Cream of Potato Soup

First grade is fantastic, according to Evan, aside from the "kids who don't listen". He likes his teacher, he likes having his own desk (set up in a U shape so everyone can see each other), and he likes seeing his old friends. His class has 25 students, four of whom are from his class last year, and one is a boy that he met in summer camp. We've settled easily back into the school day routine, and I'm happy about that. Everything runs so much better around here when we've got a plan.

Grady is missing Evan a little. He wanted to go to school with him this morning, but he didn't get too upset when he couldn't. He's enjoying having all his toys to himself and having my full attention, so I guess it's a decent trade-off in his mind.

This week I got all the 2T clothes out of the attic--we've had a few cool days and G doesn't have much in the way of fall clothes. I was hopeful we wouldn't have to buy anything, that he would be in good shape for the next few months. Thanks to Ev wearing 2T's for a long time and generous grandparents and friends, we have enough clothes to dress about five two year olds. Grady can wear a different outfit every day for two months--not to mention the snowsuit and boots and pajamas and dress shoes and underpants. The one thing is he's a total peanut, and things that fit Ev right around his second birthday are still large on G, but it's not too bad. I'm just relieved we don't have to buy anything, because Evan needs everything this year.

Posted by jenny at 8:49 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

This morning I sent Evan off to his first day of first grade. He's been a little nervous about it the past few days, and I think he was feeling confused. He expressed sadness over the summer ending, but is excited to see his friends again, and I think it was hard for him to be conflicted like that. But this morning he was all smiles, ready to go after a hearty plate of eggs and a fit of grooming. He jumped on the van just like last year (same van, same driver, same kids) and was off. I hope he has a good day, and I'm anxious to hear all about it when he gets home.

So far, Grady seems to be enjoying the quiet and extra attention this morning. I have a feeling by the end of the day he'll be glad to see Ev return though. It's going to be different with just the two of us here again.

Posted by jenny at 8:33 AM | Permalink | Comments ()

If you haven't yet and are able, please get out today or tomorrow to donate blood for Erie Blogs Week II at the Community Blood Bank. The blood bank is open 9 to 6 today and 9 to 12:30 tomorrow. Mike and I went Tuesday and were the very first to sign up on the bloggers sheet (conveniently taped to the front desk), so make sure you sign the blog sheet for your chance to win a gift basket or a brand new iPhone 3G!

Grady got his blood test results from the allergy doctor on Wednesday. He's apparently allergy free now--the test showed no food allergies at all. But we were still urged to be cautious the first time we serve eggs, and to do it over a period of time with the Epi-pen in hand. I think a bucket would be more useful, because G's reaction to eggs is the barfing, but we'll have the other there too just to be safe. This is exciting news for me, and I'm sure Grady will be happy that he can eat Evan's eggs now.

There has also been a bit of potty progress for G. He's been going on the toilet before his bath lately, or before swimming, but most of the time he'll be in the diaper. And yesterday, we were at Lisa's house playing and he was fussing around with his swimsuit, so I asked him if he needed to go and he said yes. So we went and he went and that was all very good. He actually uses the potty more when we're out than at home! I don't think he's ready for a full on potty assault, but I'm glad he seems to want to use it. Maybe once Ev's in school and I can give it my full attention we'll give the training a go.

In yesterday's mail, Evan got a postcard from his first grade teacher with a special message just for him. He was pretty excited--I think he's happy to finally know where his room is and what to expect. We also talked a little about the first day, and he said, "I think first graders go right to their classrooms, Mom." In kindergarten, he started and ended the day in the support classroom--just 10 minutes to get situated and go potty and prepare for the day a little. When we did his IEP in April, we all agreed that it probably wasn't necessary anymore, but we left it as is and said we'd let Evan decide what to do. I guess that is him deciding, so I should probably call his support teacher this week and see if we can make that happen.

Posted by jenny at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

First, thanks to everyone for the great eggplant recipes. I appreciate the input--cooking is definitely not my thing, so it's nice to get a bit of help.

Second, I'd like to remind everyone in the Erie area that it's Erie Blogs Week II at the Community Blood Bank this week. The blood drive was a big success last year, and we're hoping for an even better turn out this year. So come on down, save some lives, and get a chance to win an iPhone 3G. You can't beat that. Mike and I are donating tonight, because the CBB is open until 7:30 on Tuesdays. Hope to see you there!

