Preschool

Bennett had his very first day of preschool today. The plan was to take him last week, but he got a cold the day before. So we decided to wait. Everything went very well, better than I expected. We told him constantly over the last week that we were going to school, that we had to leave but would come back, etc. We basically tried to give him the social story of what was going to happen so he wouldn't be surprised. He responds to this approach positively in many situations. He loved carrying his backpack into the school and ran right to a table to start playing. Since he seemed to jump right in, we quickly kissed him goodbye and left. I fully expected the teacher to call and tell us that he was upset, but she never did. I picked him up from the playground at 11am and he was so happy to see me. No tears or anything. Apparently he had a couple of moments where they thought he would cry, but he was able to push through them. Although it was difficult to hold his attention for long, he did try and participate with everything the other kids did.

I was a little bit early to pick him up, but I parked near the playground and watched him run around the equipment. It was so strange to be watching from afar and I shed a few tears. But we are very proud of Bennett and we went and had a celebratory doughnut after.

On Vivian's front, there is lots and lots and lots of practice walking going on. She pushes around anything that can be pushed. If she runs into anything and gets stopped she cries until one of us helps her to get going again and then smiles while walking toward the next obstacle.

I get to do a few mom-night-out activities over the next week. Tomorrow it is an authentic Indian appetizer night, Friday a white elephant gift party, and next week a wine/gift wrapping party. I've never been a particularly good or consistent wrapper, but I won't argue with some wine. Maybe it will help my technique!

Bernie's dad will be here tomorrow for a couple of days en-route to Phoenix. He is going to help us replace some light fixtures and with other odd jobs that need to be done to prepare the house for sale. Our list of fixes/improvements is quite long.

We are so happy with our photos! I hope to get the order in tomorrow so we can get some type of holiday/new year cards out to everyone.

We are off for a ten day trip to Phoenix in 10 days. I am very excited to see all of Bernie's family and have the kids with their cousins. Being with my Fagg cousins was the highlight of my childhood and I am sad our kids won't have that same closeness. But I'm sure they will have fun when they have the opportunity.