Mother's Day Tea

Last Thursday Gina's kindergarten class hosted a Mother's Day tea for all the moms. They have been preparing for this for weeks. Every time I've been in there aiding, I've had to remember not to pay too close attention to some of their projects. The teacher has even sent the moms outside to wash tables while the class discussed the upcoming day.

Each mom received a yarn flower corsage out in the courtyard and then the kids led us inside to the tables that they had set and decorated. They had worked hard all morning. I had brought teacups from my great-grandmothers china collection. I had to dig them out of a box in the garage, they don't get used very often (or never). Gina had decorated the placemat and made a napkin with her handprint on it. There was also a card with a drawing of me and why she loves me (SO CUTE!). The kids had also spent some time in cooking class making some of the cookies.


Next, it was time for the entertainment. The kids sang a Mothers Day song and then Hush Little Baby (definitely time for some tissue). Then they sang a third song and recited a poem about mothers.

There was plenty of tea to go with the cookies as well as lots of strawberries and lemon curd (YUM). Even though I spend a lot time in Gina's class working as an aide, my focus is not on her and she is usually off doing something else so this morning, it was fun spending time with Gina in her class.

After we finished eating, it was choice time and I figured hanging out at the playground would be a popular choice. The girls in the picture are trying to jump up and grab a flower off the tree. This kept them busy for quite a while.

Queen for a Day

Or at least 30 minutes. Today was Gina's birthday celebration in her kindergarten class. They make a big deal about each birthday and there is a special ceremony. I had to bring flowers and a snack for the class. Gina had requested that I make the snack so I was up very late last night baking. The request was for a healthy snack, ie not cupcakes, and so I made blueberry breakfast bars which did contain oats and a lot of blueberries, but were also loaded with butter and sugar. They definitely tasted good but I don't know that I would call them healthy.

When I arrived at school Gina was out on the playground playing circus with two friends. Then it was time to go inside for the birthday celebration. Gina put on her crown and cape and picked out a sceptre and then was led to the center of the class by the helper.


The kids sing songs about having a birthday and turning six. Then Vicki reads about each year in the childs life. After each year, Vicki led Gina around the table and then put one of the flowers in the center vase as the helper rang the triangle.


Here is what I wrote about Gina's 6 years:

Birth: Gina was born at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford on Friday May 3, 2002 to Betsy and Vic White.

1^st Year: During Gina’s first year, she enjoyed going to the park and to music class.

2^nd Year: During Gina’s second year, she went with her family on a long drive for vacation in Colorado; she learned to walk on this trip.

3^rd Year: During Gina’s third year, she welcomed her brother Andrew into the family.

4^th Year: During Gina’s fourth year, she flew on an airplane to San Diego; Gina loved visiting the San Diego Zoo.

5^th Year: During Gina’s fifth year, Gina welcomed her brother Dylan into the family and enjoyed going to Lake Tahoe for vacation.

6^th Year: During Gina’s sixth year, she started Kindergarten and learned how to ice skate.

Next, each child came up and handed Gina a paper star with a birthday wish in exchange for a blueberry bar. Every time someone said Thank You, Vicki rang the bell. The kids couldn't eat the snack until everyone had one. I had made a few extra so each of the parents got one as well. Then Vicki told the kids to take a bite and make a wish for the birthday girl, take a second bite and make a wish for the birthday girl's family, and then take a third bite and make a wish for themselves.

It was very cute and special. This was definitely a fun part of Kindergarten.

Running

I finally decided to start running again. It is definitely a love-hate relationship. I love running for the first five minutes or so and then it starts to get hard. My knees start to ache and I can feel every pounding step and then I start looking at my watch every 20 seconds to see when I can stop. So far I am only running about 2 miles at work, running for five minutes and then walking for 2.5 for a total of about 30 minutes. I am hoping it will get easier in a few days.

Gina is now 6

It is hard to believe that Gina is now 6 years old, she is getting so big. Yesterday was her birthday and she had a fun day playing soccer (she scored a goal) and playing in the yard. She requested dinner at Harvest Restaurant and got her usual hamburger.

Andrew got to go out with Vic to pick out a present for Gina. He was so excited, he could hardly keep from telling her what it was (a water sprinker toy for playing in the yard).

After presents, it was time for cupcakes. We had gone to Whole Foods in the morning and Gina loved the turtle cupcakes, so I got one for each. Andrew couldn't wait and tried to open the box before we were ready so it didn't look much like a turtle anymore, just a blob of green and brown frosting. And yes, there are only five candles on the cupcake, it was all I had.


