, we crossed the street for a snack and a quick play time.




Both kids crashed out in the car on the way home. They'd earned their full day of play.

Second Lake House Trip, Part I -- Elijah The Water Warrior

Elijah has improved leaps and bounds in the water this summer and the second lake house trip was no exception. First, once again, he got to drive Babo's boat. As you can see from the pictures, there were times that Babo wasn't even helping. Crazy!




Elijah also went out on the Jet ski again. The impressive thing for me was that he went out with someone besides me or Scottie. At first, he was a little nervous/excited to go out with Babo, but very quickly he couldn't get enough. Babo was laughing about it when they got back, saying that Eli kept telling him to go faster and chase the wake so they could hit the big bumps. One time, they were almost swallowed by a huge wave, but Elijah, showing what a big boy he's become just shook it off!



Another amazing thing that Elijah did in the water on this trip was go on his first ride on the tube behind the boat. Once again, Babo was a huge help, as Keira was in no shape to let me tube with Eli. Babo offered to ride with Elijah and Eli accepted. I was amazed. He had a blast. Like the jet ski, he couldn't get enough, and he wanted to go over and over again. On a side note, it was a little trippy to watch Elijah and Babo on the tube from the boat. The tube is pulled far enough away from the boat that it almost looked like Babo and Uncle Brian as a little boy instead.



Finally, Elijah surprised me once more on this trip by swimming off the boat in the middle of the lake. He'd only ever swam in the swimming area before, and he'd had not interest in swimming in the middle of the lake. But, this trip, almost immediately he went in the water with Babo, Roz, Katrina and MacKenzie. Eventually, he even got brave enough to let go of Babo and swim by himself.

Second Lake House Trip, Part I -- Lots of Help!

On July 8, Keira, Elijah and I drove up to the Lake House to spend the week with Grammie, Babo, Aunt Roz, Katrina and MacKenzie. Scottie stayed at home to frantically finish up his Master's classes. I was a little concerned heading up to the Lake House with the kids by myself. But, amazingly, everything went off without a hitch. The ride up to the Lake House was even successful. And, once we arrived, I realized how I had underestimated the help that I would get from the family. They were wonderful! Thinking about going to the Lake House without Scottie I had imagined would be work. I didn't imagine it would be very relaxing or vacation like, but, fortunately I was very wrong. In some ways, it was the most relaxing vacation I've had in a while. Which was amazing, considering I was husbandless. The first surprise was how famously my kids and the girls got along. Elijah was immediately enamored with both girls and told them within the first two days that he loved them. In many ways, the girls were the reason that I was able to relax. For most of the week, the kids were off playing together. The girls were like two enthusiastic and free babysitters. It was fabulous. And, it was so fun to watch them all interact.
Not only were the girls helpful, but all the adults were extremely helpful, too. Everyone was aware that I was a single parent of two small children for the week so everyone offered to pitch in whenever possible. It was very sweet and extremely helpful. Specifically, schlepping everything down to the waterfront and back was always a little tricky, and most of the times someone helped. Often, Grammie grabbed one grand baby to take up to the house dry off and changed while I wrangled the other one. So nice.

Swimming in our Neighborhood Pool

I felt completely spoiled this summer with having a pool just around the corner from us. It was amazing! Some weeks we went to the pool every day. Often, we'd spend a few hours in the evening after swimming lessons practicing what Elijah had learned that day. Keira was hilarious in her floatee, she would kick and maneuver herself all around the pool and then would climb out of the big pool to spend a little time in the baby pool. It was a magical way to spend many balmy summer evenings. How lucky we are! A few times, Dendi and Bapa met us at the pool and Eli got to show off his new skills. Here's a few pictures of Elijah showing off his new confidence in the pool.





Scott and I loved Elijah's new swimming talent, but it definitely made him a little trickier to supervise. By our last visit to the pool, over Labor Day weekend, he was almost too adventurous. He'd inadvertently take in a huge gulp of water, come up sputtering and dive right back in. We actually had to encourage breaks -- amazing!

Swimming Lessons

Elijah started swim lessons this summer. He made a huge amount of progress in five short weeks. Elijah has always had a healthy fear of the water and in the beginning he cried through most of the lesson. He didn't even want to get his chin wet. But, Mr. Travis was wonderful with him -- he was gentle, sweet and persistent. Amazingly, by the end, Elijah was swimming across the pool by himself and he even jumped off the diving board -- something he swore he'd never do. Again, he has turned into such a big boy this summer!










* Elijah did this one too.