Comic relief

There's no story to this.  Just had to share.

xoxo
Deb

For Chrissee

Whenever I question whether or not I am Bree's actual mother all I have to do is watch her in a shoe store. Trust me, she's mine. Girl loves her some shoes.

How stinking cute are these? Not sure if you can tell from the picture, but the all-pink ones are very sparkly. Those are the ones that she wore on the first day of school that helped to spark new friendships.

Please note, she wore the blue ones today and also received compliments.

xoxo

Deb

School Dazed

Yup. The picture says it all. Despite my best efforts, Bree is in preschool. I tried locking her in her room and barricading the door with stuffed animals and outgrown clothing, but Jason fought his way through and rescued his princess. Damn him.

The preschool she's attending eases the little ones (and their parents) into the year with short sessions with only half the class for the first day but Bree already made a friend. Due to my insane need to be on time for everything (it's genetic, I can't count how many family weddings for which my parents and I arrived at the church before the priest. Thanks, Mom!), we were twenty minutes early. Eventually Bree's classmates and their parents began arriving and the last to show up was a little girl with long dark curls. We'd never seen her before but she and Bree must have known that they were kindred spirits. They looked at each other, squealed and ran to one another. Bree told her that she had pretty hair and that she liked her shirt (red with puppies.) Bree's new friend, Gabriella, returned the compliments focused on Bree's shoes (which really are quite awesome) and her Princess backpack. They then each giggled, jumped up and down a couple of times and each ran back to their parents. They then ran back to meet again and repeated the compliments. And then each returned to their respective starting points. To then run back and repeat the compliments. And then... you get the picture.

The teachers took pity on us after about seventeen renditions of "Bree meets Gabriella" and let us into the classroom. Bree played with play-do and when it was time to sit in a circle she first had to HELP THE TEACHER CLEAN UP THE PLAY-DO. That's right, the child that won't pick up a single toy at home helped a complete stranger clean up. Circle time went pretty much as I expected. Bree sat down for 3.8 seconds, got bored and left the circle to go play, very quickly demonstrating to her three teachers and the rest of the parents present why her nickname is "Chaos." I so enjoy the looks of complete and total pity that I routinely receive from total strangers courtesy of my beloved children.

Nick has also begun school again. Surprisingly, his teachers didn't retire or go into a witness-protection program to avoid him, so there wasn't much new for Nick this year. Same classroom, same teachers, but a couple a new-to-Nick students. I tried to explain why some of his classmates from last year weren't in his class any longer. He got bored and walked away from me while I was in mid-explanation. That happens a lot with Nick. His main source of concern is that the "marble-toy" hasn't made a reappearance in his class yet. Whenever I try to talk to him about school he reminds me of the missing marble toy and mutters in a very grumpy, threatening voice about "needing to have a talk" with his teachers about this. I kid you not. And while I did get plenty of shots of him with his eyes open for the annual first day of school picture, this one cracks me up, so this is the one I'm posting.

xoxo
Deb

p.s. For my fellow Fantasy Football-playing friends and loved ones: Based on having a couple of Saints on my fantasy team, I'm starting a petition to have them stripped of the Vince Lombardi trophy. 'Nuff said.