Today was Gina's birthday party with all her friends from school. We had it at a park nearby with a jumphouse. As usual, I had certain plans, then procrastinated and felt very stressed getting everything for the party. On top of everything, Dylan fell down on the concrete in the back and got a HUGE goose egg on his forehead. After some ice, it looked better but definitely bruised.

For the cake, I ordered one from a friend who makes wonderful looking cakes and they taste great too. I asked for flowers and butterflies and got this beautiful creation.

Most of her class came to the party so there were a lot of kids. A few of the boys had to be evicted from the jump house from time to time but overall they were well behaved. Once all the kids arrived, Andrew wasn't sure what to do with himself. Gina was busy with her friends, he didn't want to play with his friend Julian, so instead he followed me around, taking a break every so often to grab a juice box.


Gina had a fun afternoon. Once everything was set up, I was able to relax a little and talk to the other moms. I think next year though we will try for a smaller party.

Weekend Away

This weekend, Vic and I got to go away from home to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. Okay it wasn't quite a full weekend. Gina had a soccer game on Saturday and so we didn't get home from that until 2pm. Then it took another 2 hours to finally get out of the house. It wasn't even a full 24 hours away from home, more like 20 hours, but who's counting. We didn't even go far away, just down the road to Los Gatos. But we had a nice hotel room for the evening, we had a very nice dinner at Forbes Mill Steakhouse, a restaurant we had never been to before, and most important of all, no kids. We got to admire other peoples kids (there is no shortage of kids and dogs in Los Gatos). I thought about calling my mom to see how things were going, but didn't until the next day. Turns out, they were angels, angels who got to go to the toy store. So they had a good weekend too. We need to do this more often.

Soccer Class

Andrew has been really looking forward to taking a soccer class. It must have something to do with watching big sister sign up for a soccer team and wear a uniform. In the morning he was ready to go with his shin guards and soccer socks. He insisted on wearing a shirt with a number on it, because you have to have a number on your shirt to play soccer.

He had a lot of fun running around with the soccer ball. It was a warm morning and bad mommy forgot the water bottle so after half an hour, he was ready to go home and get something to drink. He can't wait until the next class.

Gina and Dylan did a good job playing together during Andrew's class and posing together on a rock for pictures.

Chocolate Milk

With the first kid, you try really hard to feed them only good food and very little junk. I think Gina was three before she started to realize that you could get sweetened milk whenever we would go to Starbucks. At first I only got her regular milk. Then we (thanks to Auntie Alice) would get her milk colored pink with a few drops of raspberry syrup. By the age of 3 she was ordering her own drink: pink milk with two pumps.

By the time Andrew was two he knew all about the boxes of chocolaty goodness that were in Starbucks and he would make a beeline to the case to pick out his box. I would have to make sure he didn't start drinking it right away because otherwise he would be done before my drink was ready. Once the box was empty, it was time to go.

Now Dylan has discovered chocolate milk. At Easter the kids had boxes of chocolate milk and several were left partly full on the table. So he helped himself. Now when he sees one of those boxes of milk, he knows that it is something he must have.

Persistence

Andrew is persistent. A couple of weeks ago when he had a major tantrum. He had spilled cereal all over the floor and then refused to pick it up. He was mad that I insisted that he clean up the cereal so he started screaming. For 45 minutes. At some point he did clean up the mess but he was still ticked off so he kept on screaming. If he had the words, I think he would have been swearing. Instead, he settled for shrieking at the top of his voice. I finally booted him outside so he wouldn't wake up Dylan taking a nap. Once outside he eventually was distracted and started to play with Gina.

With ice skating, persistence is definitely an asset. I am amazed at how much Andrew likes ice skating. I try to get them to the rink early so that Andrew has time to practice before class. He gets out on the ice and slowly makes his way across. He tries to keep up with Gina but she is faster and steadier. He falls down quite a bit still, more than Gina ever did when she was first learning, but he easily gets up each time and tries again.


Here is a video of the kids skating, first Gina with Noemi and Julian having fun forming a train and then Andrew doing his thing.

First Haircut

I finally got around to taking the kids in for haircuts. Gina's hair was getting pretty long, Andrew's hair was to his shoulder when wet, and Dylan had some pretty long ringlets. Both Gina and Andrew sat in the chair patiently while watching a video and their haircuts didn't take too long.

