So, I think I could back-date this post, so you would THINK I posted it on Abby's 5 month birthday, the 21st. But that would take all the fun away from her when she uses this "neglect" against me some day!I DID, in fact, take her pictures on time, and even the video was done on time. But then life happened, Maggie sick all week, missing school, and messing with our normal routines. Work, trips to ER, more illness, you get the idea. It's the thought that counts. And the pictures! And the video!

At 5 months, Abby is at a crossroads. She has opinions and skills, but she is bored with these. She wants to be able to sit up, roll both ways, and probably eat more food. But she can't sit unassisted, can't roll from her belly to her back, and is still getting used to her food choices (so far sweet potatoes and beans are faves!) She gets frustrated, and screeches to show her displeasure. It's pretty funny really!

The next 2 pictures are bonus pics, only for you, loyal blog readers. The first is proof that I certainly practice what I preach to my patients about safe sleep, no extra blankets, stuffed animals or crib bumpers - too much risk for SIDS! Uh, yeah, about that. She LOVES this giraffe and almost can't fall asleep without holding it while it plays music. I found her like this at naptime the other day and had to capture the moment.

This one is her newest trick - mastered on the 22nd, the day AFTER her 5 month birthday. Now she won't let go!

As you can see, despite my failings as blogger, she is thriving. She's not consistent with daytime naps, but since she sleeps 10 - 12 hours at night, I'm not going to complain!

In other news, apparently Mother Nature decided she'd spoiled us enough with perfect weather. we jumped right into fall today with a blustery wind, some rain and highs barely hitting 60 degrees. I used this to my advantage with my lazy girls this morning - bribing them with FALL CLOTHES if they would just cooperate and eat their breakfast! It totally worked. They were both excited for "new" things to wear, especially fuzzy fleece sweatshirts.

Abby didn't need to be bribed with new things, she generally doesn't mind what she's wearing. As long as she can have something, anything, in her mouth - she's happy as can be. Here, it's her own fingers, certain to be red and chapped, given the amount of time she spends sucking on them! Her hood and chipmunk cheeks kill me!

The other excitement for our day was welcoming my Aunt Janet and Uncle Denis to our home. They are "in town" for the week visiting family, and journeyed from Evanston to spend the afternoon coloring, reading, being silly, and eating dinner with us. It was a wonderful treat in our day.

And now we're all caught up. The girls are in bed, my "to-do" list is complete. It's off to enjoy some brain-numbing TV and enjoy sleeping with cool breezes through the windows. Lots happening in the next week, I wonder how long it will be before another post?

Deep thoughts with Maggie.....

As I was doing Maggie's hair after her bath tonight, she pointed out that she was almost as big as I am. I responded with a classic line I remember from my childhood "Maggie, you're growing too fast, I'm going to put you in a cage so you can't grow anymore!"

She thought this was pretty goofy. A moment later she repeated,"Mommy, I really am going to be just as big as you are pretty soon. And then I can have babies!"

I silently screamed before calmly responding, "Oh no Maggie, you have a LONG time before you can have babies. Elementary school, middle school, high school, college - you have lots of school to do before you can have babies."

She thought about that as I continued to comb her hair.

When her hair was done, she turned around and told me, "Mommy, first I will find somebody that I really LOOOOVVVE."

Yup, that's the first step Maggie, how did you get to be so smart?

Funny Katherine.

Yesterday, she decided to carry a plastic cell phone in a purse (thank you Aunt Nora for your cast-off purse.) She went on to make beeping noises when she pretended to make a call, and to "sing" when the phone was "ringing." But the funniest was her need to DANCE when she sang her phone-ringing song. The picture is trying to capture that dancing, while we waited at the bus stop yesterday. She also refused to ride in the double stroller to the bus stop. Instead she wanted to push her own stroller, "with all of my sweeties." She cracks me up!

Driving home from gymnastics this morning we were chatting about her class. She reported that swinging on the rings was her favorite and that she did a lot of jumping. After a pause in the conversation, she said,"Mommy, sometimes I just want to be messy." (Um, huh?)

"Why, Katherine?"

"Because I want to be an astronaut."

"And astronauts are messy?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"What do astronauts do Katherine?"

"Well, they like to fly. And do other fings. And they can play on the moon."

"And they are messy?"

(exasperated)"YES MOMMY, I am always going to be messy so I can be an astronaut!"

Ok, I can't argue with that!

Shortly after our Astronaut discussion, we were in the CVS store. Of course they had music playing, and of course, Katherine had to dance. As we were walking down the aisle, and she was bee-bopping-bouncing to the tunes, I said "Katherine, that's some great dancing!" She giggled and said, "I know Mommy, when my body hears the music, it makes my knees get all bouncy!"

