Life at Our New School

As it turns out, being "caught up" on this blog is a lot harder than I thought.  

No sooner did I get the first day of school stuff up then the rest of our lives kept happening and even though I suddenly have 4 bliss full hours each morning with only 1 child in my charge there is a house to clean and laundry everywhere always, and errands to run and, and Lucy's Christmas stocking to finish needle pointing, and A.J.'s dance costume to alter and also (theoretically) I should be exercising and all the while LIFE keeps happening and I never blog and then I turn around and NOT ONLY have I just written the longest run-on sentence EVER, but it's suddenly been 6 weeks and I have not blogged AGAIN even though about a dozen blog-worthy events have happened.  

Ugggghhhhh!!!

So, here I go again, trying to play catch up.

And then my computer randomly shuts itself down so I have to waste 10 more minutes waiting for it to boot itself back up.

(Argh.)

Starting basically where I left off, let me begin with how things have been going at school.

Peter's first day at the new school was, overall, good.  The trouble was one bad(ish) thing happened and when I picked him up from school that afternoon, my bubbling, hopeful, Mommy excitement was meant with a serious glower.  It seems he had been over confident in swim class and jumped in the pool like an Olympic caliber swimmer during assessments only to realize that the pool was 4 feet deep, he did not have on floaties, and he could not, in fact, hold his own in water that deep. (He happens to be exactly 4 feet tall.) He began to panic, the coaches helped him out of the pool again, placed him in the beginner level group for the remainder of the fall swim session and that was it. 

This is, of course, the version of the story I got from the swim coach when I called the school for clarification.  Because to hear Peter tell it, he'd jumped in, sunk to the bottom of about 14 feet of water, gotten water in his lungs and drowned, come face to face with his Jesus in heaven, only to be fished out of the pool, revived and then thoroughly humiliated in the process.  The worst part was, there hadn't been time for him to try again.

It took me a long time to get him back to a place where he could admit that he hadn't actually done any swimming in over a year and that his inability to actually swim (no matter how much he believed that he could do it) was not really all that surprising.  He also eventually realized that he didn't really drown, that he was making far too big a deal out of things and that while his first day in PE hadn't gone as swimmingly (pun intended) as he would have liked, this did not mean that he hadn't actually had a bad day.

*Phew*

First well, so far (all the way up until this week, in fact) has been going very well for him.  It's amazing what a fresh start, some new peers and a new perspective can do for a child.

A.J. continues to do well also.  She has made a ton of friends and absolutely loves school for the first time ever.

We definitely made the right choice with their school this year.

Anyway, so almost every Friday they have a short assembly and at the first on of the year one of the things they did was introduce all the new kids.  Matt and I made sure we were there to see this.

A.J. sitting at the front with her class.

Peter getting seated with his class.

When it came time, each new student was introduced and given the chance to stand up and wave.

There goes A.J.

Check out this picture, taken just a moment later, notice Peter,
 just to the left of center waving back at his sister.  So sweet.

Here's Peter when he was introduced.  (You can see A.J. waving a blurry hand over her shoulder at him as well.)

To found off that first assembly, the principal read a sweet story to the kids about sharing and being nice.

Something else they do at the assemblies every week is introduce all the kids who had birthdays that week.  The principal calls off all the birthdays of students and then she asks the kids if anybody else in there family has had a birthday as well.  If they are there, they can go up as well. Since Lucy's birthday was during the second week of school, I made sure to bring Lucy to that week's assembly.  Peter shared it was her birthday and together with A.J. Lucy went up and got sung to.

I sort of thought I would need to go up with her but Lucy was too brave.  When she was invited up she just jumped off my lap and headed to her brother and sister as if there was nothing at all to feel shy about.  

One more special even happened in those first few weeks of school, and that was on Labor Day.

Yes, we had school on Labor Day.   

But at 11:00 that morning all the students and teachers and many of the families gathered in the ampitheater for the Official Flag Raising ceremony which kicks off the start of school for the year.

Once again, all the new kids were introduced, since the Middle School kids were there this time.

The student council officers and the principal each made remarks and then the boy scouts came in and raised the flag.

Lucy was hot on her Dad's lap in the bright sun.

Then, and best of all, when the ceremony was over, every body gathered out on the lawn and had a big picnic with their families.  

It was a nice time.  Weird to have to take the kids to school on a holiday, but worth it for the fun that we had.

Obviously Matt, Lucy and I were sporting our Buckeyes gear s
ince the big opening game against Virginia Tech was that evening.  

Buckeye Baby

Since I haven't had time to update much lately... let me just hurry up and get a few of these out.

Quantity over Quality?

