Hot Day

Today it's supposed to reach almost 100 degrees...ugh. Too early for that...it's not even May.

My children are already conspiring against me. Both woke up with minutes of each other around 6:15. Way too early for Ellie, but randomly she was in the best mood she has been in in the morning in a long time. 

I can't get enough of Ellie reading to Cal. It makes my heart melt and burst with pride at the same time!

At school Es teacher told me she is bummed she isn't coming back next year as she is a great student and really doing well. She said she's doing addition and subtraction problems in her head (not using the Montessori visuals) and writing sentences without the aid of the moveable alphabet. And although Ellie is not a "graduate" of the Montessori preschool program (not doing her kindergarten year there) she is doing the same or accelerated work of the "graduates" who are a year older. Basically this tells me we are doing the right thing by having her do kindergarten next year in public school as 1) she would be the oldest kid at Meher next year with nobody doing work ahead of her to challenger or inspire her and 2) she's already learned what the school has to offer. I love her school and her teacher but I'm glad she will be moving on in the Fall.

And Cal did poop yesterday after a visit to the doctor and the use of a suppository.

Spewing

Random spew:

Ellie and I had a battle royal because her (yesterday's) favorite dress now felt funny and she didn't want to wear it. Instead she wanted to wear a long sleeve polyester dress on a day it's supposed to be 90 degrees. She wore her cotton "favorite" dress.

Yesterday she wore a dress with ties at the waist that we battles about in the morning. We battles about the ties and cities them in back so as to not be a distraction. Well...she untied it at school and kept putting the ties in her mouth (a distraction!). Her teacher have her a warning and said if she kept putting them in her mouth she would have to change. She came home in different clothes. I thanked her teacher this morning and told her I'm sure Ellie is now convinced that there is a mommy-teacher conspiracy against her.

Calvin hasn't popped since Saturday night. I'm giving him till noon before I call the doctor. I put a cloth diaper on him hoping to invoke Murphy's Law and get a blowout so I don't have to call the doctor.

Cal spit up so much this morning he had 2 clothing changes. I broke down and put a bib on him so he wouldn't have to deal with sitting with a wrt chest or neck while I took Ellie to school.

As I said, Ellie and I battled this morning about her dress. And breakfast. And socks. And teeth brushing. And anything else that goes on in the morning. So much so she sulked in her room (under her covers) for a while. As nobody would be watching Cal while I pumped, I brought him into the room so I could watch him. Maybe his crying bothered Ellie but she snapped out of her bad mood and can in to read to him to calm him down. A 2-minute golden moment that passed as quickly as it arrived. But we survived and made it to school.

Let sleeping babies lay

A lesson I know all too well...let sleeping babies lay. Mostly because I am a miserable person to be around in the morning, especially if I have been woken up before I want to be.

Waking up Ellie before she is ready is also asking for trouble. And this morning, apparently I asked for it. Ironically I woke her up later than she woke up on her own on both Saturday and Sunday...I love how that works. But she was a major cranky fuss-pants this morning.

And Cal? Poor thing, he's going to have to get used to being woken up. If he hasn't woken up (and awoken me) by 6:30am my alarm goes off. I have learned that is the latest I can get up and get both kids (and myself) out the door to get E to school on time. And today I put him in his bouncy seat to deal with Ellie. He promptly fell asleep. I then had to move him to his car seat (with a diaper change in between) waking him up.

He wasn't happy.

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On our own

This morning was the first in a week that Ellie, Cal and I were on our own. We weren't up in SB. Grandma Pam and Aunt Susu weren't down here. So things are back to normal. And despite having the extra help while people were here, this morning was much calmer and surprisingly more organized. However, we will definitely miss our visitors.



(That's Ellie crying after Susie left last night).

In news regarding Ellie being a big girl, she is now buckling herself in her carseat. And once she has permission from mom or dad, she can unbuckle herself from her carseat. A little frightening, but a little freeing and a time saver as well for me.












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Today

I don't have to apologize about missing a day and have a list of excuses ready because I'm posting today!

Grandma Pam has headed back up to SB (but not without taking out our garbage and taking the cans into the alley as it is garbage day. Thank you Grandma Pam!).

Susie will leave early this evening to go back to Boston. But we have some fun things planned for her and Ellie this afternoon before she goes.

Cal is chilling and sleeping after a night with not that much sleep for him or me. Before I was getting a 4-5 hour stretch of sleep a night followed by a 3 hour stretch. Lately he has been very fussy and not sleeping well. I've only gotten like 1.5-2.5 hour windows. Not sure if its his head cold/congestion, my cold, a growth spurt or what. But here is to hoping for longer stretches of sleep soon.

And I had my 6 week follow up appointment. All is well!

We did get some photos of the kids and Aunt Susu and Grandma Pam.





















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Sorry about yesterday

Head cold. Visitors. Too much fun with family. Mother to a 6 week old. Nicks out of town.medical bills from Calvins birth. 76 work emails taunting me every time i look at my phone.You name it...I have several excuses for why I didn't post yesterday.

But it was a great day.

Ellie with a friend reading a book about Mulan (Disney) book.






Cal came to Ellies swim lessons with Susie and Grandma Pam and me.







