August 2014

First Grade!
—We got the school classroom assignment a few days before school started: Annika would be in Mrs. Casey’s class … while her friends Vilma, Alana and Niamh would all be in another class together. Ooof. I was worried (OK, freaked out, kind of ranty), but luckily had time to cool off — especially since she didn’t seem all that worried about her friends being in another class (“We can play on the playground at recess!” she explained, reasonably).
—The first day went very, very well: R. and I both went into the classroom with her, and it was a well-lit, well-organized, welcoming and happy oasis (quite a contrast to the shabbiness of her Kindergarten classroom, for sure). One of her buddies from last year, Cayli, was in her class, and that was enough for her. :-) Then, when I went to pick her up at the end of the first day, she came out, saw me and gave me a hug, and with arms wide open, said “I love first grade!"
—Mrs. Casey is awesome: I am thrilled that my worries about Mrs. Casey (which at root, honestly were worries that the social thing would be weird for Annika) were for nothing; she’s the greatest! Sweet, charming, brilliant at keeping the room under control and all the kids engaged … ahhhhhhh! Wonderful.
—Funny: Mrs. Casey keeps a prize box as a reward system (there are several such systems … I can’t begin to understand them all), and one day Annika’s new buddy Mackenzie (who is new to the school, actually) didn’t get to pick a prize, so Annika made a prize box at home, stocked it with her own little treasures (pencil erasers, stickers, etc.) and took it to school so Mackenzie could pick one!
—Vilma et. al. at recess: As Annika assumed, she and Vilma play together nearly every recess — it’s all good. Sometimes, apparently, she brings this girl Alexis (who is a … well, I’ll call her a Mean Girl, because the other things I’ve called her are very much not nice), and Annika hates her — but they all seem to be working things out, and I’m not interfering. Gosh, that’s hard … 
—Scooter City: From the second day of school onward, we’ve been scootering to school in the mornings, sometimes meeting up with our new neighbors enroute (mom Janeen, sons Grayson, who’s in Kindergarten, and Anders, who’s 2). I push the stroller at a run while Annika scooters; the way back is much more leisurely, and often includes a park stop for Lukas. It gets us to school on time, and is a nice little outing in the cool morning. We don’t scooter home in the afternoons, though — it’s invariably 95 (actual) degrees, and I end up toting both kids in the stroller while they bitch and crab at each other and at me; the air-conditioned car is much better for that trip. 
—New skillz on the playground: Annika’s getting much more confident on the equipment, learning stuff like how to hang from the monkey bars (which terrified her absolutely, as recently as early summer).
—Brotherly greetings: At pick-up time, Lukas drops whatever he’s doing as soon as the door opens, and rushes to Annika (sometimes all the way into the classroom, ha!), to hug-bomb her; he does the same at drop-off, when her class is going into their room after the Pledge — I sneak in one last kiss and “I love you,” and he demands a hug too. It is SO CUUUUUTE how sweet he is.
—New facts learned: Within the first couple of weeks, we could tell (as if we hadn’t already gotten the idea) that this class was going to be much different; Annika comes home telling us all about Venn diagrams, "digital numbers” (i.e. numbers of more than one digit), and so on.

Grandparent-palooza and other fun stuff
With Grandma and Grandpa here, and the kids (rightly) ignoring my and R.’s existence, the two of us slipped away for a one-night “Senior Sauce” — i.e. the first non-childed Sauce since late 2006. It was epic — the band rawked till 3:00 a.m., we drank more than was advisable (and paid for both for like the next two days) — and best of all, the kids were having so much fun, they didn’t miss us at all. I also absconded for a night to a hotel in Lost Gatos, where all I did was read (new books, a 10-month backlog of The New Yorker, etc.) — well, after I got the massage that was one of my birthday gifts from R., ha! A nice break, especially since I knew the kids and R. were well cared for too. :-) 

