So It Begins

We talked a little bit last year about the big Kindergarten Dilemma we were preparing for, living here in the city with various options, choices and reasons to pick different schools. Well, we have now entered the eye of the storm as it is decision time already (wow, did that year go by quickly!). Elise will not be starting kindergarten until next September of course, but applications to most school are due between October and January. Which means we are having to make some tough decisions right now.

Luckily, it is currently just a matter of where we are applying, not where Elise is going to go - at least not for a few more months. The past few weeks have been chock-full of school open houses and tours, parent discussion groups, filling out applications and budget crunching (good practice for college?). Neighborhood public? Charter? Private? There are so many options and so many pros and cons lists for everything - it easily becomes overwhelming. Because charter schools are by lottery selection (and most charters get hundreds of applications for less than 40 slots) and private schools are by acceptance (and financial aid also weighs heavily in that for us), and our catchment neighborhood school is an option that we completely ruled out after looking at it (30 kindergarten children with ONE teacher? Are you kidding me? We can't stand up for our beliefs - as much as we want to - and sacrifice our child's education in that way), and there is a lottery selection process for transferring to a different public school, we need back-up plans to our back-up plans. And all that leaves me feeling how I usually feel about everything: worried.

If Elise doesn't get into any of the charter schools and doesn't get enough financial aid for the private schools and isn't selected for transfer to an out-of-catchment public school...well the plan then is to move to a better school district. We don't really want to move and we would have very little time to do it (most schools don't let you know decisions until April/May) but at that point we would have exhausted all of our options. At this point we are really banking on the hope that she is NOT the most unlucky child on earth and at least ONE of our choices will come through. Fingers crossed!

Thank goodness we only have to go through this once since all schools we're applying to have sibling preference and Lucas will have automatic admission. Well, at least we won't have to do it again until high school anyway. And then again for college. For both kids. Oh boy.

Choo Choo!

As I have said many times before, since he was a baby, Lucas has been a generally easy going and agreeable child. His mild manner and overall go with the flow attitude has meant that he hasn't really had obsessions or harp on things the way that Elise did/does. Elise LOVES her greenie and can't sleep without it to this day (I even catch her cuddling and kissing it saying "I love you so much Greenie" randomly). She was insanely obsessed with Elmo and then Dora and then princesses. She likes to eat the same things all the time. And so on and so on. (not saying it each child's tendency is bad or good either way! just different!)

But with his "take it or leave it" attitude about pretty much everything, Lucas seems to really enjoy variety and therefore doesn't get overly attached to one particular thing. So it was surprising to us a few months ago when - out of thin air - Lucas developed an all out obsession with trains. We have a regional rail train station a few blocks from our house and it became his favorite thing in the world to go to the train station to wait it see a train (which is really not all that exciting looking). Just seeing the train for a few seconds was incredibly exciting to him. He then started asking about trains and talking about them all the time - picking out nothing but train books at the library, wanting to play with his train set and so on. Before long it became official - the boy is absolutely crazy about trains in a way that is very different from his love of pets (he loves to see them - but they are sort of out of sight out of mind).

As part of their birthday gift to Lucas, Oma and Opa took the family a train ride on a real steam engine train! While admiring trains from afar for a long time, he'd never been on one before (that he remembers) so this was a double treat - he got to see AND go on a real train (that actually looks like a train!). It was so much fun for the whole family, but obviously Lucas was absolutely thrilled. The train ride went for about a half hour - blowing it's train whistle often to Luke's delight - then stopped at a picnic grove for about a half hour and then back to the station. We all had a great time and I think it has firmly secured Luke's love of trains for years to come!

Big Boy Bed

This week, Lucas hit one of the Big Boy milestones that probably sounds weird/unimpressive to people who don't have children (like the first time they roll over or get big enough to face forward in the car seat) but is a really big deal to a parent. We graduated our little guy from a crib to a toddler bed. I have been resisting the idea for a while, mostly because I agree with the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" philosophy - especially when it comes to my children and sleeping. I love sleep. And as you may recall Lucas has always loved waking up ridiculously early. These two things are very much at odds. It has been an on-going struggle with our little guy, who is seen as "sleeping in" if he wakes up after 6:00am, though for month stretches 5:30am was a sleep in day.