I love this daughter of mine, I just love her!

So, I’m a terrible person for updating on Maggie’s first day of Kindergarten, but not Katherine’s first day of preschool. But I had a good reason. It was too traumatic, and I was hoping it might get better! Thankfully, it has!

Katherine was so excited for her first day of preschool. She’s been waiting to go for what seems

like years – since she has watched Maggie go and have so much fun. Finally it was her turn – she could sing the songs and play with the toys and make new friends. We arrived at school and met her best friend Emily on the way in – perfect! We stopped to put the “princess” folder in her cubby – no problem! But as we walked in to the room we were greeted with a little girl throwing a tantrum of epic proportions. Katherine took one look at her and started crying and clinging to me. She lost it. She begged me not to leave her, begged me to go home right then. Thankfully the wonderful teachers in her classroom took her from me and eventually settled her down. Actually, about half of the 20 students were having some sort of meltdown. I went out the hallway, and had a few tears myself before peeking in to see that she had settled and then bravely walking away. I KNEW she’d be fine, but I was surprised at her tears, and my own! When I went back 2 hours later, she was all smiles and the teachers reported that she’d had an excellent day. And in 2 drop-offs since then, she’s been just fine. She told me in the car on the way home that she had made a new friend, a “tissue friend.” What is a tissue friend? Well, the little girl she sat with had a tissue, and so did Katherine – apparently to wipe the tears away!

She is excited to have her own school things to talk about with Maggie. She loves singing songs and reading stories. Her favorite song right now is “the pumpkin song” which, after much investigation appears to be “Where is THUMBKIN” not “Where’s my pumpkin” as she tried to tell us. She comes home exhausted, but is trying everything she can think of to avid taking naps. It’s a battle that I will continue to fight – I LOVE naptime! We NEED naptime!

So with both girls at school, that leaves me alone with Abby. It’s amazing how quiet it is with just the two of us in the house. Well, until Abby starts her shrieking. I can’t imagine where

she’d learn to be so talkative, but she sure does enjoy hearing her own voice! She’s moved past blowing raspberries to high pitched shrieks, and still loves to go back and forth with anyone who will sit and make noises with her. She is not loving her baby food. You’d think that a chubby girl would enjoy food in any form, but she is not too thrilled with cereal or bananas from a spoon. We keep offering it every few days though. Sooner or later she’ll learn how fun it can be! We’re also hoping she learns (sooner rather than later) that rolling from tummy to back is fun and easy to do. She flips from back to front in no time, but still gets stuck and shrieks

until she is flipped onto her back again. Unfortunately, her sisters are not gentle enough for that task, so Mom and Dad do a lot of baby-flipping! On Labor Day we took a picnic to a new park and Abby got to try a park swing for the first time. It’s hard to say if she liked it, but she didn’t cry. The big girls loved having Abby in the swing, but, once again, it was important to stress GENTLE, a concept that neither Maggie nor Katherine really seem to grasp!

And grown up Maggie. This is her third week of Kindergarten already. Each day she jumps down from the bus and almost before I can ask her, she grins and says, “Another AWESOME Day, Mom!” There are so many questions in my head, but I try not to ask them all at once. She is worn out, but at the same time, ready for some free playtime after a full day of structure. She’s been practicing her bike skills with Daddy and has the bumps, bruises, and band-aids to prove it. She also eats so well at dinner – since she is only eating about half of her lunch at school. The 15 minutes of eating time goes by too quickly when you’re talking to your friends! She absolutely loves school! She has had some less than stellar moments though. We had a rough time in church yesterday, which was followed by an even worse afternoon. In church, she was not following directions and was warned that if she continued to be naughty she would have a time out and no TV once we arrived home. She ignored the warning, and so, once we were home, she was sent to the time out chair. Once her time was served, she was told she could go to the front porch to read or to her bed to read, while I made lunch. This was to keep her out of sight of the TV, where Katherine was going to choose one show to watch during

lunch prep. Due to her sobbing, the choice was made for her, and she was sent to her room. So I prepared lunch, Abby slept in her carseat, Katherine watched her TV, and Maggie read in her bed…. or so I thought. After about 10 minutes, I had funny feeling and took a little walk to the stairs. There I found Maggie about halfway down the stairs, leaning over the railing to be able to see the TV in the family room. Bad choice, Bad choice! More tears and more punishment, and thankfully, after lunch, NAPS!

