SETTLING IN ... FINALLY

It's been a good 4 weeks now and I can confidently say that Kielle is fitting right in a Little Apron Academy :-) PHEW! It took a gooooooood minute for things to fall into place, but with help from her teachers, it only took about two weeks, to reach success! hhaahahah

Let's look at the progression from "What are you doing leaving me here?!?!" to "Bye Bye Mommy. See you later!"

Week 1:

I'll deem this - Loud Week. Pretty much Kielle cried the whole week. Her teachers said that she would have fun playing, sometimes, but then when she realized I wasn't around, she would break out into her high pitched wailing.

Notice how in the picture above there is a progression of her crying and then leaving "rug time". Here's the first picture blown up:

 

Look at the kiddos in the back are covering their ears!! Eeeeks. And then there's poor Ms. KaDonna trying to calm Kielle down. Lord have mercy! ahahaha I'm glad they put this picture on the daily report, because I'm sure some of the kids were going home mumbling something about a girl in class who cried ALLLL day. Now the parents can see there was NO exaggeration! A mess. At least she looks good in her little brown dress! hahahaahha

Week 2:
Now we move into Realization Week. It was finally starting to hit Kielle that this is her life now. hahahaha She was a preschooler and she didn't have a say in the matter. So, she started to enjoy the lessons more, but there were still bouts of crying from time to time.


Daddy said that every time he dropped her off in the morning, Kielle would walk straight to her cubby, put her book bag away and go sit down for breakfast. The whole time, though, she was muttering and whining under her breath. ahhahahahah. She will always have the last word whether we understand her or not!

 

You can see how puffy her face is in the photos, but at least she's sitting with the rest of the class. Progress! Kielle's favorite time, though, was still leaving at the end of the day hahahaha. She even walked with Ms. KaDonna to the elevator, albeit reluctantly.

Week 3:
Cruise Along Week :-) Kielle has started following directions, eating all her lunch, and willingly going to school each day. Now when Daddy goes out in the morning she jumps from the table to put on her socks. She says, "Wait Daddy, school time." She's completely over me. Every now and again Khyri will say, " Mommy can you come to school with us today?" but that Kielle?!? -  nope, she says nothing. I think she's forgotten me already! booooooo. I am really glad though that she has grown to love school, her friends, and her teachers. I think the curriculum is wonderful so I'm glad that now she can just relax and experience all that Little Apron has to offer :-)

 
While Kielle makes new friends and learns new things, I get to have mommy/son time with Khyri. Instead of making two trips to the school for pickups, Khyri and I hang out everyday while Kielle's class has playground time after their nap and snack time.

At first I would just bring Khyri along with me while I did different errands. I realized, though, that we were still wasting gas, so I wanted to do something closer to the school. We found a little table across the parking lot from the school building that is just perfect for us to do little activities each day. Khyri never knows what I am going to pull out of the "learning bag", so it's always a surprise. The very first surprise we did was putting together a dinosaur skeleton that I scooped from dollar tree. Side note *Dollar Tree is THE BEST! there are so many affordable activities there.*

   

    

 

One of my favorite activities is doing interactive drawing with Khyri. So I'll say let's draw a person and I'll draw the head. Then I'll say, "Wait, this person can't see. What's missing?" He'll say eyes. I'll say, "But, dust is getting into his eyes. How can we keep the dust out?" Eyelashes - and it just keeps going. He draws everything and then at the end we name the picture. (Shout out to Amy and Jennifer!)

We also play memory, which he is awesome at! This little boy's memory is a beast! I need some gingko biloba STAT. He's already beat me twice. Since we're outside, we also look for things in nature to play with. I like messing with the ant mounds. Yes, I know its dangerous, but to see them scatter is so interesting to me. Maybe we need to get an ant farm for the house.

We also do workbooks and practice our lettering - Thank you Mama Chin, Victor and Veronica :-)

    

Khyri's favorite activity is putting together puzzles. I grab all of these from Dollar Tree also. He'll do any type of puzzle - Mickey Mouse puzzles, The Avengers, Construction, whatever looks cool.

  

 Its shaping up to be a wonderful fall :-)

SCHOOL TIME! - HERE COMES KIELLE!

After a wonderful Labor Day weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina we geared up to send little miss Kielle to school. All week I had been prepping Kielle about going to school. I bought her a new book bag and explained that she would be going to school like Khyri. She just looked at me with a blank stare, so I had no clue whether she understood me or not. Life was good. Kielle was enjoying life and smelling the roses!

Life is Good!