Then it was Dylan's turn. I sat him in the chair and the woman put the drape over him. He started to tug at it with a look that said he didn't like it, but that was it. He sat patiently while his hair was sprayed, all the knots and snags were brushed out (I hadn't brushed it out completely in quite awhile) and then snip, snip, little black tufts fell to the floor.

He looks so different with short hair. I miss all the little ringlets on top of his head but I guess they will grow back.

Spring Soccer

Today was the start of spring soccer for Gina and my first try at coaching. Her team is called the Ladybugs. For under6 teams, they play five each side with small goals and no goalie. The players tend to swarm the ball; it doesn't look very organized.

Gina was up this morning at 9am, dressed in her uniform #7 and ready to go. Only, her game didn't start until 12:30pm. Every half hour she was asking when it was time to go.

There are 6 girls on the team, but two couldn't make it today so initially we played with our four and a girl from the other team to make it five. The game was a blur of red and white uniforms going after the ball.

For my first day as coach I felt like a fish out of water. I had a plan for the first part of the hour before the game and for the most part it went well, but we also had some time when the girls were milling about while I figured out what to do next. Every so often I would check over at the other teams to get ideas on what they were doing. I think next week I will have a better plan and hopefully we will have all six girls.

When Gina and I arrived home, Vic was in the middle of making play dough with Andrew. They made it a very bright orange. It was a sticky mass that slowly came together and the kids had fun with the dough for quite awhile.

Easter Fun

This past weekend was a big blur of easter eggs, candy, cleaning house, candy, cooking and more candy.

I took Dylan and Andrew over to a friend's house for an Easter party with my mom's group and the kids had fun playing in the yard. Andrew decorated an Easter basket and then he was ready to hunt for eggs. We let the little guys go first so they wouldn't be bowled over by older siblings rushing to grab eggs. Dylan was quite happy to pick up two eggs and shake them, and shake them, and shake them some more. He is going to love music class in a few weeks.

After the easter party it was time to color eggs. I set up the cups of dye and was about to carry them to the table. Andrew decided to help and ended up spilling the yellow all over the floor. So we settled for five colors instead of six.

The next morning the kids were very excited to see that the Easter bunny had left some chocolate and books in their basket. Then it was a rush to get ready for church. We got there in time and sat up in front. Andrew and Dylan lasted until the homily. Dylan was getting antsy and Andrew started to bug Dylan so Nana took them out and I stayed with Gina. About ten minutes later, I looked over and there was Andrew walking up the center aisle, looking for me. I was able to convince him to go back with Nana without any trouble.

Here are the big kids patiently waiting while Vic hides all the eggs in the front yard. We got a photo op with all seven kids, including baby Declan.

Then it was a mad rush to find the eggs. Dylan and Katrina weren't too interested in the hunt, but they all had fun. Katrina had fun trying out all the wheeled vehicles while Declan enjoyed sitting in the shade with his shaker toy.

After every one left, Dylan took his nap and the rest of us had a quiet afternoon.

Lost Tooth

Today Gina finally lost her first tooth. She has been talking about it for weeks as her tooth got more and more wiggly. Then this afternoon it popped out. I wonder what the Tooth Fairy will bring?On the potty training front, Andrew had ten accidents today. Yes, TEN!!! At one point, he was out of underwear so I put some snug fitting pajama bottoms on him. By the time he went though two pairs of those, the first load of laundry was finally done. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Today was also the Easter Party for Andrew's Las Madres Group. It was at a church with a playroom and playground. The kids had a great time playing on the play structure and later listening to stories. Then it was the mad dash to hunt for easter eggs. Even Dylan had a basket and picked up an egg or two. Gina's basket was overflowing with eggs and Andrew had quite a few as well.

New Shoes

Today I finally took Dylan to get some real shoes. He is starting to wear through his Robeez and they are definitely not good when the ground is wet. At the store the women put the shoes on and then we waited for him to try them out. They must have felt very strange because he just stood there, not wanting to move. I was finally able to coax him to take a few steps and that got him going. Then when I got home it was hard to get him to stand still to a take a picture of him with his new shoes.

Last week he had his 15 month doctors appointment. He is 32 inches tall and almost 25 lb. Gina on the other hand is just shy of 48 inches!

Snowball Class

So after four weeks of hounding me about ice skating classes, Andrew finally got to try ice skating. He is in a class for 3 and 4 year olds and he knows several of the kids in the class. He was very unsteady when he first got on the ice, but he seemed to pick it up pretty well. A lot of the class was spent learning how to fall and then get up from the ice, very important when you are first learning. He really enjoyed the class, so much so, that when his class was over he threw a fit over not being able to skate more while Gina had her skating class. He was finally appeased with a bag of gummy bears.

