Baby's first field trip

Today I went on a field trip with Casey's class to the grocery store. The guide took us through the store and behind the scenes. We counted types of apples (21), saw the garbage room, the ice cream section, and the store room where they have the box crusher (big hit with a lot of the kids), and the spot where they've stashed the Halloween candy. The woman asked if anyone had any questions. Most of the kids raised their hands. She calls on Casey. "I like candy!" Ok, calls on another kid. "I like candy." And another, "I like candy." It was a consensus.

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Casey and I passed out the class photo placemats and they were a big hit. It looks like a picture of a refrigerator with photos of each kid stuck on with letter magnets spelling the kids' names. Eric is an artist in PowerPoint. I am not even joking. It's spectacular. It turned out better on paper than in my head, which never happens when I make something!

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After the field trip, we went back to school and played on the playground for a while and then Casey and I came home to hang out. She wanted to make pumpkin pancakes (but only wanted to eat a tiny one) and then wanted to make chocolate cake (we had to buy it because they were giving chocolate cake samples at Trader Joe's the other day). So I'm pretty full right now. And feeling kind of tired and run down, either from hanging out at preschool and going too long without food, or from all that cooking, or (and I don't even want to say it) I may be coming down with a cold.

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We read some books (there is a new Knuffle Bunny book out about our biggest fear -- the little girl leaves her bunny on the airplane) and while I was reading to her I kept stopping because I was falling asleep. She kept telling me, "Mommy, read!" Then when the book fell on the floor I knew it was naptime.

First Autumn Moon Festival performance

I hardly know where to begin, so many things happened over the weekend. Saturday night we had Casey's in-laws over. She misses Wesley so much since they aren't in the same class. Every once in a while I get a glimpse of future teenage Casey and when she talks miserably about missing Wesley, that's one of those times. They came over for Chinese food and the kids played so well together. I really have never seen two kids happier to see each other. When David gave Wesley the 15 minute warning, the kids looked at each other with glee and said, "WE HAVE FIFTEEN MORE MINUTES! YEAH!!!" And ran and played harder than before.
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Saturday we went to the Autumn Moon Festival with Jeanine, Lance, and Brynn. This one was in San Jose and was more of a do-it-yourself crafts fair with a few dance and drum demonstrations, and a puppet show. For the drum demo, they brought kids up from the audience to play the drums. One of Casey's favorite games (after bus/train hostage, which she still loves) is to be the first to raise her hand for anything, regardless of what she's volunteering for. She quickly volunteered to go on stage to do the drums, but was reluctant to go up. Eventually she did, and drummed for a while, but then put down her drum and stood there looking lost, while Eric and I waved wildly at her to make sure she knew where we were, and then came down early. Later when there was another chance to drum, Brynn went up with her and the girls drummed it up.
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We were sitting in the audience after watching drums and dances and the speaker introduces a puppet show, and the puppet show references the Milky Way. The woman says "Who knows what the Milky Way is!?" and guess who raised her hand. We're in the front row and the woman calls on the four year old genius who apparently knows about the Milky Way. I know she doesn't know what it is, and I know what it is, sorta, I mean I know what it looks like in the sky and stuff, but I'm not sure what it really is made of, so I quickly whisper to her "Tell her it's like stars in the sky," which I figure should be a pretty good description for a four year old, even though it's kind of an embarrassing description for an adult. Casey steps right up the stairs to the microphone and says her name and the woman asks her to tell everyone what the Milky Way is. Casey pauses and tells the woman it's when people can't see your face. Something like that. I can barely remember because I think I was in shock. Then the woman tells her it's stars and then she says in the microphone, "Lots of stars!" and everyone claps.
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Later, another woman came up to us and says thanks for coming (she was part of the puppet show, which was HORRIBLE even by my low low puppet show standards -- starts off with an ox saying he's old and is going to die soon, and is about a woman who gets married but her mom doesn't want her to leave and then forms the Milky Way to keep her apart from her husband ... at least that's what Eric told me because I suddenly felt generous and went to buy everyone drinks and snacks). Casey boldly tells her, "It was a sad show. My dad didn't like it." Not much you can say after that.

Two colorful explosions

Ten years ago I moved out here from DC. When Max invited me to go to her company picnic, I took her up on it. Normally I wouldn't go to someone else's company picnic, but I figured I might as well go, since I didn't have much else to do. (Hard to imagine that right now.) It was SO hot that day. Tuyen and Cat were going to meet us there after mountain biking with some others. When the group of cyclists arrived, there was one very cute guy who was wearing a VERY bright and multicolored cycling jersey. People were making fun of him but I stood up for him and told him I thought it was pretty. Yesterday, ten years later, I went to his company picnic with him.

