day of firsts

lily and topher.
partners in crime since march 27th 2008. never really been seperated before. they even sleep in the same bed at nap time most days for goodness sakes!

today was lily's first day of school. preschool. so unbelievable to be a mother of a child who is kind-of in school. it took everything in me to not go out and buy her an amazing new outfit, and a brand new backpack, cause truth be told- anything she wore today would be 'new' to the people seeing her- she's new to them. and she has a backpack that i bought her a year or two ago, just for fun. and i really wanted to buy her an 'official' new school bag, but she doesn't really even need a bag! all she has to bring to school is a bottle of water and a sunshiney attitude. no bag, new or old can hold all that anyway :) praying for the materialism bug in me to die... the fact that i squelched it some for such a momentous occassion feels like a giant victory for me.

anyway, i have read lots of random articles here and there about preparing your child for preschool, making sure that they are excited about it, and prepared for the seperation. lily has been dying to go to school for a long time now. when she sees school buses she says: "that's my school bus! follow it mom!" no joke. the kid is crazy. and i love her for it! we had a little hiccup on tuesday when we went to the open house. lily all of a sudden wasn't that excited about school. she didn't want to get out of her pajamas. and she kept putting her fingers in her mouth. a serious nervous compulsion. everytime we would ask/quiz her about her teacher's name-blammo! fingers in the mouth. crazy.



see? here she is with chris, in front of her school, with her fingers in her mouth. the preschool is run out of a church here in the east valley. ladybug learning club. very cute. we heard about it from our lovely friend bella who graduated with flying colors last year.

i digress though. back to today. i actually just started watching our friend's 10 month old today too. maybe not the bestest timing, but alas, what can you do? hobey, is a wonderful baby. superquiet and gentle and wonderful and heavy. like almost 30 lbs heavy. serious denseness. my arms are still shaking from holding him today. i had to take him to lily's first day, along with topher. i thought of taking out my double stroller, but didn't want to bother. mistake!!!!!!

lily likes babies. she is pretty unphased by them in general. topher on the other hand, gets real suspicious of the little creatures. he lurks about and wonders "why are you so interested in this baby, mom? are you going to keep it? will it replace ME???" having hobey at our house before topher woke up kind of alarmed him. he's met hobey before, but it didn't matter. his radar was going nuts. when we drove to lily's school, topher cried for his dad almost the whole way.

to make matters worse, it was another disgusting day in the desert. like a million degrees, plus a good amount of humidity. we walked over to lily's classroom without a hitch. then we got into lily's classroom, and topher was so excited to see other kids and a bunch of new toys to play with. i signed lily in and started to say bye. she was looking like she was fine. so i called topher over, and he ignored me. "topher." i said louder. still nothing. another mom looked over at me and said: "every year i leave a kid here and leave with a kid under my arm who is kicking and screaming." good. i wasn't alone. except i definitely couldn't handle topher kicking and screaming whilst holding my human brick baby. so i dragged/carried a screaming topher. in a million degree weather. omg. it was not a pretty sight. we took a bunch of rests along the way to my minivan (why did i park so blastedly far away!?!?!?) topher was inconsolable. upset, angry, and hot. sweat and boogers and tears every where. fortunately i was composed enough to only be sweating. profusedly. kind of the most intense workout i've had in awhile.

another mom came over and asked if she could help me. i didn't want topher to kick her, so i gave her heavy hobey. so thankful for other moms. i buckled the kids in their car seats and fell into my seat utterly defeated. i had anticipated different emotions after dropping off lily for the first time. fortunately (???) topher really distracted me from feeling even remotely sad or contemplative. he was still crying and screaming, only instead of "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he was yelling for his sister: "LILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLS!!!!!!!!!!!!! noona!!!!!!!!!!!! LILYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!"
ooops. there's the sadness creeping in.

i had done a great job preparing lily for the day, and a TERRIBLE one preparing topher! ugh. i take for granted that topher is a pretty chill kid. but if there's something that he really cares for- it's his sister. she's always been there. and now we just left her with a bunch of strangers in a room full of awesome toys that topher should be playing with too! the different emotions ranged from rage to compassion. topher had been really disobedient, but he also had a pretty terrible morning (for a two year old!) we got home, hobey went down for a nap, and then topher and i had some much needed mommy and topher time. we had a serious talk about what went wrong that morning. lots of hugs and kisses ensued. followed by an oreo. as chris would say: "oreos. fixing the world's problems, one kid (and mama) at a time."

the rest of our day was a breeze. here are some more pics:


lily and her sweet teacher mrs. s. i got an e-mail from her yesterday, the day after open house, and she just wanted to prep parents for drop off and pick up procedure. she also said she was so glad to have met everyone the day before, and that she has been praying for each of her students by name since she got her class list. oh i love her so much already!!!!!


lily, topher, and our 'new baby' hobey. lily is 'presenting' him. good vanna white impression.


we ended off the day hanging out with gabe and corban. i got them all in their pjs, and topher saw that i had pulled out his pjs that matched corban, he said:
"look mama! my pjs match corban! that's great!"
all's well that ends well.