First Day of School Orientation

What????  I thought you were homeschooling!!!  We are :)

We joined a homeschool co-op earlier in the year and today was the first official day that the homeschool co-op met for orientation.  We were all very excited around here about today.

Our favorite sweet friend, Miss B came to the house to watch Anna Grace while Zachary and I went to orientation.  They got to go on some fun adventures of their own while we went to school - like our favorite playground and then to the local botanical garden for a picnic lunch. 

The orientation today was from 9:45 am until 1:00 pm.  Orientation started with a tour of the local Church where our homeschool co-op meets.  Then we met in "general assembly" where all of the students and parents sat together and listened to the Director talk about the upcoming year and all of the teachers were introduced.  Then each of the students was given their assigned teacher and all of the children and their teachers were dismissed to their appropriate classrooms while the Director continued to talk with the parents about the cirriculum and of course the rules - like dress code, sick policy, snow days, discipline, etc.  After all of those things were talked about the parents and students were all dismissed to the cafeteria to eat lunch together and then to play in the gym together. 

Zachary, being the friendly child that he is, went with his teacher with a smile on his face and a casual wave good-bye to Mom.  No seperation anxiety here!!!!  Once it was time to be dismissed to the cafeteria Zachary couldn't get there fast enough.  He scarfed down his lunch in literally 3 minutes flat BEGGING to be excused to go to the gym.  So, I ate as quickly as I could and we hurried to the gym. 

Basketball seemed to be the game of choice today for the little boys and there happened to be some pretty good players.  Zachary of course jumped right into the game and played as hard as he could.  At 1:00 it was time to go and THIS is when he gets upset.  Not, when he leaves his beloved Mommy to go off to his classroom alone, but when I tell him it's time to go home.  "But, Mom.... we just got here.  But Mom.... I've hardly gotten to play.  But Mom......"  You get the idea.  After we climbed in the minvan to go home he asked, "Mom, when do we get to come to school again?"

I'd say that we a pretty successful first day of school.  So, beginning next Tuesday we begin meeting with the homeschool co-op for school once a week and basically have a repeat of today.

Of course we're still doing school at home the other 4 days of the week, but it is really nice to have the opportunity to be a part of this co-op.  I am looking forward to meeting other Mom and making new friends :)  It was a pretty successful first day of school for me too!!!!!

Potty Time!!!!!

Yes, it's potty time in our house!  I have really hesitated with starting potty training Anna Grace just because I knew we had an upcoming surgery (which I though was going to be August 10) so I just thought I would wait to start until after surgery.

Well, a couple of months ago she started asking to go.  Huh????  I had heard rumors of children doing this but never imagine that I would be so blessed as to have my own child do it!!!!!  So, even though I wanted to wait until after the Fontan to potty train I wasn't going to tell her no, so when ever she would ask I would let her use the potty.  I never asked her, I was content to leave her in diapers, but as time went on she asked more and more and I finally thought, OK, it's time to potty train her.  So, although I'm not doing the "potty training boot camp" that I did with Zachary we are doing potty training "casual"  :)

We don't use pull-ups, just underwear and for the most part she does great.  She is still in diapers at bedtime, but she has done remarakably well.  I fully expect there to be potty regression when she has her Fontan in November, which is why I'm being super-casual about potty training.  But for the time being we have been doing the "POTTY DANCE" around here a lot and singing that silly little song!!!!!  Oh... she is also indulging her sweet tooth whenever she has success, which has been a huge motivator for her :) 

"Do the (clap, clap) potty dance"!!!!!!  (You do all sorts of silly things once you  have kids... am I right Moms????)