School's In Session

E officially started kindergarten this last Tuesday. After all the worrying and stressing over private vs. charter vs. public schools, whether to put him back in his bi-lingual daycare after kinder or keep him at the on-site after-school care, who would take him, who would pick up, and all the million other things that kept me up, it was a very anti-climactic first week.

Somehow he made it through his first few days without crying about not being with his sister or pre-school friends. Amazingly, I was able to wake up in time to get him to school before the bell rang. He made friends. He ate his lunch.

Lesson learned: I don't give him or me enough credit to transition to the next stage of his life without trauma.

And now that I've figured that out, I can return to my regularly scheduled program of worrying whether V will ever be able to quit the diapers.

Gratitude: The First of Many (Hopefully)

I complain about my kids. A lot. A lot a lot. They are whiny, they are high-maintenance, they don't listen, they are hyper. But at the end of the day, they are pretty good kids (of course, there's still plenty of time for me and the hubby to ruin them).

I need to complain less and be more thankful for having them in my life and be more appreciative of their virtues. So herewith, the first of what I hope will become a new series of posts about the shiny, happy side of my kids.

If nothing else, I will have some posts to re-read on those days when they are fighting or screaming or not paying attention or not paying attention while they fight and scream.

I am grateful that my kids like to eat their vegetables. I hear stories about moms who have to hide zucchini in spaghetti sauce or chop spinach down to the molecular level and mix it in with their meatloaf or meatballs. Some people have told me they bribe their kids with candy just to down a leafy green.

I don't have this problem at all. My kids LOVE spinach; I have to cook it 2 bunches at a time to have enough to go around. In our home, you might hear weird statements like, "No, you can't have more spinach until you eat some spaghetti!" They love cauliflower, broccoli, bok choy, and sweet potatoes.

I'd like to think it has something to do with my great cooking skills, but I think that it boils down to the fact that we're just lucky.

Words To Live By: Oh Heavenly God

E has been learning a little bit about God (aka "the Big Guy") from a few of his church-going friends at school. Even though we are not a religious family, I think it's good for him to have some exposure to religion and to explore ideas about God and spirituality and develop his own ideas.

I have to admit that some of the things he says really tickle me and even touch me so I thought I'd share:

On Death/Going to Heaven:
"Mommy, how did Great-Grandpa go to Heaven? Did he take a rocket ship?"
"Lucy went to Heaven to keep Great-Grandpa company."
"Mommy, I wish Lucy would come home from Heaven because I miss her. Are you going to cry now?"
"V, hold my hand because we are in a parking lot and there are lots of cars and I'm small. If you don't hold my hand then a car will squish me then I'll go to Heaven and then Mommy will have only one childrens and then be really sad and cry all the time. Do you want that to happen?!"
"Mommy, do they have TV in Heaven or is it so boring?"

On God:
(upon being asked who God is) "God is the Big Guy! He's the Man."
"Mommy, I think I'm getting sick because God used his magic powers to make me cough and plugged my nose all up."
"God made all the grandmas and grandpas, but then they made us borned the regular way."
"Mommy, did you know God is so, so big but can fit into someplace really small, like someone's heart?"
"I think I drank too much orange juice and now it's all the way up to God. You know, it filled me up to here (points to his heart)."
(upon being asked how his friend knows so much about God) "I don't know. I think he makes it all up actually."
"God can be really big or really small because He's magic. And He can be any color, even white!"

Belated Birthday Wishes to My Kidlets!

The first half of the calendar year is pretty birthday-intensive for our family, with my father's birthday in January, my mother's and my birthdays in February, E's in March, and V's in May. It feels like every other week is a family dinner to celebrate someone's birthday.

And now that the kids are old enough for parties, it feels like I have to skip my birthday altogether and go straight from planning my dad's birthday dinner (I don't usually plan my mom's because we have always been lumped together - it's not like I don't love my mom. Mom, if you read this, it's not that I don't love you) to planning E's birthday party. The second the last of his little party guests leaves, then it's time to plan for V's birthday party. Having their birthdays two months apart was clearly a grave tactical error on my part.

In case you don't have kids or haven't gotten to the point when your kids have opinions about their parties, I need to disclose that birthday parties are monumental events that require top-notch project management skills. But that's a topic for another day; the point is that only now, about 3 weeks after V's birthday party, do I feel like I've recovered and gotten a chance to breathe.

So *inhale*, *exhale*... Happy Belated Birthday to my two favoritest kiddios!

Ice Cream is IN!

E completed his allergy panel last week, and while he still tested positive for a skin reaction to milk protein, he had no reaction when we tried milk in his oral challenge. I am thrilled to report that he was able to consume four large spoonfuls of plain ice cream without any kind of reaction.

Dairy was our last major food allergy to overcome, and I'm not going to lie, it was the biggest one. Of course, that's what I said when we got the OK from the doctor to give him wheat. Then eggs. But I've really been looking forward to the day when he can have dairy. It means that he can eat pizza and ice cream. It means I can go to a regular grocery store and get regular yogurt. He can go to a birthday party and not be the weird kid who doesn't have any cake and brings his own food.

Now we have a different challenge, which is untraining him from staying away from all these foods he's learned not to touch the last 4 years. I daresay he is probably the only kid who says that real ice cream is "slimy and weird". And he's literally afraid of cheese.

But I welcome this new problem. It's a lot less stressful than the days when I worried about lunch snack trades causing a trip to the hospital. And really, it's just a variation of a picky eater, albeit a really strange case where the child would prefer broccoli on rice over pepperoni pizza. Yup, it's a good problem to have.