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It was just as hot at this picnic as the last one. When we arrived, Casey was starving, but lunch wasn't ready yet, so she filled up on greasy tortilla chips and guacamole. She also chugged a Juice Squeeze. This may sound like a lot of boring detail, but one of those things was the cause of what happened next. Casey stood up on the picnic table bench and told me her tummy hurt. Then she started drooling on my leg and I said to Eric, "She just drooled all over my leg!"

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Eric knew exactly what was coming next and he grabbed her and took her over to the grass where she started puking! All over herself and Eric. I said goodbye to everyone and ran to the car to get a change of clothes for Casey (unfortunately I had no extras for Eric) and we cleaned her up. I said, ok, let's go home and she did NOT want to leave. Apparently she felt better after that, and there was a giant slide, a bounce house, Ellie, lots of other kids, a crafts table, and looking back, I'm fairly sure she must have spotted the pinata. We stayed and had a great time, despite the heat. She had her first taste of soda ever, since we gave her a Sprite afterwards to help settle her stomach.

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Pictures - In the first picture you can see her explaining what I need to do on the slide. In the last picture, you can see the little girl in the orange hat, right in the middle of the mix, trying to get as much candy as possible. She wasn't as interested in whacking the pinata as she was in making sure she had a good spot when the candy came out. Last night and today she's been asking me to tell her the story about when she drooled, and wants to know why I didn't get a picture of it.

Baby's first martial arts class

Wednesdays we always meet for Japanese food at 6, but now that Casey's in preschool instead of daycare, I have to pick her up by 5. So we have some time to kill before dinner and can't really go home first. We roamed around the toy store -- DogDog gets to ride in the mini grocery cart, and they have a train she likes to play with. Then we headed over to the restaurant early and were sitting on a bench outside when a martial arts guy came out of his shop to give us a free pass for a self-defense class. I always see him trying to drum up business. They have a tiny little store and I don't see how you could teach a decent class in there, plus it's not a real martial art, and they wear black uniforms, which always just looks wrong to me.

Casey wants to try it so we go in. She has been wanting to take karate and likes to watch the karate class at the local community center even though it's the slowest class ever. This guy offers to teach her for 10 minutes until his next student comes. She takes off her shoes and socks, tells me to go away, and the class begins.

Martial arts guy: Make a fist with this hand. This hand is power. This hand is peace. Put this hand over this hand. That's peace over power. Do you know what that means?

Casey: No.

Guy: Repeat after me. We don't start fights.

Casey: We don't start fights.

Me, to myself: Oh, this is better than I thought.

Guy: We finish them.

Casey: We finish them.

Me: Nice. 4 is the perfect age to learn that. (I hope I don't have to mention but just in case... that was said to myself in sarcasm.)

Later, he's teaching her blocks.

Guy: Scoop the ice cream!

Casey scoops and her arm ends up on the side. He swats her arm with a pad.

Casey: Ouch! (She's laughing though.)

Scoop the ice cream. Swat.
Ouch!
Don't say ouch if it doesn't hurt. Scoop the ice cream. Swat.
Ouch!
Don't say ouch if it doesn't hurt. Scoop the ice cream. Swat.
Ouch!

Don't worry, it didn't really hurt her, and she definitely thought it was funny that he told her not to say ouch, but about 8 minutes in she said she was done and we went to get our avocado rolls and noodles.

Queen of the monkey bars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlfxf77CBsc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhAajAu0BzU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgA3pZ1317E

Homework homework

Since Casey has two classes, she has twice the homework, not to mention all of the other paperwork. For her fours class, she had a form to fill out about herself. My name is Casey. I am 4 years old. I have 4 people in my family. I mentioned that it says "people" and she said, "Mommy, I'm not going to play this game if I can't count DogDog." Ok, four it is. Then the next part said, I have 0 brothers and 0 sisters. I thought that might be a little confusing for the teachers so I wrote, "(including DogDog)". That was the easy homework. She came home with this picture on the day she turned it in.
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For her other class, she got two pieces of construction paper. One of them says she's supposed to put together a page about herself so they can make a class scrapbook and everyone can take turns bringing it home. The other says she's supposed to put together a quilt square about her family. I really really don't want us to be parents who do the kid's homework and projects. I know most parents do. But when I asked her what she wanted to put on her quilt page about her family, her response was, "Happy New Year to you." Um, ok, you want pictures of us on New Years? That was kind of a long time ago, and I think we just got pictures of the kids. And the conversation didn't get much better, although I did try.
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For her scrapbook page, we looked for pictures of her doing her favorite things (monkey bars, swimming, etc.) and ordered them from Snapfish and I hope they get delivered before it's due. I'll let her paste them in and color around them -- maybe even cut them if I'm feeling daring. And for the quilt page ... I assigned it to Eric. Heheh. He got some ideas from Wesley's mom who is working on Wesley's page.

