Peace. Quiet

Today is the last day of the first week of school. Emily is happily engaged in Blues Clues (sitting still for 20 minutes!). My two big girls are at school. Sending them off to school was bittersweet. I was ready for them to go so that my house could manage to stay somewhat neat and the fighting could be limited to between 3 PM and 8PM instead of ringing in my ears all day. But that all comes at a price and I'm missing having lazy mornings, hanging out in the pool for hours, basically having the "down time" with my girls. Now we are out the door by 7:45. Anna and Sarah asked every day for the last 2 weeks before school began "How many more days until school, Mommy?." My big girls are now in First Grade and K4. Sarah was was never nervous at all despite the fact that it is a new school for her and she will be there five days instead of the two she did last year. While I was driving them up to the school the first day I asked Sarah if she wanted me to walk her to class or if she wanted to get out in the drop off line. Our school has a fabulous system worked out where teachers meet you at your car, open the door, assist the children getting out, then escort them to the play area to wait for their day to start. This first week the moms of the K4 kids have permission to walk them to their classroom. So, when I asked Sarah she said "No Mommy, I don't need you to walk me to class, Anna can take me." Let me tell you what a lump in my throat formed when she said those words and just hopped right out with her huge Disney Princess backpack on her back and walked away, hand in hand with Anna, hardly a backward glance. I couldn't stand it and jumped out of the car to give them both kisses and hugs and tried not to let them see the shine of tears in my eyes or hear the strain in my voice as I tried hard not to let them see that I was about to cry. It is the tug between excitement to see them growing and developing as they should and wistfulness in remembering how much they used to need me. Their babyhood was not that long ago! I'm going to need some serious support when Emily heads off to school.

In other news on the homefront Sarah aquired the confidence (out of the blue!) to swim without her floaties. We've been trying to coax her all summer to let go of them. We started slowly deflating them a few months ago and she was doing great but wouldn't take them off, even when they barely had any air in them. She got down to wearing just one, half inflated. One day I asked her if she was ready to take it off (like I did everytime we got in the water) and she thought for a second, and said "yes"! Just like that she wasn't wearing floaties anymore. Within the hour she was swimming all over the pool with her face in the water. Sarah tends to do things when she is ready and not a second before, no matter how much coaxing you try to do. Hurray for Sarah!

Emily gave up the ring floatie early this summer and is now swimming with just a pair of arm floaties. She bobs around and kicks to get where she wants to go. I am constantly asked "How old is she? She sure talks a lot!" She has become quite the chatter box and repeats everything she hears. She's putting short sentences together and is eager to communicate. She is also becoming a master at getting our attention. If we're busy and she wants us she will do whatever it takes even if she has to go from one "no-no" to another until she has your full attention!


Last, but not least, I finally got to bring home my pottery "babies". For Mother's Day Mike and the girls gave me 5 nights of pottery class. I managed to make 6 peices. Five were thrown on the pottery wheel and one was a "coil pot". They didn't turn out exactly like I expected (what ever does?, but the whole experience was really great. The best part was when I was at the studio, for three whole hours I was able to dive into creativity without having to keep an ear, an eye, and a significant portion of my brain trained on someone else. I was able to devote my full attention to creating. It was really freeing. I hope I can do it again sometime. Next blog I'll update you on the marathon.