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A Very Special Breakfast

So Grandma Pam and Aunt Susu are down in Pasadena hanging out with me, E, and Cal because Nick is heading to Chicago to celebrate Wrigley Field with his season tickets.

This morning we (after dropping E off at school) went to a very special breakfast in Old Town. It was a little cafe specializing in coffee and chocolate. So yeah, we had amazing lattes, churros and chocolate for breakfast.












And then we came home and hung out not doing much if anything. My excuse, I have a headcold.

And as this blog is supposed to be about Ellie and Calvin I will leave you with a photo of E from yesterday at swim lessons (taken by Susie) and a photo of Cal, with Gma Pam, from today.






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Back from spring break

Today Ellie headed back to school and was super excited to see her friends. We had a great Spring break full of zoo camp, a girls day out, heading up to SB and all sorts of fun. But, today, back to the routine, seemed to make everyone happy.



Ellie is excited that Aunt Susu and Grandma Pam are heading down to Pasadena for a couple days. Ellie really cherishs her time with Susie and so we shall see if she is able to focus in class today.

And a token photo of Cal...



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Travel Day

Today we headed up to Santa Barbara. Aunt Susu is flying in tomorrow and so today we (and by we I mean me, Ellie and Cal) drive up to SB to get settled in before Susie arrived.

But first we went to visit Nick at KTLA (after a special breakfast). Ellie and Cal were treated like celebrities with Ellie being offered treats and receiving numerous compliments from everyone we met and Cal getting ohhs and ahhs. Both were in their best behavior and so we had a great visit to the station. Cal even had a meal in Nicks boss's office while we were there.












When we for up to SB Cal met Great grandma Van.



Then I took Cal and Ellie to my old elementary school to let Ellie burn some energy.






We can't wait for SuSu to arrive tomorrow!!



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Girls day...well morning

Today Ellie didn't have zoo camp and so it was a day off for Ellie. So I decided to make it a girls day in Old Town, of course with Cal in tow.

I had wanted to take her to a paint your own pottery place for a while and so today seemed perfect. Also, my heels were so chapped they actually hurt to walk on them so obviously I needed a pedicure. And of course since we would be in Old Town for painting pottery and pedicures, we had to do special breakfast. So that's how we started the day, special breakfast...for everyone. Cal's overnight feedings were off from the past few days so he ate breakfast just after I did.






Then we headed to the nail salon for pedicures (Ellie also got a manicure). She picked a sparkly blue for her toenails and a sparkly red for her fingernails. No pink!

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Zoo Camp Day 2

Note: should have been posted yesterday. Had technical difficulties.

Ellie was very excited to go to zoo camp this morning. And luckily all the stars aligned this morning. And by stars I mean Cal slept until and woke up exactly when I wanted to at 6:30 (after sleeping from 9pm to 3am and then 3:30 until 6:30) and Ellie woke up in a good mood. So we left the house about a half hour earlier than we needed to (to even get to camp wicked early) and so we had special breakfast.








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Zoo camp Day 1

Ellie is attending zoo camp at the Los Angeles Zoo today and tomorrow. She thought we had to drive all the way up to SB because she thought she was going to camp there! She was very happy when we didn't have a 90 minute drive but was a little nervous because it is a new camp.

We arrived VERY early. I was very conservative with our travel time because I wasn't sure how bad traffic would be. But, it's spring break for LAUSD which means less cars in the road and I used the carpool lane so we arrived just about one hour early. So we chilled in the car and waited until 8:45 when they started sign ins.




I got to walk her into her classroom where they had a cubby for her to put her lunch in and it was all set up for camp. But Ellie was very apprehensive about the whole situation and didn't want me to leave. A counselor came over and put a stuffed beaver in her hands and kept her busy. When I left she was slowly wandering into the classroom with a counselor.









But when I picked her up at 3 she was all smiles and asked if she could go to zoo camp tomorrow because it was "SO FUN!!" Good thing she's signed up for tomorrow!

She talked about how they petted a bunny (and studied bunny poop), saw a hedgehog, walked through the zoo and she was the first to identify a mammal (meerkats), saw an okapi and got to feed a zebra. They also sang songs and played on the playground. Also, she came home with a wolfs paw print in clay so there was some arts and crafts. And lots of singing. She has a male teacher named Mr. Johnson who is VERY energetic based on my observations of him this afternoon. She also got a cool zoo camp tshirt that has her name on it.









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Egg hunting

Today the egg hunt at school was a success. Ellie and her friends had a blast.

I, as well as some if the other parents hid the eggs (5 for each kid). The age range if the kids is 2.5 to 6.5 so some eggs were hidden with a increased degree of difficulty than others. In addition, the younger friends started the hunt a few minutes before the older kids.

Ellie was a little bummed at first because she kept getting beaten in foot races to the "easy" eggs. But then, she realized there were more difficult eggs to be found and she found her allotted 5 eggs in no time and all was well.

The eggs were filled with things like stickers, yoyos, quarters, fruit snacks, etc all filled by the parents/kids who brought in eggs. Each kid that wanted to participate had to bring in 5 filled eggs.

I had fun watching the chaos and I'm glad that I got to participate and be involved. Cal came with me and hung out in the carrier (to keep him away from curious and sticky hands of preschoolers as well as over curious parents who may want to get in his face). And he slept the whole time.






























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