And Not to be Left Out...

Ben's new teacher emailed a "beginning of the year" picture of the class, taken this morning. 

Second First Day

Or, her first day in her "real" kindergarten class. Her teacher is Mrs. Ebert. Rebecca rode the bus in this morning again and Ben walked her to her classroom. I met her there a little after 8, bringing her school supplies with me, for "meet the teacher". Her teacher seems nice. And apparently, Becca is not the only girl in the class who wears a pee pee watch! Becca seemed a little bit stressed about having to come to a new classroom for the second time this week but I am sure she will adjust quickly! Good luck on your first real day Becca! We love you!

My Friend the Boot

Apparently when a really heavy bike with attached cart falls on your foot at the beach, you just might break something. In my case, only slightly, but nevertheless this boot shall be my companion for the next 4 weeks. And, no kick boxing :( (Yes I really did ask the doctor. He looked at me like I was a little bit crazy).

First Day of Kindergarten

Off she went yesterday to her first day of kindergarten! No anxiety about riding the school bus for this kid!

And, coming home again:

She seems to have had a great first day. She told us about various assessments she was given (naming pictures of objects, rhyming words, building block towers using patterns, letter and number recognition, and even apparently skipping, hopping on one foot etc). If she is to be believed, she aced all of them ;) 

Whether or not that is true, one thing IS true, which is that she stayed dry all day yesterday, I mean completely 100% dry. At one point yesterday late afternoon (after hopping up from the computer and running to the bathroom when her watch vibrated) she came back into my office and said, "You know Mom, I think this pee pee watch is really helping me!" So there you have it. She listens to a watch but not to her mother ;) If I had told her it was time to get up from the computer and go use the bathroom, she would have thrown an automatic fit and claimed she didn't have to go. Hopefully by the time the novelty wears off, she will have gotten into the habit of frequent bathroom trips and will be enjoying being dry for once!

Almost a Kindergartener

Becca goes tomorrow to Ms Meehan's class for a day of assessments that will be used to determine classroom placements. (The goal being for each class to be as heterogenous as possible). We will be notified of her classroom assignment on Thursday afternoon, and her first day with her regular teacher / classmates will be Friday. The rest of the week, she is home with me. And, since I am trying to work / catch up from being on vacation last week, this is not the greatest thing. Today we took a lunch break at Panera, pictured below. Also pictured below is her new "pee pee watch", as we call it. I painstakingly (very painstakingly) set up 6 alarms, at two hour intervals from 6:30 a.m to 6:30 p.m. The watch vibrates for 20 seconds, and so far Rebecca has been very good about stopping whatever she is doing and heading to the bathroom when the alarm goes off. Today she stayed dry all day! Hoping that once the novelty wears off she will still pay attention to it! And also hoping that her frequent bathroom trips are not a problem at school ;)

First Day of 4th Grade

Ben had his first day of school today. He came home talking about how nice his teacher, Ms. Gordon, is and about the cool field trips the fourth grade gets to take this year - one to Riverbanks zoo and one to Raleigh. Once again all three Bens ended up in the same class. He said his teacher made nicknames for them. He is "Ben Jr" (not sure why). The other Bens are Ben 2 and Ben 3 ;) There are also two Jameses, two Joshuas, and two Abbys in his class. I feel sorry for Ms. Gordon already!

Last Day at Kiawah

We spent our last day of vacation on the beach, followed by dinner at The Jasmine Porch (thanks to Jon and Carolyn for babysitting!) It was a great end to a great vacation. 

Fort Sumter

We decided to take a break from the beach today and drive to Charleston, where we took a ferry out to Fort Sumter. We had plans to hit the aquarium and aircraft carrier at Patriots Point too, but that proved too ambitious. After we got back from the fort and had lunch it was after 2:30 and Caroline was fading fast. Here are some pics from the ferry and Fort Sumter including "Bombshell Becca" as I think we should call her now ("Mom! Take a picture of me with this bomb!")

More Beach Pics

Beach Critters

The kids had some good finds at the beach today. This star fish was eventually put back (hopefully) not too much worse for wear. But the conch shells, still occupied, are currently sitting in a bucket outside waiting for me to boil them. (Ugh).

The Bufflehead Martini

We decided we needed to name a drink in honor of our Kiawah accommodations :)

Kiawah, Day 3

A good day despite dropping a bike on my foot just after arriving at the beach this morning and hobbling around in pain for the rest of the afternoon. Becca spent the day at Kamp Kiawah, where she got to pet an alligator, go on big water slides, and eat cake and ice cream. The rest of us hung out on the beach!

Morning Bike Ride

Awesome bike ride this morning by myself on the beach. Kiawah is so beautiful!

Kiawah, Day Two

Fun at the beach, and at Bohicket Marina tonight for dinner. These kids are wiped out! Tomorrow Becca spends the day at Kamp Kiawah with her friend Izzy!

Kiawah --Day One

We arrived at Kiawah yesterday late afternoon after a leisurely stop in Charleston to meet up with Jon & Carolyn and have lunch and ice cream. The rental house is very nice and so is what I've seen of the island so far (which for me isn't much yet. Nice house on golf course with pool--check. Nice beach--check. So what more do I need to see really).  Some pictures below--today was spent mostly at the beach.  Weather was great today despite an iffy looking forecast --  hope it holds out!

Last Day of Summer Camp and Other Random Updates

So this week has been kind of crazy -- our new tenants just came by to pick up their keys/drop off the partial month's rent, and they are moving in over the weekend. So this past week I have been arranging carpet cleaning, A/C servicing, getting the locks changed, etc in preparation for their arrival. We were spared having to have our cleaning service come in and do a move-out cleaning for us, because our old tenants were neat freaks and left the house so ridiculously clean it was, well, ridiculous.

Yesterday I took Becca to the urologist again, this time to a pediatric urologist friend of Joel's, who decided that Rebecca's continued pee pee issues are behavioral and instead of medication (we have tried 3 unsuccessfully so far) what she really needs is a watch that will vibrate every 2 hours and remind her that it is time to take a potty break (Because she certainly does not listen to ME when I tell her it's time to take a potty break). So I ordered said watch, got a note from him for Kindergarten saying she is allowed to use the bathroom every two hours, and we shall see how this goes. I also ordered her a new backpack and some back to school clothes, and she is getting very excited!

Today is Ben and Becca's last day of summer camp -- Where exactly did this summer go?? It has flown by SO FAST! Tomorrow we head to Kiawah for the week, and I have not done a single bit of packing yet. I am going to go start that now, though I also am supposed to be working today so all I can say is, work gods, please let it be a quiet day!

Also a special plea to the weather gods-- for some reason the weather has been totally funky, read rainy and a high of 70 today and tomorrow-- please PLEASE let us have nice weather at the beach!

Caroline Videos

Because I don't take enough videos of Caroline! Poor neglected third child. Here are some recent ones.

Trying to put Clara in her crate...



 Demonstrating the new skill she learned at school ("tushie on the wall", used when the class walks from one place to another so the teachers can do a head-count)....



Important skills her big brother is trying to teach her....

Masterpiece

I call it Unsupervised With Yogurt. 

Chocolate Face