TWO PICNICS

Well, this has been a total doozy of a week. Strange for many reasons, the most major of them being the change of Sloane now being in kindergarten. I can tell that it will normalize but we haven't quite gotten there yet. This morning after seeing Sloane off, Ken bemoaned, "I thought this was going to get easier!" But good news, four days in and Sloane loves it - both the school and the after school care. Logan still asks where Sloane is on our way to daycare every morning, but apparently she's also doing very well without a Sloane there. Logan also desperately wants to go to kindergarten she says, I suspect it has much to do with getting on the yellow school bus.

 I'm looking forward to this weekend of being with Ken and the girls at home, Ken's mom is going to be coming up, and we have a shrimp boil at a friend's place tomorrow night. It is apparently also supposed be beautiful outside so we will likely spend lots of time outdoors. I am grieving the end of summer, but I have been consoling myself with lots of time outdoors, especially in the way of picnics. These photos are from a morning a few weeks ago where we had two picnics - one for breakfast and one for lunch - while we were having a play date with some friends. It is Friday today and I am planning on a picnic dinner for tonight !

The very exclusive restaurant. 

Logan here is ordering apple juice. I don't know if she's ever even had apple juice before, but that's what she ordered.

Ryan didn't order anything but she seemed to be happy just being there.

This here is Logan having her apple juice and something else she ordered. She was really enjoying whatever it was.

Picnic #2! After running some errands, we came back to the same park, different spot, and had ourselves a picnic lunch. After the big girls finished their food, they ran off with Ken to feed the geese by the pond, while the little girls stayed behind to finish their lunch. 

It was a perfect morning. Here's to many more picnics in the weeks to come!

MORE PHOTOS FROM THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

I am feeling mentally and emotionally exhausted today. Maybe being anxious about this week wore me out. Also, it's obviously not summer anymore and my body deflates at this change. It happens each year despite my resolve and pep talk - it seems to be a physical reaction that automatically happens when the weather changes. I AM excited about fall; it's a great season, there are so many lovely smells that happen in these months, I love crispy air and blue skies, and it holds one of my favorite activities ever - apple picking! But my body also knows it means colder weather is very near, and things within me wilt at the prospect. I feel, like I do every year, that I may not make it through the winter. 

Sloane, on the other hand, is very excited about this upcoming year. She said she had a great day yesterday (yes, Ken and I asked her a million questions. She politely requested that going forward she be asked only one set of a million questions, rather than have to recount her day two separate times) and she was ready for more today. Her being in school now is going to make fall seem even more like a new year, a new beginning. But this new year I don't have resolutions or even a to-do list. I just want to be. One way of saying it could be that I just want to survive, but the optimistic viewpoint would be that I want to simply be still and in the moment, every day. That's all I ask of myself these days.

I posted a video of Sloane's first day yesterday (and I have teared up each time I re-watch it) and I'm sharing some photos here of the same morning. I am SO proud of how she handled all of the new things she encountered on her first day.  She was so excited and happy when I picked her up from after school care, gave me a detailed account of her whole day, fell asleep on the way to pick up Logan from her daycare, woke up again for dinner and to tell Ken about her day again, then went around to our neighbors with Ken to invite them over for roasting marshmallows over the fire pit, pranced around with neighborhood kids, helped Logan roast her first marshmallow, and fell asleep quickly when we finally got her into bed.  I am relieved we got through that first day, but there is still so much unknown and anxiety-inducing about this transition; I am grateful for the way we are asked to take things one day at a time, because that's how I'm planning on navigating through this.

SLOANE'S FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN

We did it!! And by we, I fully mean we, because this felt like a huge moment of transition for Ken and myself, and for our whole family.  Even Logan is going to have to get used to going to daycare by herself now!

It was really nice having the day yesterday off to get some cleaning and errands done (we finally have a working oven!) and to prepare for Sloane's first day.  We made sure all of her papers were put inside her folder and placed inside her backpack, went over important numbers, laid out her clothes and talked about what she thought today would be like. After dinner and a bath, we watched "Inside Out" and teared up watching it. There was an intense round of questions and answers from Sloane and Logan after the movie, and after lots of hugs and kisses, pajamas and washing up, we sprinkled magic confetti under Sloane's pillow (from her teacher) and tucked them into bed.