Elephant Seals

Last week Gina was off from school for ski week. We didn't go skiing but we did do a few fun things since we had some friends visiting from Seattle. The weather for President's weekend was great, sunny and very nice. However on Tuesday, the weather reverted back to being more like Seattle, gray, cold and wet, a great day for heading to the coast to view elephant seals at Ano Nuevo.


It was raining a little as we were driving along Highway 1 but it wasn't bad once we got to the reserve. I realized once we got there that I really hadn't brought enough warm clothes for Gina but luckily I had a jacket that I had borrowed from my mom in the back. So Gina was swimming in the jacket but she stayed warm and dry.

Once we got out to where we meet the docent who leads the tour it started to rain a little and as we walked out to the elephant seals it started raining more. It was cold and windy and wet but we got great views of all the males and baby seals (the moms had mostly left the beaches at this point). They were making lots of noises and moving around more than if it had been sunny.
Gina seemed to have a good time and was a real trooper walking back. I gave her a short piggy back ride but she walked most of the way without a break. And afterwards, we all met at Duarte's Tavern in Pescadero for hot cocoa, artichoke soup and olallieberry pie.

Parent Training

A week ago Andrew decided that he didn't want to wear diapers anymore. So now we are in the middle of parent training, training myself and Vic to constantly remind him to sit on the potty. When he sits on the potty, he usually goes but he hasn't quite figured out the signals to go himself without reminding. So far he is doing really well, considering. He still puts up a big fuss when I remind him, but he hasn't had any accidents at preschool. He saves those for when I am around.

Two nights ago Andrew also decided he didn't want to wear diapers at night. He has been dry most nights for awhile so it seemed like a good idea. So far so good, though this morning his bed was dry but he didn't quite make it down the hallway to the bathroom in time. So we are totally through with diapers for him. Which is good since diapers don't come in size 7.

Boston

I've spent the last few days in Boston for a conference. Most of my time has been spent in the convention center but my friend Seble insisted on showing me a little bit more of Boston. So on Monday afternoon we spent the day around Harvard, looking around and having lunch. The above picture is Harvard Square and below is a picture of a very New England style building that now houses a Peets Coffee.

It was definitely fun taking a break from the conference which can be a little overwhelming at times.

I've talked with my sister and Vic every day and it sounds like both Gina and Andrew miss me. Andrew threw an hour long tantrum on Monday evening, partly due to being hungry but he is probably a little out of sorts with me gone. Hard to tell with Dylan, he is such a good natured baby but I'm sure he will be happy to see me on Thursday. As for me, it has certainly been nice to sleep without being awoken suddenly and take a nice long shower every morning, but I will definitely be ready to get back to the regular routine after tomorrow.

Ice Skating Lesson

I was able to take a short video of Gina at her second ice skating lesson last week. She had her third lesson last evening and she still loves it and would love going every day if she could. Andrew is still pestering me for lessons too but he will have to wait until the end of the month.

More Variety Show Pictures

One of the moms took pictures throughout the Variety Show. Here are the little ants on stage:

The Show

Every year at Gina's school, they have a variety show that involves many of the kids in the school, either as performers or backstage. The teachers are not involved in this, it is entirely run by the kids and their parents. It is such a big production that they actually have two different shows and this year they limited the acts to 1 1/2 minutes so that everyone could participate without the show running 4 hours long. For kindergarten, a parent usually arranges a group act that all the kids can participate in if they want to. For Gina's class, 20 kids agreed to sing The Ants Go Marching. They have be practicing at lunch time for the past two months and made cute little antennae headbands.

So today they got to perform the song twice, once this morning for the school and then this evening for the parents. This evening, I dropped Gina off at school early and then hurried home to get Vic and Andrew. With the rain, our babysitter was a little late so once we got to the school we had to sit in the very back but we made it in time for the start of the show. Gina's class did a great job on stage, singing their little hearts out and marching in place. It looked like they were all having fun. Then we sat through the other acts.

Half way through the show, Andrew was getting antsy and so we had to leave. We went back to the Green Room to get Gina but of course, she didn't want to leave because of a promised cupcake after the show. So we hung out in the Green Room, Gina watching the rest of the variety show on the TV, Andrew watching Land Before Time on another TV, and Vic and I got to chat with the other parents. Then it was time for the Final Bow with everyone on stage. And of course, Gina got her cupcake on our way out.

Here is Gina in her ant costume: