Tomorrow is the first day of first grade!

It's official! I am a horrible blogger, this summer has come and gone so fast, perhaps we can just consider it a blogging break? It may or may not continue but for now, I just wanted to post a few pictures of The Son last year on his first day of Kindergarten. I simply cannot believe that my boy is getting so big and will be in Kindergarten for the entire day! He's excited, I'm excited and I think it's going to be a great year.

Here he is last year:

In all honesty, I don't think he looks a lot different this year but when we visited the school on Thursday last week, he sure did look bigger than all the kids who were starting Kindergarten this year. I guess when I post pictures of the big day tomorrow, we'll really be able to see a difference.

Good luck tomorrow Son! Momma and Daddy are SO proud of you and wish you luck in your first day of first grade and your first FULL day of school ever! We love you!

Where's the Son? SON? AHHHHHH?

Yesterday, I told you about The Son dressing up like a Big, Bad Bullybug for Book Day at his school. You can see how scary he was in the picture above. You can also see how visible and conspicuous he was, hard to miss, don't ya think?

Well, it was raining that afternoon so I decided to pick him up at the bus stop, usually, he walks home from the bus stop because I can see it from our house and I just watch for him by looking out the window. Thank goodness, that's not what I did on this particular day.

I got out of my car as the bus drove up and I watched the throngs of children come off the bus, we have a lot of kids in our neighborhood and I'd say that approximately 15 of them are on The Son's bus. They all got off and I scanned the crowd for The Son, as I was scanning the crowd, the bus drove away and The. Son. Wasn't. There.

I became frantic, wracked my brain thinking, "Was I supposed to pick him up today?" I quickly asked the other kids if he had been on the bus and thankfully, they replied, "Yeah, I think so, he was in his bug costume, right?" I then asked them why no one thought to bring him with them as they got off the bus, I mean really, how could you miss a Kindergarten Kid in a silver bug costume? I then realized that The Son was probably panicking himself right about then.

By this time, the mom in the car behind me had called the school and passed her phone to me, it was nice that someone else was thinking clearly. The school phoned the bus company who contacted the bus driver and I got word that The Son was safe and would be dropped off on the bus driver's trip back around in about 20 minutes! I swear, it was a long 20 minutes but soon enough, the bus came driving back up the street and I got out as The Son exited the bus. He was crying and running toward me with all six legs outstretched and waving in the rainy breeze. I scooped him up and hug, hug, hugged him. He was so sweet, telling me how much he missed me and how the older kids on the bus, "cared for him." He told me that one girl offered him some goldfish crackers and made sure that he felt OK. I came to find out that it was a substitute bus driver which I think led to the problem and is part of the reason he didn't get off at his stop. The other reason can be blamed on the classic rock group, Queen.

"Queen?" you ask.

Yes, Queen!

When we both calmed down and got home, I was holding The Son on my lap and asked him to tell me what happened. He said, they were doing "WE WILL, WE WILL, ROCK YOU!" on the bus and he didn't realize that all his friends weren't there until he turned around to talk to his little friend Josh and he was gone. He started crying again while telling me this story and then said, "The bus driver told me he would bring me back home later, and I was so scared and then the big kids cared for me and I started to feel better but Momma, I missed you so much."

What a day! I was so relieved that he was safe and secretly found the "We Will ROCK You" story a tad bit funny. I will not hesitate to refer to this incident the next time The Son gets mad at me and tells me I'm a mean Momma although I haven't had to use it yet. ;)

All in all, it turned out just fine, The Son hasn't forgotten to get off the bus since that day and I doubt it will happen again any time soon as long as the kids don't start channeling Freddy Mercury again.

Have a great Thursday my friends! I'm getting weighed today and I'm not expecting a great result, it's been a tough week as far as healthy eating... I'll let you know!

Don't Bug Me!

A couple weeks ago, The Son had "Reading Week" at school, each day was filled with special activities focusing around reading. The best day, according to The Son, was the day they got to dress up like a character in a book,my boy LOVES a costume. I don't think all parents did this but I told The Son that it had to be a character that was in a book first, like it couldn't be Bakugan or Sponge Bob or someone that books were written about but had to be more from Childrens' Literature. He decided to be a "Big Bad Bullybug" from Ed Emberly's "Bye Bye Big Bad Bullybug."

I used silver dance costume/bathing suit fabric and traced around The Son to make the base of the costume. The Son and I stuffed knee highs with fiber fill to make the legs and I attached them to the sides of the costume, it was a little tricky but I used fishing line to string the legs together so that they would attach to his wrists and be able to stick out straight at the sides.

We used foam sheets and pipe cleaners to create the Itty-Bitty-Babybugs in the book and also attached them to the costume and lastly, I took an old pair of sunglasses and attached some more foam pieces to make the Bullybug's three eyes with some more pipe cleaners as the antennae.


He was so proud of his costume and he looked so cute. We had a great time making this together and he was so excited to ride the bus the next day, he said everyone liked his costume and told me about some of the other kids' choices. I have to say, it sounded like his was the most creative. ;)


Later that day, we had some real excitement, excitement I hope to never have again...

I'll tell you more about that tomorrow, thanks for visiting today and I hope you enjoyed my Big Bad Bullybug Boy! Happy Wednesday!

Please step away from the banana!

"She means MY banana!"

The other day when I was unpacking The Son's snack bag, I noticed a certain German Shorthair Pointer, lurking around the counter. He stood up, swiped something from off of the counter and ran away, to hide under the family room side table that is decidedly too low to the ground for him to hide under. He doesn't quite realize that however...

Ziggy decided that he really needed the over-ripe banana that The Son didn't eat (of course.) I risked my life to take these pictures for you because there was much growling going on as I was told very clearly that the banana now belonged to Ziggy and not to the humans in the household.

"Don't make me growl louder"

Truth be told, all he does is growl and then we remove the banana and all is fine...except this time, I forgot about the banana until The Husband came home and found the banana squished on the floor under the table. Oops.

Things seem to be going well with kindergarten so far. The Son is enjoying it a lot and I'm enjoying my work out time at the Y, it's nice to not have to worry about where The Son will go and how long I'm allowed to keep him there and best of all, I just realized yesterday that we are no longer paying $150 a month for preschool! Hooray for public schools! The Son has off on Friday and Monday, we're looking forward to a nice long weekend and will celebrate at the pool for the last time until next summer.

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone! Stay healthy!

Too Cool for School...

Today was the big day, The Son had his first day of Kindergarten. I managed to upload the pictures in a timely fashion and here they are... (You're welcome, Grandparents.)

Here's a couple on the front step. He's a little squinty because it was very sunny. We had a beautiful day, low 70s and no humidity. The Son was able to wear long pants to school and told me that he felt like a "rock star" in his outfit. I didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd make an awfully preppy rock star, however...


As we were getting ready for school, he asked me if I would draw a heart on his palm so that he would have it with him all day. I thought it was the sweetest idea so of course I did it. He then became obsessed with showing "his heart" in every. single. photo. I had to keep telling him to put his hand down but of course had to make sure to take plenty of photos of the heart as well. He was so pleased with it.



Let's walk up to the bus stop...


Waiting and waiting...


and waiting...

He wanted me to take a picture of his favorite sneakers and of course had to sneak that hand with the heart on it in there again...


There's the bus! My heart started to pound...

I had to get in one last kiss.


A happy face, that makes me feel pretty good. He was eager to get on the bus.

sniff. sniff. Goodbye my sweet boy, see you soon.


YES! I followed the bus... so what? I had to know that he would arrive safely and get into the school building.


And, he did. Not that you can tell, but he was the first one off the bus and running into the school. I continued on and made it to the Y without too many tears on my part at all. Phew...


The Son ended up really enjoying his first day of Kindergarten and says that he has "the best teacher ever." I hope he continues to feel that way.

Enjoy your Tuesday everyone. We'll be enjoying ours here.

Today...

my baby goes to kindergarten. Yep. At noon today, I will be putting The Son on the bus and he will be taken to school. He told me last night that he was feeling a bit "apprehensive" about going. I reminded him that it would be a new experience for all the children and that seemed to make him feel a little better. He was telling his stuffed squirrel, Skuggs, about his teacher and when he spoke about her, he seemed excited. I know she's going to be a good teacher for him. I was very, very pleased with her when I met her.

My neighbor and friend, whose son is starting 1st grade tomorrow, told me that it was perfectly acceptable, AND normal to follow the school bus to school (on the first day) and watch him get off safely. She said, "there is nothing wrong with wanting to know what is happening to your five year old" and that it's a "difficult transition" for many moms. She made me feel a little better and I think I will be following the bus to school, just to make myself feel better. I won't be telling The Son that I'm doing it but I'll just let him know that I'm heading to the Y to work out while he's at school which will actually be what I will be doing after the brief visit to his school.

Speaking of the Y... today is the day that our Y reopens after being closed for a week. I'm so excited to see all the new cardio machines and anxious to get back into my routine. I've been working out at another local Y but it's just not the same as my "home away from home." I've been doing OK with my healthy eating but I do feel that after my vacation in Maine and the week away from "my" Y that I need to refocus and make sure that I am tracking all my food at least for the next couple weeks. I have definitely been a "tracker slacker" for the past month or so. It's time to recommit and get started with the next phase of my weight loss... bring it on!

I'll be taking lots of photos when The Son gets ready and leaves for school this afternoon and I'll post them as soon as possible. There will be no one here to take pictures of the tears streaming down my face as the bus drives away but I assure you, there will be tears, let's just hope they're only mine and not The Son's. Enjoy your Monday everyone... I'll try to enjoy my life changing day...