"This is the first day...

of the rest of your life," I said to Rachel at breakfast yesterday, her first day of kindergarten. She gave me one of those, "You are such a dork, Mom" looks I'm going to have to get used to. But my statement was a general reflection of my mood regarding the start of our school years, which is alternately maudlin and hopeful. After a few tears (on Rachel's part, we won't talk about Mom quite yet) she went off with her class quite bravely and had a great day. They had music class, which was the highlight for Rachel. We had a little drama at the end of the day when she realized she had lost her lunch box and all the stuff in it. We had half the Maury School staff on the hunt for it, but we had to wait until this morning to find it in the lost and found. Whew!

So Fiona, tell us how you feel about all this!


Just before she dropped off to sleep last night, I asked Rachel how she liked school. "I loooove it, Mom! I just looove it!" So. Here we go, a new beginning.

Off to class, with a few tears...









Day 2 of Kindergarten
"Mom! What can I give Miss Nelson? I want to take her a gift." To make a long story short, this morning Rachel wanted to take a gift to her teacher so that "Miss Nelson won't forget about me!" First, she wanted to take a gift for Miss Nelson's dog, but I suggested perhaps she could draw a picture. She decided that she would draw a picture of herself with Miss Nelson. So off she goes... Hey, wait a minute! We have to leave in 2 minutes! Once she gets something in her head, she will not be dissuaded, so with no time to draw a picture, Rachel decides that she will take an apple to her teacher! Now, where she came up with this, I have no idea, and since we didn't have time to talk about the meaning of "cliche" I gave up and got an apple. I hope Miss Nelson gets a kick out of this!

Miss Nelson is about 25, looks like she's 12 and was almost certainly a cheerleader in high school. I mean this in the best possible way. I think she and Rachel are going to adore each other and I am thrilled about the pairing. Miss Nelson is so cheerful and bubbly that Rachel will never know that Miss Nelson is the one in charge.


The Days before School Started and a Bit About Fiona (Fiona Who?)

This is Rachel in front of her new school, first day of K-Prep

The two weeks between K-Prep and the start of school flew by. We went to the Air and Space Museum one day, and spent a few days at the Delaware shore. Good gracious! What a madhouse. Clearly, millions of people love it (an easy conclusion to draw, since that's how many people were there, along with their cars) but it was a bit (a bit!) crowded for us. We're going to look west, to the Shenandoah (?) Mountains, or some such for our next getaway. Which will be when Fiona is in college, because that will probably
be when Mom is ready to take her anywhere overnight again. That child sees a hotel room as an opportunity for an all-night party. Her father and I... OK, stop right there. NOT her father and I, just I, did not find this amusing. Her father slept through all of it, waking only at choice moments to bark something at Rachel (who was also wide awake and refusing to be herded back to bed) like, "Listen to your Mother! zzzzzzzz...." To be fair to Ben, he had the cold that I had had the week before, which caused an almost drug-like exhaustion. Anyway, someone, sometime, will enjoy Fiona's penchant for hotel-room partying, but it is NOT her family. I have vowed to avoid hotels for the foreseeable future.

Fiona is rather enjoying her days with her mom, but she asks for Rachel about every 10 minutes. She says, "Iss, Iss??" "Iss" is short for "Siss" or "Sissy," which we seem to call Rachel a lot. Fiona has a lot of words these days, including my personal favorite, "MINE! MINE!" Yikes.

We had a fun Labor Day weekend - a party at the home of some new friends, the farmers' market, church, and mini golf and dinner with Katie (Katie Willis - Ben's brother Bob's eldest daughter, here for grad school at U-Maryland, College Park) on Monday. Now, that was fun! I think Katie will probably be screening all our calls from now on (!), but the rest of us all had fun. I, personally, have come a looooong way since having children. We didn't even take a score card with us, and we only played about 14 of the 18 holes! I was so proud of myself! I got a hole-in-one and I only jumped up and down a little bit before running off after Fiona, who was having a great time climbing all over everything.

OK, I have one more story before I try to post this. It seems Rachel has taken up a cause I have long since abandoned - the Toilet Seat. We only have one bathroom, which makes things a bit interesting and doesn't leave much room for privacy. We try, but it's not easy. Anyway, Rachel caught Ben on his way out of the bathroom the other day, and noticed that he had (of course) left the toilet seat up. She said to him, "Papa! You HAVE to put the toilet seat down! You live with HUNDREDS of women and we NEED to have the seat down!!" We are still laughing about this, but poor Ben doesn't appreciate the reminder of how seriously he is outnumbered around here. I say, just wait about 10 years!

Keep an eye on us for more updates! I am sure I will figure out this picture thing at a later date, but in the meantime, I just stuck them in where and how I could.