Still celebrating

Today we met Susan, Steve, and Ava in Chinatown for the Autumn Moon Festival Parade. Casey wanted to know if there would be candy (like the Fourth of July parade) but no candy, just lion dancers, dragon dancers, and beauty queens. (Miss Asian America, Miss Scholastic, and Miss Photogenic are the ones we noticed. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Miss Photogenic.) Then we went over to the playground so the girls could run around, and then out for a delicious Chinese food lunch.

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After we took our naps, the guys from Kiddieworld came over to replace the borrowed part on Casey's castle bed. She's always scared when the cleaners come over, but anyone with power tools is a friend. She wanted to watch everything they did and had LOTS of questions for them. I put a little chair in there so she could watch and still stay out of their way. She basically told me to get lost, so I went to do some laundry and heard her ask them if they need any help.

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All of her questions reminded me of when we were at the bookstore the other day because she wanted to get presents for all of her daycare friends. A woman was helping us and I was looking at baby books, and I heard Casey asking her all the questions she'd been asking me that I couldn't answer, like why was the bathroom out of order (the sink is broken), where is the play kitchen they used to have (getting cleaned), and then she asked her to read her a book. The woman agreed to read to her, so I had extra time to look for books. Then another woman who worked there came over to read with them. Eric was out of town so Casey and I went next door for Chinese food. We shared broccoli beef. She ate almost all of the beef, so I had almost an all vegetarian dinner. Our little carnivore.

Autumn moon festival

Last night we went to Maddy's house to celebrate the Autumn Moon. May wanted to teach the kids how to make dumplings. When I told Casey, she said, "Well moOoOom, Maddy and I are going to want to PLAY!" Heheh. I think each kid made two dumplings and guess who made the rest. Me! I managed to do it almost entirely without touching any raw meat.

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Casey spent a lot of time on Maddy's train, even when the other kids were busy with other things. May made a giant bowl of noodles, veggies, chicken, and egg, and it was delicious. Casey ate two plates of noodles (second picture). Then we all had mooncakes. There was yellow for Casey, green for Wesley, and pink for Maddy. You can see her trying them in the third and fourth picture. She liked them about as much as I did. Check out that face.

4:1 teacher:student ratio

I went to pick Casey up at school the other day and they had a 4:1 teacher:student ratio. No, I don't mean student:teacher ratio. There were four teachers and Casey. She was practicing on the monkey bars and climbing on their new little climbing wall having a grand old time.
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The last couple of weeks before school started, Casey kept telling me that she hated daycare. I'm not sure where she got that from (I didn't even know she knew the "H" word) but I told her I know she would miss some people and then she'd say, yeah, I'll miss Toni. And Sierra. And Bridget. And Lorelei. And Jacqueline. Etc. Etc. Even though she loves preschool, it's hard starting two new classes AND leaving all of her daycare friends. She's been singing a song called, "I miss daycare" and then she lists all of the people she misses. Poor thing.
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We stopped by the other day and brought books for all the kids and there were only a few still there but we had to stay an hour so they could play together, rearranging the chairs for musical chairs, and just chasing each other around in circles. Luckily Sierra's birthday party is tomorrow, so we'll get to see everyone. I think some of the staff are even coming.

New toy

On Sunday we went for a little bike ride around the neighborhood. Well, actually I went for a run, because Casey wanted me to be next to her while she tried out the new bike. We circled the neighborhood for about 35 minutes and everyone had a great time. I was faster than them at first, so I ran ahead and took lots of pictures and hovered around Casey like an overprotective mom. By the end, they were way ahead of me and I fell behind a lap. Her feet could barely reach the pedals, but I hear you can tie blocks to the pedals. Or we can buy her some platform shoes for the next ride. Notice DogDog in the backpack. He doesn't like to miss anything.

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Then we went to see Jennifer, Bruno, Anais, and Maia for crepes! Casey liked making them as much as she liked eating them. Then she hung out with the girls while the grownups relaxed and talked.