Oh my goodness, what am I stooping to?

That's right I have 3 kids now.  Deal with it.

Maybe when Lucy learns to sleep better I can get myself back together.

Anyway:

Last Saturday was the OSU vs Wisconsin game.  We were pretty excited around here for a good showdown.  Naturally we all got up ad got dressed in out favorite scarlet and grey gear.  Trouble was, it was a night game and we had to wait around ALL day for the fun to being.

Somewhere in there, I got bored and amused myself taking entirely too many pictures of Lucy futsing around in her bouncy seat.

Ha!  Enjoy.  :)

Peter looks like this still when he falls asleep in his car seat.

She learned this face from A.J.

This one might be my favorite!

Or maybe this one...

I'm betting a dog wandered by and distracted her for a moment.

BIG Yawn.  Also a classic. :)

Anyway, my little Turtle is a month old today.  I can't really believe it.  Has it really only been a month that I've known her?  

Also, why do I call her a Turtle?  I don't know exactly, other than when she is up on somebody's shoulder getting burped she'll lift her head up and look around all wobbily and she just reminds me of a turtle poking it's head out of it's shell.

Don't stress Lucy.  I love Turtles.  They are easily the cutest reptiles of... well, ever.

Lest we Forget....

I have 10 or 11 pending posts that I am supposed to be working on with all the rest of my pictures from our last week or so in Ohio, but I just needed to pause for a brief station break and a word from our "sponsors."

It's another College Football Saturday people.  The first in October.  The time when things get serious.

And about that only one thing needs to be said:

Go Bucks!

 

It's FOOTBALL Season!!

As you are probably aware of, this weekend college football kicked off and boy was I excited.  College football is really the only sport I follow obsessively so we begin to count down to its start pretty much as soon as the last Bowl game is played in January.  Additionally, with my trip back to the Midwest, not only was I in Ohio for this momentous occasion, but my good friend Eddie from college has season tickets and his lovely wife loaned him to me for the day (THANK YOU SO MUCH STEPH!) so I could go to the game.  Gramma and Grandpa watched the kids and, let me just tell you all how GREAT it was to have a fun afternoon out, as an adult, WITHOUT MY CHILDREN, to enjoy some football... and (many) beers. 

:)

Seriously, it's like I have a whole new appreciation for how wonderful and adorable my children are after having had some fun away from them.



Even still, in the morning before we left for campus, a certain little lady lobbied hard to make sure I missed her and thought about her all day.

Who could forget about that face?
And of course, she was rocking her Buckeye jersey to cheer on her team!

Here I am when we got up there, in front of Ohio Stadium, on the banks of the Olentangy.  Seriously, this is one of my favorite places on Earth.  Go Buckeyes!

We hung out up on the patio of Buffalo Wild Wings before kickoff rather than tailgating in the psychotic heat.

Nothing like some live music and a few cold ones at 10 am to start game day off right.



Once we got to the game, here came our buckeyes!



The ROTC folks raised that gigantic flag during the national anthem.

KICKOFF!  And with that, the new season was underway.



It was a HOT one. Did I mention that.  Holy heck! So hot in fact that the bandies took their jackets and cross belts off in the stands.



I took my jersey off and used the bottle of water to cool off as well, because seriously, it was psychotic out there.  Classy huh?

Not quite sure how my boys kept playing out there except maybe it was a few degrees cooler down on the field rather than being squashed into the stands as we were.  Aw well.  That's half the fun ain't it?

Cool shot of the blimp over head.  Couldn't help but wonder if it was cooler up there.

Eddie and I in the stands.  Old friends are the best kind.

The scoreboard and of course, we're in the lead early on.

More football action.... can't get enough.



Right after half time, I'm ashamed to say we gave up.  The sun was killer and the dudes selling water int he bleachers were seriously already sold out so we took off.  Here I am on the way out.




If you don't believe me about how hot it was here's further proof.  They had fire hydrants open outside the stadium to cool off in.  And Oh YES.  I really did. 



Out front of the stadium under the rotunda with the little football I bought for Peter.



A little Heisman pose.  (Except I started to fall back before the shutter snapped.)




Random, but the "new" Lane Avenue Bridge over the river is just...weird.



When we got back to the car to drop of Peter's football we saw that somebody nearby had left this bag of ice by a car after their tailgate.  Eddie put it to good use.

So then, there were, um, more drinks at BW3s (does anybody else even call it that anymore?) before we finally decided to head back home enough after the game ended to avoid any of the real traffic.

Oh... but first, out in front of one of the stores they had this statue of Brutus Buckeye (yes that is where my dog got his name) in a band uniform and then we took this gem.


Awww, yeah!