On Tuesday September 3, 2013, Kielle was dressed to impress in her blue dress and pink leggings. She was sooooo cute. *cue happy go lucky music* The sun was shining. Kielle happily brushed her teeth. She smiled through breakfast and giggled as we put on shoes. I opened the door and handed her the book bag *scratch music*. Kielle starts crying... no, wailing. Apparently she understood everything I had said the previous week about this book bag and school. She knew full well that if she put on this book bag it meant that she would be going to school. She hadn't signed off on this. She liked the outfit and all, but carrying accessories?! not so much. hahahahaha. After repeated attempts to get her to put on her book bag failed, we gave up, loaded Kielle and Khyri into the car and headed to school.

As we walked in Kielle looked suspicious, but she calmed down when we dropped Khyri off at his Pre-Kindergarten class. I guess she was thinking "Oh we're just dropping him off, I'm all good." Nope. You're next buddy. As we round the corner and head to her classroom, the shock sets in.

We walk into the classroom and everyone says, "Hello Kielle". When I tell you I think I heard Kielle mumble, "Y'all not fittina fool me!" hahahahahahha. As we go to the center of the room and meet her teachers, Kielle's grip tightens and the wailing begins again. 

The crying started out loud, an expression of dissatisfaction. Then it softened and went more of a whimper with tears. That's when I knew she was sad :-( So then I got sad :-(  What about Daddy you ask!?! He's standing dry eyed steady snapping pictures talking 'bout "It's time to go she'll be ok." *sigh* no sympathy for the kid. none. One of Khyri's former teachers Mrs. Catherine came over to diffuse the situation. She told me to hand over Kielle, tell her I love her, wave, and say bye bye. I attempted to turn and walk out of the door and this happened...

She kept saying, "No mommy. You stay. Stay please." Then she pulled the sibling card and said, "Mommy, I can have Khyri? I can have Khyri?" I felt horrible. I said, "Not now Kielle, Khyri is in his classroom. You will stay here and have fun with Mrs. Catherine and your new friends." Kielle looked around like "What friends!?!? these people???" ahhahahaha. I finally handed her over to Mrs. Catherine and headed out the door after giving her no less than three kisses.

As we walked out of the school Daddy kept asking if I was ok. He said, "Its ok she's a big girl. She needs to be in school." I know already! Geesh I get it :-) I've been saying I wanted her to go to school since May when we put her on the waiting list, but now that the moment of truth is here... not so much. I miss my buddy! I watched as Daddy drove away and I sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes. Yes, 20. I just couldn't will myself to turn on the car and leave my baby.

I needed a distraction to get me through this first day. My first thought was to buy Kielle a puppy. Every child like puppies and surely this will make her love me again after putting her through this trauma right?!?.  The problem with this plan is that we would have a puppy but we'd be homeless cuz Daddy would not be happy! ahhaha.. so I needed a new plan. Retail therapy. Yeah that should work. Me being my extra frugal self, where do I "splurge"?? Dollar tree. I was in there BALLING. Do you hear me?!?! Cheap kiddie socks - sure. Random water bottles - sure. Unnecessary nicknacks and doodads - I'll take 4 of each!. hahahaha After 2 hours in the store I came out feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. All for around $22.00 :-)

Khyri gets out of pre-K at 3:00pm. I was at the school at 2:42pm picking up Kielle.I asked the teachers how she did and at first they didn't want to tell me. Everyone kinda looked around like, "hmmm should we tell her the truth?!?! or sugar coat it" hahahhaa. Then Mrs. Catherine peeked over and said, "she cried all day. but it will get better!" That was all I needed to hear. I knew it was gonna be rough; I mean seriously, she's trading in hanging with super cool mommy all day for a bunch of strangers. no contest!

Khyri and I grabbed Kielle and wouldn't you know it, she put on her book bag. Yup! progress was already being made - in one day!

As always we go outside and play with Plunger the dolphin school "guard". Doesn't the book bag look like its gonna swallow Kielle?!?!

Geesh, I'm whipped!

When we climbed into the car, I asked Kielle what she wanted to do. Since it was her first day of big girl school she got to choose our afternoon activity. She said she wanted to go to Petsmart, so off we went.

Doesn't Kielle look like she's whispering, "I too was caged for a whole day... but look at me now! You'll be free just hang in there." hahahahah we stayed in Petsmart for a few hours watching the birds, fish, and dogs. Afterwards, we went home and put together some puzzles that I had picked up from Dollar Tree earlier.

When the kiddos finished their puzzles, we waited for daddy to come home and headed out to Food Truck Tuesdays in Smyrna.

It was a trying day, but all of the anxiety and tears were necessary. Kielle is now a big girl and before long she will be learning a whole lot and making tons of friends!

Here's to the beginning of lifelong learning Kielle!

KHYRI IS IN PRE-K

Well its official - Khyri is a big boy. He officially started PreK on August 12th at Little Apron Academy. We had to get official health forms and everything. Wow.