Another first day of preschool (MWF class)

First of all, Casey wants everyone to know that she can skip a bar (picture 2). Wednesday was her second first day of preschool, the first day of her "fours class". She was much happier at snacktime when they sang the "Thank you for the sun so bright" song instead of the "Johnny Appleseed" song. I could see her face sink with disappointment on Tuesday when they didn't sing her favorite song before snack. And we learned that she's right, the teachers do say, "for the sun and the rain and the appletree" instead of "appleseed". She is always correcting us. How could it be that no one at preschool knows the right words!! Appletree doesn't even rhyme with "the things I need."

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The most stressful part for me is when it's time for the kids to buddy up before going to the playground or bike time. The first time the teacher said, "Boys stand up." The boys stood up. Then she said, "Boys, pick a girl to be your partner to walk to the playground." Boys were hesitantly roaming around looking at the girls. I felt like I was at a middle school dance. The twin boys just looked at each other, grabbed each other's hands, and ran for the door to line up. Finally someone picked Casey. She just looked at the ground until someone came over. On the way back, when they had to find a partner, kids walk up to each other and slowly reach for the other kid's hand and wait to see if the other kid grabs on or walks to someone else. Is this supposed to be good for them? I hope so.

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On the way to bike time she was partners with the little girl in pictures 4 and 5. As soon as they got to the bikes, they both tried to run for the bike they were eyeing, Casey went left and Quincy went right, but they didn't let go of each other. Luckily Eric managed to snap a picture because it was pretty funny. They tried a couple more times and then finally they let go and ran for the bikes they wanted. You can see in picture 6 that she got the coveted fire engine bike, before it was too late. Whew. She switched bikes a few times and on her last round she asked Quincy if she wanted a ride and Quincy said yes. You can see how pleased she is in the second to last picture. After school was over she said, "I like Quincy." (Thursday she told me she rode with Quincy again and let her go in the front.)

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You can see the traffic jam at the gas station. I guess those bikes don't get good mileage because the kids stop for gas after every lap.

First day of preschool

Today was Casey's first day of Tuesday/Thursday preschool. Tomorrow is her first day of M/W/F preschool. They are all at the same preschool, but the Tuesday/ Thursday class is a special add-on class and they learn about world cultures and take "trips" to different countries. Sometimes the parents come in to talk about a country they have lived in or visited. They also take a real trip to the grocery store across the street (and get to see behind the scenes) and they go to Hidden Villa Farm. I think there are a few more real trips that we haven't heard about yet.

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Eric and I went to orientation today. She did pretty well. She already knows (and loves) one of her teachers (now that I notice it, it's the teacher the first and last pictures). That helped a lot. Casey made a couple of new friends and at the end of the day told me, "I like Clarabelle." I liked her mom, so hopefully that will work out.

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One girl in the class has a sister who was in last year's class. The mom came in last year to talk about England and brought the grandma who was born in England. Grandma dressed up as the queen, and now when any of the kids see her at Starbucks they still think she is the queen.

Time to go home

Sunday morning Veronica and I were in the kitchen cutting up fruit when Ashley came down the stairs fully dressed. That just doesn't happen in our house. Then Kyle and Cami came down, and the kids ran around playing until they were able to wake Casey up. Poor Casey is not a morning person. She and DogDog sat on Daddy's lap until it was time for breakfast. Karen whipped up several batches of giant fresh waffles and I think I ate like four of them.

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In the car on the way home, Casey sounded a little worried when she asked, "Mommy, did I help clean up?" "Do you remember cleaning up?" "No." Pause. "Will I be invited back?" I think it was a few weeks ago that I told her that she should clean up before she leaves someone's house and then they'd want to invite her back. I told her I cleaned up so we should be ok. I hope so anyway!

Santa Cruz sleepover

We met some friends at the Boardwalk on Saturday morning for a wild day of rides and fun. Casey had a great time, except for the boat ride, where someone had to sit in the back. She was not happy. The best thing about the kid rides there is that every seat has a steering wheel. Brilliant.

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Afterwards we went over to Ashley's house and the kids (four little and one big) rode around in the driveway on every vehicle Karen could round up. They already had a road drawn on the driveway, so the grownups added some stores to make it a little village. Then the girls made a train and rode around the little town.

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Karen cooked up an amazing feast. Ashley has three older brothers, so Karen is used to cooking for a whole football team if she needs to. I had to take a picture of the desserts, because she made TWO ice cream cake rolls. I was so impressed. I thought ice cream cake rolls just came from Baskin Robbins. They were all of our favorite flavors (peanut butter chocolate mixed with chocolate fudge in one, mint chocolate chip mixed with chocolate fudge in the other).

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When it was time for bedtime, Casey read her Curious George book to the girls and then decided she'd rather sleep downstairs with her parents. At 2:30 in the morning she woke up and said she wanted to sleep with the kids. Um, no.