School

getting ready for the open house...

E's first day of school

So Miss E started school last week and how I haven't lost one pound is beyond me. I could not eat for three days straight. I was so nervous about her behavior, but not about the whole separation part. See Emma has never had separation anxiety. I knew she would be fine, but her listening and focusing and not sitting still do worry me. All that plus she started hitting about two weeks before she started school have left me a wreck.
Well, at the open house thank god my mom came with me because E made a beeline straight to the playground and I lost her. I stayed in the room and listened to what the teacher had to say. Then as the teacher is talking, you hear off in the distance this voice yelling and it is coming closer and closer and I know who it is. Emma comes running back into the classroom yelling "adddvvvveeeennnnttttuuuuurrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" and everyone stops to look at her and I just sigh.
Then on her first official day of school Emma is doing pull ups on a the door's handle bar and acting like a nut and within the first 5mns that she is in school she hits a boy who tried to take her spatula away. I'm mortified but everyone else seems to think this is normal. Then when I go to pick her up I hear her crying and see that she is the only one sitting on a chair . All the other kids are sitting quietly on the floor for circle time and she is in a chair crying , her face is all red and I can see the tears and my heart is breaking, it just is. I try so hard not to cry and ask why she is on the chair, but I know...she was rolling around and not listening, she was running around and grabbing things she wasn't supposed to, she dumped a whole tub of glitter. My worst fears had come true. I am thinking quickly what I can do fix the situation and then I remember the teacher telling me about the class sizes , so I ask to move Emma to the smaller classes, which only have 6 kids as opposed to 14 and it really has made a difference. I still get told that she needs to focus and redirect her attention, and I pray that in a few months there are huge strides made...but I still have a gnawing feeling that perhaps it is something that just cannot be controlled. Anyway, E seems to like school, she always walks in with a smile.

Apple picking '11, part one

arg!

yeah, I'll cut you too!

Every year we like to go apple picking. We discovered this great little farm called Hurd's Family Farm in Medina, NY . It is great because it really is geared for families. They have this little kiddie coral with a sandbox, slides, tires and an ol' tractor to climb on. They also have cow rides and hay rides throughout the orchards, and they make the most delicious apple cider donuts. This year we went a little earlier than usual as my mom was here and she had never experienced apple picking. The weather was ok but there were so many mosquitos! we got eaten alive! It was really great was how interactive Emma was. This was her third time at the farm. The first time she had just turned one and was busy running around and being cute! Last year she was still running around and only interested in playing in the kiddie coral. This year she actually understood the steps involved in apple picking. She wanted to be the one to pull the wagon and she was running up and down the aisles picking apples, and just throwing them on the wagon. She didn't care how they looked, she just was throwing apple onto of apple and if you tried to pull one of her apples out, she would have a fit. She was really sweet! We all finally did a hay ride for free and she got to go on her cow ride again. It was a very peaceful day. I'm looking forward to my mom coming back in Oct to take her to the Storm king and the Blaze and all these fun fall activities. I just love fall!!!!

Cute things update

she stills loves Gato to death

E is really trying to be good, and though she is still a nut, she does things that melt my heart.
I mentioned how she likes to tell me to go to the kitchen when she doesn't want me watching her. Well, the other night, she told Ant to not only go to the kitchen but to go clean in the kitchen. It was really funny. She has also started saying new words that I know she is learning at school..oh did I not mention how she started preschool, I'll get back to that. SO the other day in the bathroom she was washing her hands and water got on her stool and she could feel her shoes making a squeaky sound so she tells me that it is "slippery". She has also told me that "Emma is faster than mommy". I can tell what the teacher tells Emma because she all of a sudden will start saying "Emma come back" as she is running away from me and when she sees her school she will start asking "is everybody here?" or "where's teacher?" She has also started saying "yes" instead of "ok" and "I don't like". I have noticed that she chooses to use more English words now but I am not giving up on Spanish! I do miss her "no quieres".
I bought Emma a doctor play set which she chose and said "play doctor" and she is so cute when she uses it. The first time she used it I could tell she has memorized what her own doctor tells her. She put the stethoscope to my chest and said "all good" and "beautiful". Then she asked me if I was "all better". So now poor Ephy and Gato are her patients and she loves checking their blood pressure and giving them their shots.

She knows I love my Golden Girls and she can now say Golden Girls and sing the theme song but she also knows that I like to watch I love Lucy. The other day my mom was watching an old black and white movie and Emma said "Es Lucy, momma's turn" it was really sweet how she deduces things, oh my baby, almost three! I cannot believe it...it goes so fast!

Time out

Emma understands that time outs are a form of punishment, she also knows that they are a way of killing time when she doesn't want to do something. When I want her to sit and eat or take a bath, and she is just starts doing flips, I do my countdown of 1-2-3. When that doesn't work, I ask if she wants a time out to which she replies, "yes" and runs to put herself in the timeout chair. I know she is just doing this so she doesn't have to do what is really important.. She can be sneaky.
But on a plus note, Emma started telling me why she is in time out or what she has done wrong. The first time I heard her say it, I was floored. See early one when I would ask her, she would just look at me so confused and say "sorry, sorry", but the other day, she actually told me,"I broke book". Granted it sounded more like "ibobo book", but it was clear! Now she tells me she if she was yelling, or hitting or shushing. Ah baby steps. really tiny itty bitty baby steps.
One thing that has really been bothering me though is how she has really got into hitting. When my mom was here she would hit her and then me, but mostly she hits poor Gato. Nothing seems to make her understand that hitting isnt nice. So I started focusing the attention not on her but on poor Gato to see if that would work. When she would hit him, I would just coddle him and hold him and completely ignore her. Needless to say E does not like to be ignored, so she would start kissing Gato and be gentle with him. She stills will try and strangle him and hit him when I am not looking, but she rarely gets away with it.

sorry for the delay...

so excited that fall is here and E gets to wear her fall wardrobe.

always on the go

Angelina invitations!! handmade by moi

part of her decorations...

wow, so it really has been a long time since I last updated E's blog. I guess Im still so out of sorts. I have been busy trying to clean the apartment, as it seems to just never be anything but a small prototype for Gray Gardens. I have also been working on E's two, that's right, two parties!! wha wha, holla! Her official birthday is this Sunday and I have to work, blarg! SO I have decided to throw her an Angelina Ballerina party for her small group of fans up here in NYC and a larger, more kid friendly Bayou/Princess Frog party back home in Tampa.
Needless to say I am just finishing up the details. Sigh, anyway...here are some pics of a banner I am working on and the sweet invites that went out....oh still so much more to do..but first I shall recap some things that have happened this past month.