Back To School (All Three!!)

Welp. Sweet Charlotte has officially started kindergarten.

I don't know how it's possible that all three kids are now in school, and yet. Here we are.

She's doing a half-day kindergarten (the same one Nathan did), since barely-5 is not old enough in my mommy heart/eyes to send her to public school downtown all day. But even at just a half day, it's kindergarten and oh man my heart. All the feelings.

The big kids had their first day when I was in Peru. Fourth and first!

Happy back to school!

Anneliese, Almost Six

Last week in Anneliese's kindergarten class, she was the "owl of the week" (because just being student of the week is so last millenium?) and she got to ("got to") make a collage and bring a stuffed toy home and write in a journal about it, and also answer a questionnaire about herself.

One of the prompts was to name a dream she has for herself one day. Her answer? "See a rainbow." When I pointed out that she has indeed seen a rainbow before already, she said "Yes! And it was a dream come true!"

So, that's basically all you need to know about Anneliese and her delightful little heart these days.

But here is some more anyway:

She is reading, more and more. She is writing, more and more. Suddenly the world seems hers for the taking. (Hashtag: literacy, amiright?) She sings and dances and makes funny facial expressions and talks with her hands.

She plays with her American Girl doll and her baby doll and chats about Shopkins and Pokemon. She can build lego sets now, with only a little help from big brother. She can fix her own food and find her own tv show and she has her own email address, which she uses to send very important emails covering important topics such as I LOVE YOU and also I LOVE PARSNIPS and also HI BYE LOVE ANNELIESE, but with far fewer correctly spelled words than that there.

She remains obsessed with rainbows. And wearing as many colors as possible. In another of her school projects, she did a collage (why so many collages, teachers of America? whyyyy) or list type thing of her favorites -- naming her favorite color as a rainbow and her favorite animal as a unicorn.

She will not fit into someone else's fill in the blank, NO SHE WILL NOT. (In the most delightful way possible.)

And she is trying very hard to seem grown up, and to grow up, and to be taken seriously, while also clinging tight to a few vestiges of babyhood: her thumb, and Hattie, and dress-ups.

Anneliese seems to approach the world with the assumption that the world is out to delight her. And, therefore, it usually does. I think this is a good way to live. I think I would like to be more like her when I grow up.

I can't believe six years ago tonight she was still inside me, and now here she is, a bright-eyed funny smiling little kindergarten human, making the world better because she is in it. She is everything.

Happy due date, Beanie. We love you always.

First Day of School!

Welp, the big kids are off to school. Nathan is in third grade, and Anneliese is in kindergarten, and I am... verklempt.

Look at them! They are such big kids! How did this happen?? I feel like I even had an "extra" year at home with Anneliese, because she's so much older for her school year than the others. And still, it wasn't enough. I miss her.

My heart is squeezed very tight, and my thoughts are across town in her little classroom, and my memories are full of this whole first era of her childhood that's... over. Yes, she is still a child, yes, I will see her all the time, etc etc etc I KNOW. But it really is the end of an era, and that always comes with feelings. Feeeeeeelings. Capital F. You know.

When she was born is when I officially stopped working and became a stay-at-home parent, and now we are entering a season where I will start work again, in some capacity, and there is still so much unknown and unplanned but it really just feels like an era is ending.

Anyway! Brisk clap! Look at this sweet picture of the two of them three years ago, on Nathan's first day of kindergarten and Anneliese's first day of preschool. They are the same! Yet so grown up! Yet still my babies!

2012 and 2015

OH MAH GAH Y'ALL. My heart.

Brb I need to hug my last baby at home and cry weepy mom tears and wait for the bus.

(The bus came. It was the best part of Anneliese's day, she said. After all those years of waving to Nathan, she finally got to ride with him.)

Anyway so yeah. School is back. All the other moms can throw a party but I'm not there yet. Someone send me a hug and a cookie please kthx.