First Days and Birthdays

I thought that with all the exposing of family secrets and soul searching, we could use a little levity here in the Candy Cane Forest.  So I will now post numerous photos of my impossibly adorable children and update you on what else has been going on in our lives.  

A couple of weeks ago Lolly and Frostine started first grade.  The transition from kindergartners to first graders has been pretty seamless.  They love their teachers and I am loving they are getting used to the longer days.   Here they are on the first day of school.

Oh wait... that's just what I see when I look at them.  Here is what my first graders actually looked like on the first day.

The day after school started, they went and turned six years old.  I still can't get my head around the fact that I gave birth to twin girls six years ago.  They had a party at a local bakery with some of their friends and each girl went home with a mini cake that they decorated themselves.  I'm sure lots of parents were cursing me for sending their kids home full of sugar, but it was a blast and the girls loved it.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, Gloppy started preschool on Monday.  My charming little side kick is no longer a baby, or even a toddler.  He's a little boy.

Gloppy has had no problem at all getting used to big boy school.  It's me that can't quite get used to it.  I got a little choked up walking him into school the first day as my mind wandered to a day when I walked my little girls into their first day of preschool with Gloppy strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn.  As I watch him playing with all the kids, he seems so little to me and I have stop myself from running to scoop him up and take him home to play trains.  

But I get over it when I pull into my driveway and walk into my quiet house three mornings a week.   Summer was everything it should be... lazy, sunny, fun-filled and packed with family togetherness.   But it's kind of nice to be back to our school year routines.

Lost Tooth

Princess Frostine lost her first tooth the day before my sister-in-law's big fat Indian wedding.  The dentist told us it would be a few more weeks before it fell out.  But it just fell right into her orange juice that morning.  The excitement of the first missing tooth in the Candy Cane Forest got a little lost in the whirlwind that was the wedding.  No worries though.  The Tooth Fairy came to the San Jose Fairmont and Frostine was handsomely rewarded for her nice healthy tooth.   

I put the tooth somewhere where I would remember, and could move it somewhere safe when we got home.  Do you think I can remember where that is?  Of course not.   I've long since unpacked and looked through my cosmetic bag.  So there is a little tooth floating around somewhere between the hotel and my house. 

What kind of mom looses their kid's first lost tooth?  I felt a little attached to that tiny tooth.  After all it's the tooth that kept us both up all night when it first appeared in her mouth, the tooth I brushed for her every night until she could do it herself, the tooth that caused four distinct bite marks on her sister's arm in the professional photos I had taken of them at 18 months old.  So when she lost another one, I was glad we were at home where I could put it somewhere for safe keeping.   

It's all got me thinking though.  What do you do with your kid's baby teeth?  Do you save them all in a jar?  Donate them to science for teeth research?  Make a necklace out of them?   I can't bring myself to just throw it away.  But it would be a little strange if my mom suddenly handed me a jar of teeth saying, "I was just cleaning out my closet and thought you might want these teeth."  

What do other moms do??  Please share.

A Milestone

When I started this blog, I vowed not to write about pee or poo.  Well, so much for that vow.

For the first time in five and half years, no one in my house wears diapers of any sort.  Not even at night time.  My mother-in-law told me a few weeks ago that Gloppy doesn't wear a diaper or pull-up at night when he's at her house.  I decided to try it at home.  Low and behold, it has been a month and he hasn't had an accident during the day or at night.  

I realize that by writing about this, I am setting myself up for a set back.  I am just truly amazed that at two years and nine months my son is fully potty trained.  I was terrified about potty training a boy, having heard lots of horror stories.  It seems like the things I stress the most about, turn out to be fairly seemless.

 

However, he still asks for a Skittle every time he uses the potty, and I oblige.  When the girls were his age I scoffed at anyone that used candy to potty train their child.   So I am offering my sincere apologies to everyone I judged for doling out M&M's or whatever.  I'm not sure when the candy-fest around here will end.  Right now I am just so happy to have one less thing on my Target shopping list.