the checkmark

These last few weeks have been a blur! Lauren's start to kindergarten has been fantastic. She loves it! The only thing she complains about is that she's tired in the morning. I've been moving her bedtime earlier and earlier, but she's still tired in the morning. It's hard to get going before the sun comes up! She transitioned very easily into kindergarten. In fact, I think the only person who had an emotional time with it was Josh. It was very hard for him to have Lauren gone all day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and not with him at his "school" Tuesday and Thursday. A pretty bad ear infection to boot and he has not been a happy camper. He seems to be getting more used to it, knowing she is coming home and that generally she is happy to see him!

Then came today. She got home from school and immediately started picking on Josh. She just would not leave him alone and was warned about her behavior. Then she actually hit him in the ear with a toy. After some significant time in her room, she still would not tell me what was bothering her. She was defiant, argumentative, disobeying, not listening and generally foul all evening. Of course she had a couple of very nice moments, but they were few and far between. Let me just say that Lauren is a limit-tester, like most kids, but she takes it to the Nth degree. She seeks out the limits to know how far she can go then she usually backs off. I think she gets comfort in knowing there's a limit and where it is. Tonight that was not the case. She kept crossing the line over and over.

Finally, she was getting ready for bed, I asked her a question about brushing her teeth and she outright lied to me. It was very minor situation, but why the lie? After I called her on the lie, she broke down very dramatically and ran to her room. I followed her in and sat on her bed. She then blurted out that she got a checkmark at school today. Her teacher uses checkmarks on the board to help correct behavior. We just talked about the checkmarks earlier this week and she was mortified that I actually asked her if she had received one. Well, today was the day. Through sobs she informed me that she ran in the hall to try and catch up to the boy in front of her and received a checkmark. The tears were literally shooting out of her eyes. We talked about why she got the checkmark and the fact that her teacher was not pointing out that she was a bad girl, but that she made a bad choice in choosing to run in the hall. And that no matter how many checkmarks she gets, her daddy and I will always love her. She was obviously embarassed and feeling very bad about it.

This is going to sound very strange, but as I left her room, I actually felt proud that she felt so bad. Not that I like seeing her so very sad and being so hard on herself, but it gave me a sense that she understands right from wrong and that she takes "correction" seriously.

I guess we'll see if she runs in the hall again : )

Lauren's first day of kindergarten

At her desk

Izzy (neighbor) and Lauren


Such a big smile!

Lauren started kindergarten yesterday!! She had a great day and was very tired when she got home. She got dressed in record time, which made me very happy and she was asking for 20 minutes, "Can we go yet?" We dropped the boys off at daycare first and Josh had a hard time. I'm pretty sure he wanted Lauren there with him. When we got to Lauren's school, she was so excited! We left her while she was painting in her notebook, such a big kindergarten thing to do! I did really good as far as tears were concerned. There was once that my eyes filled up after Brian said something like, "Our baby is a kindergartner." He kept quiet about it after that - I'm sure he didn't want to deal with a blubbery wife!! It was a fabulous day and she had so much fun!

Wisconsin Trip Summer 2010

We took a trip to Milwaukee and Green Bay at the end of July and it was SO much fun!! We hadn't been to Milwaukee in three years and hadn't seen a lot of Brian's family in two years. It was Logan's first trip to eastern Wisconsin and Josh hadn't been there since he was a baby. We saw so many Kraby's!! We stayed with Brian's sister Kelli and her husband Jeff. They have two kids: Avery is 4 and Nathan is 2. Let me just say that the cousins were a big hit with each other!! Lauren and Avery were inseparable. They watched movies, ate popsicles, played, played and played some more. I think their favorite part was sleeping on the blow-up mattress together! Josh, Nathan and Logan got along really good. Nathan would play with Josh, then he would hang with Logan and back and forth. We went to the zoo, the pool, had a cookout, went to a park and just had a great, fun, relaxing time.
Before leaving Milwaukee for Green Bay, we spent the night at Grandma Jane's and Bumpa Larry's. Let me just tell you how excited the kids were to stay "where daddy grew up"! They went swimming in Grandma Jane's pool with their cousin Olivia, had another cookout, played "Littlest Pet Shop" with Olivia (which she so graciously shared along with her room), walked to Brian's elementary school, and spent time with lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, oh my!
Then we were off to Green Bay. We stayed at the Tundra Lodge and we all had a blast! Brian's mom came with us to Green Bay and we were so very thankful for the extra set of hands. Three little kids at a waterpark is a lot!! The kids saw Lambeau Field ("where Packers live" as Josh and Lauren say), Brian took Josh to Packer training camp practice, we swam and swam and swam, and most importantly got to visit with Brian's grandma Olga, or Grandma Nani as she is affectionately called. Grandma Nani is 102 years old and you would never know it as she's sharp as a tack! I think that the greatest part of the trip was watching Grandma Nani play catch with the kids. When Grandma Jane suggested the kids walk the ball over to Grandma Nani instead of throw it, Grandma Nani announced that she could catch just fine and that they should throw it back to her! She's an amazing woman and we were so happy to be able to visit with her.
We had such a fantastic trip and can't wait to visit again. We only wish it didn't mean five hours in the car.... : )

bumpa's truck

My dad retired from road construction just last week - Yay!!!! Before he left, he, Brian and the kids went out to his truck so they could see it. He had the idea of drawing eyes so the truck would look like "Mack" from the movie "Cars". So my mom drew the eyes and he put them in the truck before the kids got there. Isn't that cute?!!