For the first time in his life, however, Lucas has been waking up between 6 and 6:30 consistently every day since late summer. This is insanely exciting for us. The idea of moving him to a new bed and potentially ruining this bliss seemed like a silly idea. Why would we do that to ourselves when he is perfectly fine in the crib and doesn't attempt to climb out? Bu last weekend we were putting our air conditioners away and needed some extra closet space. The toddler bed was taking up much needed room. And so we hastily decided to make the switch.

When we moved Elise into a toddler bed (because we needed the crib for Lucas) I did all sorts of research about the best way to make the transition (yes there is actually lots of research on this weird topic!). I read that you should set up the bed in the room, along with the crib, and let your child get used to it being in the room and then make the switch gradually once your child has gotten comfortable with it. But with Elise, the second we set up the toddler bed, she immediately said "see ya crib" and never looked back. There was no trauma and absolutely no trouble with the transition whatsoever.

Seeing as how Lucas is pretty laid back, I hoped that his transition to a big boy bed would be similar. But, naturally, things never go the way you expect them to when it comes to children. We set up the bed, and Lucas excitedly climbed into it and sat there for about 5 seconds and said "All done!" and climbed out. That was about the extent to which he wanted anything to do with that bed. When we tried to put him into it at bedtime, he acted like we were trying to throw him into a pit of snakes. No thank you. Not happening.

Of course, we didn't want to push it for fear of traumatizing him, so we backed off. The next day we tried again and this time was was skeptical but less resistant. And over the course of the week he has gotten used to his big boy bed, though is still not totally loving it and regularly asks if he can sleep in his crib (which is still up in the room because we have been too busy to take it down!). I imagine that he will eventually forget about the lovely crib and start to love having a big boy bed. But in the meantime, he doesn't yet climb out of this bed and he is still sleeping like a normal person - until at least 6am. Hooray!

Fall(ish)

One of the wonderful things about living in this area is that you really get to experience all four seasons. It's hot in the summer, cold in the winter, warm in the spring and cool in the fall. But this year, apparently someone forgot to remind mother nature that fall arrived on the east coast. While it technically changed seasons a few weeks ago, we have certainly not been experiencing any fall weather. It has continued to be warm so the leaves haven't really started changing yet, it is still humid and sticky and we haven't put away our shorts because we still need them. In fact, we just took the air conditioners out of the windows this weekend - mostly because it is ridiculous that they are still in not because we don't need them. Marty and I both love fall and can't help but feel like we're getting a little gypped out of our autumn this year.

However, just because it doesn't yet feel like fall doesn't mean that we can't begin our fall activities (something we learned while living in Southern California - forge ahead! look at the calendar not the forecast!). We decided to visit a local orchard for apple and pumpkin picking, pony rides and hayrides - and all the other wonderful things about visiting an orchard in the fall - twice in the last three weeks.

During our first visit, we started with apple picking. Elise was much more excited about the apple picking than Lucas, who seemed to prefer to pick apples off the ground to picking them off the trees, but we all enjoyed wandering around the apple grove and collecting more apples than we will ever possibly eat. Next, we were off to the pumpkin selections. The kids were very excited to see the mini pumpkins, which, let's face it, are adorable, and picked some out for themselves and our neighbors. Around this time it started misty raining and any crowd that was there (not much) began to disperse, which was fine with us because we got to visit with Dora and go on pony rides without any lines or crowds.

For our next visit, apparently everyone had decided had enough of waiting for the weather to change (because at this point it's sort of ridiculous that it's still so warm) and to go ahead to the orchard because every person on the planet seemed to be there. Seriously, it was so packed it was sort of frightening. But we got to go on a hayride without much of a wait and the kids had fun at the playground there. It was also extra fun because this time their cousin Abby came too.

We will continue on with our fall activities and hopefully it will eventually feel like fall around here.