Thoughts from the last two weeks....

There's not much of a connection to all of these thoughts, just a little bit of what's goin' on!

We really feel like we lucked out with Brynn's teacher this year. The school doesn't allow teacher requests (unless you feel like your child has special needs), but I feel like she was placed perfectly for her personality. Brynn adores her and Joseph and I feel very comfortable about sending her to school everyday. In fact, on Back to School Night, the first grade team presented together and after it was all over and we were walking home, Joseph whispered to me, "Okay, out of all the teachers she could have been placed with, I'm glad she's with Mrs. Ziser, she has a much softer look than the rest of the teachers and I just think it's going to be the right fit for Brynn." I smiled because we were both thinking the exact same thing. Mrs. Ziser is very classy and someone who looks to be a great role model for Brynn.

On the first day of school when I picked her up I asked her how things went and what she thought of her teacher. "Mom, she's soooo nice and she's soooo pretty, and she plays the cello!"

Everyday before lunch Mrs. Ziser leads them in a few minutes of yoga. Brynn loves it! She comes home everyday teaching us new yoga positions along with their names. She may have a future as a yoga instructor. ;) She's pretty good if you ask me!

Speaking of lunch, I was surprised at how much school lunch costs now. $2.50 a pop here. When I taught school, I think it was still $1.35, and I don't consider my teaching days that ancient. Some of the other moms in the ward told me that most of the kids who eat school lunch are on the free and reduced plans, and most of the others bring their lunch from home. We've been packing a lunch everyday, but one day, Brynn decided she wanted to try school lunch. Joseph went and paid for one month, just so she had money in her account in case she wanted to try it a few times. I asked her how things went and she said, "It was pretty good, but they served chocolate milk and that made my stomach really sick...I wanted some water from my home lunch really bad!" She had been looking forward to the chocolate milk, but I guess her system didn't find it quite agreeable. Maybe it's the heat! Milk never tastes good to me when I'm hot and thirsty. :) We'll be packing a home lunch from now on until she decides to try it again. Hopefully we'll be able to get through the months worth of lunches we've pre-paid for, or get a refund. She also said, "Mom, we had these little brown things that looked like chicken nuggets, but they were smaller, and the guy on Napoleon Dynamite eats them." "Oh your mean tater tots." I said. "Yeah, that's what it is, because he said, give me some of your tots!" Funny! Times have changed, nearly everyone at my elementary school ate school lunch.

Brynn always runs to us for a hug when we pick her up from school. It thrills me to see her looking so happy.....she looks really hot and somewhat tired, but happy! She always has a few points to tell me about the day, "Okay I have 4 (whatever the number happens to be) things I want to tell you..." On one particular day last week, when she came to give me a hug, point number one was, "Mom, Mrs. Ziser's husband came today and we sang with him and his guitar! It was so fun! We sang the Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Old McDonald and some other songs."

Brynn has such an obedient little spirit....it's almost funny. She wants so bad to do what she's supposed to do. Sometimes, while telling me about her events of the day she will say, "Okay Mom, one bad thing happened today. My table didn't get as many points as the Trapezoid table. Mario was talking and so we didn't earn points and it made me so frustrated! I did get 5 decision dollars today though!" We've had a few nice talks about encouraging others in a postive way and trying to motivate them to stay on task and obey the rules. I wish I could be a little fly on the wall and watch these little ones as they try to figure out all of these things. It really makes me smile. I hope the rest of the school year goes as smoothly for her as these first couple of weeks.

Brynn and Abby are counting down the days until ballet starts....less than one week for Brynn and eight days for Abby. They are both wondering what the "play" (ballet performance) will be this year. I don't know if they'll have Abby's class participate this year....it's usually a big production and they like to wait until the children are in kindergarten, but her class will have their own smaller performance...hopefully that will do.

Abby starts pre-school after Labor Day. She's very excited! We've met a few times with her friends from school over the summer and she always enjoys their friendship so much. It's good for her to have social experiences without Brynn. Sometimes they rely too much upon one another. They are very social as a pair, but sometimes get a little timid on their own. It's always good when they have opportunities to be friendly and socialize by themselves.

It's been great for me to see the kids play together lately. Aaron and Abby have had lots of practice the last couple of weeks while Brynn has been at school. It's fun to see Abby present an idea of play to Aaron and to have him get excited about it. He's slowly, but surely becoming a better talker. I have to remind myself not to compare him to Abby who was telling us what was what when she was 18 months old. I recall how surprised people were at how well she could talk, but when you're in the middle of it, sometimes you don't notice. When I expressed concern to our pediatrician about Aaron after his last exam, she smiled and said, "He's completely normal. You can't compare your children to one another, there's a broad spectrum of normal."

Joseph met Paul Frandsen just south of Monterey for a bike ride along the coast last weekend. He really enjoyed himself and came home very happy. I'm glad he has such a healthy outlet for his energy and a hobby he really enjoys. I am determined to "let" him record their journey (along with the other rides that he wants documented) I can post pictures, but I can't say much about the journey, hopefully he'll take care of those soon! He wants to, and he feels that keeping a journal is important, but also admits, he's been a bit lousy with it. He says that he enjoys "living" life, more than "writing" about it. That's understandable. The other day I told him that I really wanted life written in his perspective. He has such a bright perspective on life, I would feel so sad if something happened to him and our children didn't have his perspective on things. Even if nothing happens, I think our posterity would be missing out without his view on things. I love reading his journals from his mission and his journal from specific times in our marriage and family life when he has done better at keeping up with things. I always leave wanting more.
(hint, hint!)

I'm enjoying the structure that comes with school being in session. I thrive on structure. I hope to have our schedule down in the next couple of months, before our little guy gets here.

I realized today that I am approaching 30 weeks! I have only had 1 doctor appointment, 1 Nurse Practioner appointment, and 1 Nurse Midwife appointment (and 2 ultrasounds). It seems I've had to cancel a few times for trips out of town and just getting in later than normal due to the busy-ness of life. It's gone by so fast! We still haven't decided on a name. Joseph says about once a day, "We really need to get this name thing figured out!" I agree. I know it will come. In the past couple weeks he has brought up the name Michael quite a few times. The first time he brought it up was right after Michael Phelps won his first gold and we were at the swimming pool as a family. Coincidence? I think not! He must just really have a fascination with naming this baby after an athlete. Michael is a very nice name, but it isn't in the running for me, I don't want to use any names that end with the letter L. (Because it's the same letter our last name begins with...Lee can be a difficult last name to work with). So we're still on the name hunt.

We had a interesting 911 call tonight that I'll write about soon.....oh goodness, there is always something crazy going on in this house!