Now let's be clear this is not a big step academic wise. Khyri is well prepared for Kindergarten thanks to his awesome preschool teachers. This year is more about learning how to focus, concentrate, and "study". Khyri's teacher Ms. Wakia said that there won't be real homework, but more like topics that she would like the parents to reinforce at home. I'm looking forward to watching Khyri blossom even more.

Watch out world, genius coming through!

THE COST OF FREE

Since I have fixed up the backyard, I have been on a quest to find toys, ground cover, etc. to make the outside area a little nicer. Two of the parks that we frequent are covered in wood chips and I thought that would be perfect for our backyard. We don't get much sun back there because of the large trees so grass doesn't grow.

This was my goal

I priced the cost of wood chips and since our yard is pretty sizeable, it would have cost about $300 to spread a good layer of the store bought wood chips back there. So what do I do!?! I hit craigslist. Low and behold there is a company that advertises free mulch. Not bad; perfect price. This is probably around March when I found this website. So, I go online, fill out the form, and then wait. The website site they would contact me via email or telephone before the delivery was made. They didn't.

Fast forward to May; it was the Tuesday after Mother's Day.

Kielle and I were out and about doing our normal running around and I pull up to the house singing Alphabet Al's Name Game song. Screeeeeccch. I can't pull into my driveway because there is a huge dump truck in my driveway unloading TONS of wood chips. What in the world!!? I jump out the car and run over. Dude says to me "I can't stop mid load" What!?! Um... I sit and watch as the pile gets higher and higher. This is a HOT mess. Realization sets in - these are the wood chips I ordered... back. in. March.  Awwww hell. When he finishes he locks up the back and drives off. I'm stuck staring at a mountain of wood chips. Literally a mountain. The mound was so wide I couldn't even pull  my car all the way up to the house.

The wood chips were taller than the car

I was so overwhelmed I grabbed Kielle and just went inside. I didn't even look at it.

Now, before I go on let me just state what my intentions were... We needed to get our back fence replaced so my thought was that I would have the truck drive to the back of the house after we had taken down the fence and dump the chips. But since I did not receive any notification that the truck was coming, I wasn't able to pull down the fence. Now as a reminder, because we live in a townhouse, in order to reach the backyard, you have to go through the house. How was I going to get all of this mess from the front of the house to the back? After a quick snack and peering at the mound from behind the curtains as if it would disappear, I decided to man up and start hauling.

I grabbed the recycle bin, yes that small bright blue bin, and started filling it with chips. I had transported about 4 bins when I realized I needed to memorialize yet another "This can only happen to me" moment so I grabbed my camera and took a  before photo.

I worked pretty much all day Tuesday from about 2pm to 5pm in the sun. To be honest, I was pushing hard because I sooooo didn't want to hear hubby's comments. I don't know how much I thought I would get done, but needless to say - no headway was made, None. My neighbors saw me struggling, this was during the 90+ degree days we were having and I started getting some supplies. I got a shovel and most importantly... a wheel barrel!

Y'all should have seen me struggling with this thing! It was comedy. After a quick tutorial on how to load it and transport it through the house safely, I felt like I was starting to make progress. I was up against the clock, because it was scheduled to rain on Thursday and I didn't want those wood chips to get wet... and heavy. I convinced a few neighbors to put the chips in their backyards and around their trees and even Kielle got in the spirit and helped me a little bit.

After day one this is where we were; we got about half way done. We put up our tools, got washed up, and prepped for dinner. I also waited to see/hear my husband's reaction.

After work, the hubby came in and didn't say anything until dinner. Then he says, "See this is why you need an office job. When you're home stuff like this happens." hahahahahahha I was rolling... because it is sooo true! ahhahaha. Khyri just kept saying, "Look at the mountain of mess. Why are all of those wood chips in the front? What did you do mommy?"

The next day after the men headed out for the day, Kielle and I went to work again and within 2 hours we had completed the yard. The wheel barrel saved us for real! We went to The Home Depot and got some 6 foot treated wood slats, that would normally be used for a fence, to set down as a border. I think the end result turned out great.

The kiddos love using their shovels to move the wood chips around. I left part of the yard plain dirt because I know the kiddos like making mud and planting flowers, etc in the backyard. So now we have a good variety back there - wood chips, forest (in the right hand back corner) and dirt - a munchkin's paradise.

Wouldn't it be nice if the story ended there?!?! It would be... but it wouldn't be my story. After we finished the backyard, there was still a mound of chips left out front. We had used maybe 1/3 of the wood chips. So now I had to figure out how to get rid of the remaining stock. I called to some junk removal places and they wanted $300 to $550 to haul it away. If we bagged it up that would bring the cost down significantly; that still wasn't enough for me though. This stuff was free. I'm not gonna pay hundreds of bucks to remove free wood chips.