Friends & such
—Verna playdate: Having met back up with her dance-class buddy Verna at dance camp, Annika wanted to do a playdate, so we did — we invited them over for a swim, but Verna can’t swim, so the kids just ran all over the house like maniacs for a couple of hours. It was fun — she’s a really sweet girl, and we’re glad to count her as a friend.
—Petroglyph with Anne & Grace: Another time grandparent babysitting came in handy! Anne invited us to go to Petroglyph, a paint-your-own ceramics place, with her and Grace. That’s not really Lukas’s scene yet, so he stayed home with Grandma & Grandpa while we went and painted, then hit a candy store and also had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Annika painted a puppy (black, of course), while I made another To Kill A Mockingbird quote mug. I’m gettin’ good at those. Heh.
—Spy Club: Annika has developed an interest in spies and spying (she’s even made her own “spy phone” out of a Tic-Tac box), so she plays Spies all the time, including at a playdate at Vilma’s. It seems to have been sparked (or enhanced?) by these Top Secret Adventure kits she talked me into getting her from Highlights Magazine; they are folders with workbooks and maps and a little book about one country at a time (China was first), and the stuff it asks you to do is really too advanced for her (all this decoding, reference lookups, deduction, etc. — at least fourth-grade level), but damn if she doesn’t plow through, page by page, to figure out the “mystery” and get her “visa” stamped. This is one goal-oriented kid!
—Victor’s party: Annika’s old pal Victor (whom we met at AppleSeed and was in her Kindergarten class) had his birthday pool party at his house across the street from the school. She had a blast with Vilma, and jumped off the diving board like a hundred times.
—Labor Day weekend: Just two weeks into the school year, we had Labor Day off, and the weekend was a great, low-key one with grilling, pool time, and not much else going on. Exactly what we needed!
—Annika the inventor: I almost think we should never buy this kid any tech toys, because when she’s denied one — say, her own iPad Mini — she just makes her own. She did one out of cardboard with a blue back cover for herself, and one with an orange back cover for Lukas, complete with apps, power button, and all; she’ll sit there for quite awhile, swiping this way and that, pretending to make and watch videos, looking stuff up — hell of an imagination!
—Dora and Friends: Into the City: Move over, PAW Patrol — there’s a new queen of our TV, and it’s Dora and Friends. This is a new show featuring an older, longer-haired Dora the Explorer and, of course, her friends (Alana, Emma, Pablo and Naya, a supportive, multitalented, and endlessly collaborative ensemble), and the usual mix of total insanity that makes you wonder if you’ve been taking crazy pills (e.g. dogs that can sing and talk, but only as viewed through a camera phone that was covered in dog-slobber — I am not making this up). Both kids are frickin’ fanatics for this show. It’s … ahh … of limited appeal to adults, but hell, if they like it, I like it.
—A new ballet class: Annika is continuing at her dance school, and this year she’s in a ballet-only class for kids 6-8. We got a lecture the first day about how, at this level, the kids had to have their hair in “a proper ballet bun,” not “just thrown up there,” so when we got home, I watched a YouTube video to figure out — finally — how to do it (it involves bobby pins, a certain pinning technique, and a sort of hair net dealy). She likes the class, but Grace is no longer in the same one (she wanted to go the opposite direction — jazz & hip-hop — and also had conflicts with soccer), which also means I don’t see my friend Anne nearly as often as I’d like, so that’s a bummer — not to mention that Lukas is now the lone little brother, causing mayhem in the lobby … 

The Quotable Lukas
—“Not now! I want some more whiles!” (a protest at being told it was naptime)
—"Ha-wai-oh" = Ohio
—He has memorized several of his most-often-read Critter books, and likes to “read” them to us — SO CUUUUTE!
—“that kind of" = how he asks what kind of thing something is (appended to the end, e.g. "What is that bug kind of?”)
—Nonverbal but cute: He’s started pointing and squinting at what he's asking about, with tilted head, as if it is on the far horizon, even if it’s two feet away. Heh.
—“Is dat Dewek Jeter?” Every time a baseball player is on TV … which is a lot around here.