First Day of School - 8/29/12

Holly is such a big girl now!  These are pictures from her first day of school this year.  She is at the same preschool but now she is in the full inclusion program.  That means she has a much bigger class with 24 kids and a new teacher.  She was excited and ready to go.  Tan from the last month of summer spent swimming every day, and wearing her closed toed shoes she had her back pack ready with her Mac and Cheese for lunch and a few comfort items "Just In Case"

Out the door, down the stairs, into the car and as a special treat both Mommy and Daddy would take her to school.  Her class is on the other side of the school now in the back but we found it.  Holly had met her teacher over the summer and spent a few sessions visiting her class to get ready.

Lots of kids were already there when we arrived including a friend from last year, Nate.  Her teacher showed her to the dramatic play area, as dress-up is one of her favorite things and she was off and ready to go.  We said good bye and she didn't even think twice about it.  its only been about a year and a half since her very first day of school, just after her third birthday and man this couldn't have been more different.  She is a big girl now. 

It took a while but 3 months in and she knows every child in her class, notices who is missing when someone is absent.  Knows all her Upper Case Letters and only mixed up i/l and b/d in lower case.  She even recognized all her numbers up to 19 She knows her shapes and her colors.  She loves circle time and sharing her weekly "letter" back pack.  She even answers story time questions and asks them too.  She is still working on expanding her circle of friends and is most comfortable just playing with one person at a time, and she is still working on her table top activities, she doesn't want to miss anything so she rushes through them to make sure she gets a chance to do every single one, so she is learning to slow down and take her time.

This week she even dealt with her first Bullying issue, she told Mommy about it casually, and then said she didn't want to talk about it, but Mommy got the details and talked to the teacher.  A little girl pushed her and then Holly got Mad and another little girl hit her.  But she actually dealt with it on her own, decided to play in another area with a different friend.  Its hard to know what really happened or why, but we are working on having her tell a teacher when something like that happens so they can facilitate communication and get to the bottom of things.

She had her first heart break when her favorite friend told her he didn't want to play with her "Right Now" which she of course couldn't understand why.  But after a few minutes and help from the teacher she found a new friend who did want to play the same thing as she did right then.  And of course later she and the first friend were playing something else all together happily when he was done with the previous activity.

She has a very rigid routine and wants to know what is on the agenda every day.  She dresses herself in the morning for school and tells Daddy knock knock jokes on the ride in.  She has free play and circle and outside time, on certain days she plays with the SLP or the OT, she has table time and lunch and more outside time and then after nap time has started she patiently waits for Mommy to pick her up.

Today I told her I would be picking her up early later in the week and she got upset because all the times in class are her favorite and she told me she didn't want to miss anything so I would have to wait and pick her up after Nap time started.  She loves school and I can't believe its already time for me to begin to tour Kindergarten's, next year her first day will be at a whole new school, I think she is ready But of course the worry wort that I am I am scared for her, but she is brave and strong and she is outgoing and loves to make friends and I know she will do great.  I mean really look how far she has come already!

Yo Gabba Gabba @ SF Zoo

Today we are going to see Yo Gabba Gabba Live! We are so excited.Back in August the whole gang was visiting the San Francisco ZooA Photo Op to promote the upcoming show. We decided to bring the kids for a preview.Luckily you could go right up to where the Gang was hanging out and watch as each family got to meet there favorite charactersBut if you wanted to meet them in person and get that photo you had to wait in line, A line that was 2.5 hours long. We contemplated whether or not we should wait in it at all.But in the end we did. We actually took turns, Dad's or Mom's or even Tanta's each taking a turnSaving our place so that the rest of us could hang out and be groupies.It was great to have the wagon for the girls, as it was a long day and they were easily tired.Holly is afraid of the Easter Bunny and Santa so I wanted to be sure she wasn't afraid of the Gabba Characters.For the most part she was not. For hours she watched them, and tried to get to themSeveral times trying to sneak through the rope to say hello to them.When it was her turn she was tentative, a little nervous but very excited.She was super happy, though I think had she been with Mommy it would have been better.Mommy wanted to take the pictures though, because by the time it was our turn they decided to limit the visits and photos We suddenly had to be really fast and each family didn't have time for different poses, as each before us had. This made me unhappy.But I was determined to get good pictures of everyone, so I let Tanta Kat take Holly up to the group.Then it was Chloe's turn to say hello. They were smart and Eric took her to meet each character and say hello before they posed.I was excited we got to take our photo with Toodee, the character's were rotating every 15 minutes.Here is Mira and family, they were so cute and had a great pose.Then we tried to do a group picture. At this point everything got a little touchy.I talked them into allowing us to do a group shot with all three of the girls, but we were being super rushed and Holly could sense the anxiety.She got upset and cried and was tired and ready to go. But for the most part she did amazing and I knew she would be fine when it was time to go to the show.After our pictures we walked around the zoo, but just for a little whileTaking the long way towards the exit to visit a few animals.Holly by this time was ready to get a Mommy ride and didn't want to walk.We saw birds, she liked those a lot.We took turns with Tanta Kat holding her and even putting her in the stroller, but she wanted Mommy only.I think she really enjoyed our stop to visit the Monkeys they were silly and she could hear them chatting.We found our way to the Carousel so we decided to take a ride.We didn't realize it, but this bird didn't go up and down, so Holly was not excited about her first ride.Chloe got to ride with her Daddy, she was very excited about that.We decided to go again, this time we made sure Holly was on a better animal.She had much more fun. Mommy got to ride too so I could get some good non blurry pictures.One might wonder where Daddy was in all of this.He was in fact visiting Florida at the time for Uncle Alan's Wedding Reception, Party.We were happy to find a fun activity to distract Holly from Missing Daddy. Though we were sad he couldn't join us.I was so Happy to have Tanta Kat's help this weekend, it was so great to have her at the zoo too, she helped watch the girls a lot and made all the difference.Kathy reported that for weeks after our trip, Chloe talked about how she met Muno and Foofa.Mira's favorite Character is Plex.We were very lucky to see Toodee Holly was asking for her all day and I was worried she would be resting when our turn came.I know today will be a great day at the show. I have been practicing getting Holly to sit and watch, i am afraid she will want to run up to the stage during the show.But after the show we have back Stage Passes, we get to meet the crew in person againWe get a special Buzz's beat fo the Day, and snacks and more pictures.I am hoping it will be a much more relaxed environment, then was the one at the zoo, allowing her to approach her friends slowly on her terms.Hopefully it won't take me several months to post the pictures as it did this time,But eventually I will post them. We had a great visit to the zooIt is too bad we didn't see more animals. We were in line near the lions, but they weren't feeding in the viewing room, as it was a sunday,She enjoyed the animals we did see, and I liked that there were no hills like at the Oakland zoo.We definately plan to make a trip back to this zoo again when Daddy is home and can join us.I know it has only been three months, but Holly is already more interested in animals then she was at this time.This is the classic end of the day shot, usually we have Daddy passed out in the back, but you can bet Tanta Kat was just as tired.