This morning, we got up earlier than usual but somehow it still felt like a rush. Part of it may have to do with the fact that my heart was beating fast the whole time, but it was very apparent, as it has been for the past few months now, that Sloane had no anxiety or fear about her first day. She was relaxed and very excited. I thought I might cry seeing her get on the bus or watching her walk into her classroom, but I was so overwhelmed by the feeling of newness mixed in with anxiety and excitement, that tears couldn't get through. It felt like the feeling you get when you are swooping down on a rollercoaster: you are gritting your teeth (with excitement?) but the stomach drop overcomes your body and there is no space for anything else except being rushed along in the moment.

Afterwards, I took Logan to her daycare (with Logan constantly asking, "Where's Sloane"?) and it wasn't until my drive back, while listening to NPR's "What's Bugging You?" segment about mosquitos and ticks, that I got teary-eyed. What a big change for her and for us! I feel sad for the chapter of our lives that is ending, but I also feel extremely proud of her. I know she's going to do so well with school, and I feel so lucky that Ken and I get to be alongside her (and with each other!) as she grows through this process. I can't wait to see her so I can hear all about her first day.

A MORNING IN NORFOLK!

You guys, we had Kindergarten Open House yesterday for Sloane's upcoming year and it was a doozy.

I've been in high anxiety about the upcoming transition for the past few weeks, so much so that I thought I had exhausted it all out of me, but nope, turns out it's still there.  

I felt totally overwhelmed and sweaty when we first walked in, and a little like I was going to throw up. It felt like MY first day of school. All of my instincts were shouting, 'Wait, what IS this place?? Who are all these people??' Ken and I kept giving each other big eyeballs, in between flashing big and fearful smiles at teachers.

I would casually throw over questions to Ken like, 

"Do your insides feel like they are going to fall out too?" While we strolled through the hallways and tried to imagine everything through Sloane's eyes. 

 I KNOW she's going to be fine. Because according to her, it's going to be great. She's so excited, and she was so relaxed and comfortable during the open house and excited about meeting her new teacher, exploring her new classroom, meeting the nurse and librarian, learning where the cafeteria and bus drop off is. She was skipping around with joy and couldn't keep a smile off her face.  Her new teacher seems so kind and enthusiastic, just the sort of thing Sloane needs, and I know she is going to learn so much.

It's hard to explain, and believe me when I say I didn't think I was going to be rattled by this transition, but the closer we got to this day, the more monumental it seemed. It's not just that she's going to a new place, or that she's going to be away from home (she has been going to daycare basically her whole life), it's that she is entering into the highway that is the beginning of zooming her away from me. It's a relinquishing of control, and we all know how I feel about control, it's gearing up for a terrain of several outside influences, it's a fear that she will get hurt. It's also an excitement for her, because she is such a wonderful little spark, and she will learn so many things, be molded in unexpected ways, and I just have to keep doing this thing of trusting and trying my best... this all just marks the transition into a much bigger scale. Leveling up.

The moment I almost lost it is when we got on the school bus. They had a school bus parked outside in the back where the bus will be dropping the kids off, so that the kids (and come on let's be real, the parents) could see what it was like to go from the bus, into the school, and walk all the way to their classroom. We walked up into the park school bus, and Sloane was giddy with excitement (she's been asking since last year when she will get to ride the school bus) but I all of a sudden felt super emotional and almost teared up! I had never ridden a school bus as a kid, and this bus looked so huge and Sloane looked so tiny, and imagining her getting on this big bus by herself, encountering a bus full of kids she didn't know, and writing by herself all the way to school, got me choked up. Obviously, she's ready but I'm not. 

I didn't think I was going to be this kind of mom! But apparently I am, and you better believe I'm going to see her get on that bus that first day and then drive to school so that I can watch her get off and get to her classroom (apparently, all the parents do this. When Ken and I first heard this was a thing, we laughed, and then immediately decided we needed to do it too.)

Anyways, I'll report back next week on the state of affairs. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share some photos of a morning we had in Norfolk this past weekend. We go often to Virginia Beach to visit Ken's family, but never go to Norfolk so this was a first for us. We had a delicious brunch at Toast and then went to the Chrysler Museum of Art. I never knew but it is a great museum !! It's free, beautiful, and they have an amazing glass exhibit. I would love to go back for another visit.

We had gotten to the museum before they open (they open at noon on Sundays) so we spent our time waiting in this small garden next to the entrance. It was serene, quiet and lovely.