So we’re all figuring it out together - New schedules, new routines, new friends, new challenges. I’m sure we’ll survive, even with some bumps along the way!

The last 2 weeks have flown by. Not sure if we were really busy, or just trying to enjoy the last fun days of summer. Of course, it was cold enough to think it was October, not August! Chris went back to school for inservice last week. On those three days, the girls and I had 3 different play-dates. Then on Friday we visited the Milwaukee Museum before I went to work. Sunday was a trip to Morton Grove to my friend Jessica’s house for a Class of 94 reunion. A group of my best friends from high school tries to get together every few months for brunch, but this was the first time we’ve brought all of the kids along. 8 moms and 12 kids – it was fabulous! Monday we saw the Domes and the Zoo before coming home for naps. I think everyone slept a little – finally worn out from all that good summer fun!

Today however, all that fun ended! It’s the FRIST DAY OF SCHOOL! Maggie was so excited for her first day of Kindergarten that when I came into the kitchen and said “Good morning Maggie” she responded “Don’t you mean KINDERGARTEN GIRL?” She was fed, dressed, and ready to go about 45 minutes early. I let the girls watch a TV show and then we headed out to the bus stop, a full 10 minutes early. She got so tired of waiting that she was convinced the bus wasn’t going to come, but it did, she hopped on without a care in the world, and off she went.

Katherine and Abby and I chased the bus over to the school and met her coming off the bus and helped her find Mrs Potter. Then we watched her follow in line into the building. I got a little teary-eyed, but didn’t have time to wallow, it was off to GYMNASTICS!

Katherine started a gymnastics class today. Once a week for 45 minutes, and with her best friend Emily (who will also be in her preschool class.) She was so excited to wear her “weed-a-tawd wif spawk-els.” She told me her favorite part was swinging from the rings and doing freeze dance on the trampoline. She misses Maggie though – asking 3 times before naps if it was time to go and meet the bus yet. Next week she’ll start her regular school hours, and then she won’t have time to miss Maggie. School is M-W-F, 9-1115 and gymnastics on Tuesday morning.

Cute Katherine story from the weekend. We spent a lazy day on Saturday, cooking, working in the yard, not going anywhere, so Chris didn’t shave. That night, as he was giving goodnight kisses, she pulled away and said with disgust, “Daddy, you’re face is TOO SCRATCHY!” He, of course, then rubbed his cheeks on hers even more as she squealed with glee. But ultimately, she took his face in her hands and declared “I will only kiss you like THIS!”

Abby doesn’t seem to care who kisses her or how - she LOVES kisses and raspberries and anything goofy. She is all smiles and giggles. She wants to be involved in everything around her. If she’s on her back on the floor, she tries to lift her head and sit up. Obviously she can’t, so instead she’s getting a great Ab work out! She also will turn her body wherever she is so she can see what all the commotion is about. She will engage you in conversation, if you blow raspberries at her, she’ll answer with her own. She changes her volume and facial expressions as she “talks” and it is beyond cute. We brought the exersaucer out over the weekend and she is entertained by it, but not for long. She’d rather roll on the floor. She tried rice cereal last week, and it wasn’t her favorite, but she is practicing. She doesn’t spit it out, but she isn’t thrilled about it either. She’ll get beans or bananas by the end of the week and maybe she’ll like those more.

Somehow, we found time to make 2 videos in the last week also. The first was an update of Abby’s tricks, which you can see here. The other was Maggie riding her bike, finally without training wheels. For all you Katherine lovers out there, I’m working on a Katherine video. Believe me, I’m sensitive to the plight of the poor middle child!

Edited to add:

Maggie did make it home from school. However, due to some bus snafu at the high school, all of the elementary busses were late. Maggie waited outside her school, with the other Bus #64 kids for 1/2 hour. This might not have been so bad, but the other 2 kids she knows who ride her bus were not there (they got picked up instead.) And it was the end of a VERY long first day of school for her. Chris and I were patiently waiting on her corner. Well, he was patient, I was nearing a frantic state. Once she arrived, she crossed the street with Chris, and then RAN into my arms, threw her arms tightly around my neck and started crying. I think it was just sheer exhaustion and relief to finally be home. She immediately started laughing through her tears, and was excited to tell us about her day. She said she LOVED everything about kindergarten. However, she did put her lunch bag in the wrong basket, so at snack her lunch bag was missing. It was found, but she explained that was why she hadn't eaten most of her snack, because by the time it was located in a different classroom, snack time was almost over. She thought that listening to books with headphones was "super cool" and her favorite parts of the day were lunch, recess and rest time! All in all, a successful day. And she is ready to go back again for more!