I called the city of Smyrna and they said they don't haul wood chips. Blah Blah Blah... I want my taxes back hmph. I thought I was slick and tried putting the wood chips into black garbage bags and putting them in the trash. Do you know those super smart sanitation engineers cut the bags open to expose the wood chips and nicely left the full garbage can by my mailbox on collection day! Can't pull one over on them. grrrrrrrr... I needed a new plan.

My new neighbor is doing a lot of work on her house and she has a "fix it guy" that comes around every so often. I asked him how much he would charge. At first he said $150 to to bag it and haul it. I said, "Well if we bag it up, how much?" $60. So the hubby called in a favor from his Masonic friends and we bagged up all the wood chips that weekend; there were 42 bags in all. The guy hauled half of it off, but then as most "neighborhood fix it guys" do, he asked for more money to finish the job. This left a bad taste in our mouths, so I asked my neighbor for advice. She said that most probably the guy was just dumping the bags at his apartment complex in the dumpster. So what do I do?!?! I find an apartment complex with a dumpster. We still needed to get rid of about 15 bags so I went back to the source - craigslist. I sure did. Maybe my mistake can be someone else's good fortune :- ) I posted that I had wood chips for the taking already bagged up free for the taking. Some nice man came while I was out with Kielle and scooped up 12 bags! That left 3; I can see the finish line. Since I had already scoped out a dumpster at a nearby complex, the hubby and I packed the car with the remaining yard waste bags and headed over to dump them. This was Tuesday - exactly one week after they had been dumped literally on our doorstep.

Calculating my time, worry, stress, and money spent for removal, I'd have to say that that free was actually more like $275.99 :-) hahahahaaha all I can do is laugh.

SPRINGTIME = CRAFT TIME!

I think we have finally left behind the cold weather. YES! Now its time to start the season off with some crafts :-)

I was asked my Khyri's teacher, Ms. Khalilah, to make a birdhouse for the classroom. I headed off to Hobby Lobby and grabbed some supplies. I grabbed a few paintbrushes with the full intent on letting the munchkins help me with the birdhouse - that was a waste of money. ahahahhahahah.

Once I started there was absolutely no way these children were going to touch my masterpiece! ahahahah. I think I have issues. ahahah. I decorated the birdhouse in the Little Apron Academy/ The Home Depot colors, orange and white. I cut up my parking pass and mod podged it onto the house. I think it added an extra flair ;-)

I presented the birdhouse to the Pre School 4 class on Friday. We talked about what new animals we will see in the parks now that it's springtime and also talked about the parts of the house (roof, walls, etc.) to reinforce what we talked about three weeks ago. I really enjoy going to talk to the youngsters. At this age they are so inquisitive!

Once I got the mod podge bug I was off and running. For Christmas Khyri received a lot of Thomas the Train engines and they were being left all over the house. He needed a container to put them in ASAP. A simple box would have sufficed, but why do simple... when you can do AWESOME :-) hahahahha So I purchased a storage container, whipped out the mod podge, cut  up some of Khyri's old Thomas the Train magazines and went to work.

The result was fantabulous!

I left one panel of the container blank so that Khyri could look inside the box without opening the top. Kielle was interested in reading the numbers on the top of the box - now will Khyri actually share the trains inside the box with her?!?! not yet. hahaha

Two crafts down, I had gotten past my selfish "me my mine" craft issues and decided to actually let the munchkins help me build and decorate a birdhouse for the backyard. I enlisted Kielle's help for my - I mean our - birdhouse.

I, uh I mean we,  started with an empty plastic salsa jar. We then covered most of the jar in construction paper and paint. I left the front blank so that we could see into the birdhouse if bird's decide to nest inside. We decorated the jar upside down because I knew I wanted to be able to remove the top and clean out the birdhouse after the summer. Now all we have to do is unscrew the top and clean it out.

Some people, Kielle Elaine, were not truly about the business of designing the birdhouse *sigh* She doesn't understand the seriousness of crafts just yet... I'll give her a few more months... then she'll need to respect the  glue, paint, mod podge, etc. ahhaha This is not a game. hahaha

After everything was decorated, we put mod podge over the outside to seal it and make the birdhouse waterproof. After a quick trip to grab some birdseed from PetSmart , aka the bootleg zoo, we were ready to hang our birdhouse.

Of course once I get started with something  I get carried away. The very next day what do I do!?!? I go to Michael's and snag these...

In my mind the whole Mosley Mob is going to participate in a birdhouse decorating night...

If not, I can always decorate all of these birdhouses myself...  I'm sooooooo NOT kidding! hahahaha