In other news, the summer continues to fly by, racing quickly toward the first day of school. I feel like I'm in panic mode--all the activities we planned, all the fun we were going to have, and now it's down to a week. We have been having fun--we took the boys to Midway Park on Chautauqua Lake last week, and we spent Saturday evening at the Crawford County Fair. Not to mention the multiple family reunions in the past few weeks, and all the bike riding and playground hopping we've been doing--it's not like we've been slacking in the fun department. It's just that the summer, like so many other things, went faster than I expected.

Evan is ready for school to begin. He's started talking about it more, and I think he's getting excited. He saw one of his classmates at the park the other night, and he was over the moon--I think he's missed seeing all his friends every day. I've been noticing a lot of anxiety in him lately, but it hasn't really been about school. He's worried about tornadoes and fires and car accidents, about being alone, about things that are out of his control. I've been doing a lot of reading about this, and it seems to be perfectly normal at his age, but it's still a bit of a change for him. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

Ev's also been telling me that his "brain is wild". He seems to have trouble winding down and relaxing--it seems like his mind is working all the time. He's constantly asking questions and talking about things, and the questions are getting harder and harder for me to answer. Suddenly he's asking about death and puberty and the rotation of the Earth. I try to give good answers, ones that are true but still easy for him to understand, but that's been challenging for me. It's like he just realized how big the world is, and he wants to know all of it. It's wonderful and exhausting.

Posted by jenny at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

So yeah, the bloodwork yesterday didn't go incredibly well. The lab here doesn't routinely do allergy testing, so they had to spend like 40 minutes looking up codes for each individual thing they were testing for (cashews, almonds, hazelnuts, egg whites, egg yolks, etc.). By that time, G was good and wound up, and holding him down for the blood draw was no picnic. The first one actually went ok--G was whimpering, but I held him still. They needed so much blood though, and couldn't get enough from that arm, so they had to move to the other one. Yeah, right. Grady was not having that. But in the end, it got done, and hopefully I'll be able to talk to the doctor about the results late next week.

It's cold this morning, and I'm hoping the boys want to take it easy today. It's been an eventful week, and we need to catch our breath. This weekend we have a lot of family stuff going on, and Mike's sister and her crew are staying over, so I'm doing the cleaning and changing sheets and all that business today. I've also got eggplant coming out of my ears from our farm share--anyone got a good recipe?

Posted by jenny at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Yesterday we packed up the boys and headed to Pittsburgh's Children's Hospital for Grady's yearly allergist visit. Oh my, what a traffic and parking nightmare. I've always disliked Oakland, but this time they were ripping up streets and building what looks like a bridge and all the parking garages were closed or full and it was just complete craziness. I hope whatever they are working on improves things down there, because holy cow, I dread going down there every year.

The visit was okay--we just talked about Grady's egg allergy and some ideas for introducing egg later if it was appropriate. The doctor was happy that G doesn't have any signs of asthma, and his milk and wheat allergies are now nonexistent. He was supposed to go for bloodwork at the hospital as well, but the wait for that was well over an hour just to get in, so we said screw it and I'm going to try to take care of that today here in Meadville.

Three weeks until school starts! We've been better at bedtime lately, getting the boys down around 9 for the last few days. There has been protesting, and we may have stressed consequences more than once (no playground tomorrow if you don't go to sleep), and I'm not thrilled with that. But it's gotten us into a better sleeping pattern, so I guess we'll just go with it.

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately. I have been night waking frequently, ending up being awake for 3 or 4 hours a night. It's made me tired and cranky, and it's been causing a lot of problems. After a few failed attempts at other things (relaxing music, bath, etc) I cut out caffeine. This is a huge deal for me, since I use that as "mother's little helper" on a daily basis--coffee, pop and tea are what get me through the day. But I'm on day four, and I already suffered through the day three withdrawl headaches, so I think I'm doing better. I'm definitely sleeping better at night--I still wake several times, but I'm able to roll over and go right back to sleep. Here's hoping that was it, and here's hoping I can stay off it for a while. I go in cycles, so I'm sure it won't be too long before I'm tempted by a Coke or a latte. Ah, the life of an addict.

For now though, this junkie has laundry to do.

Posted by jenny at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)