Starting Preschool

William started preschool this week. He's going to a school not too far from our house that was suggested by a friend in the ward. He goes on Mon/Wed/Fri afternoons from 12:30-3. His teachers are Jenny and Gloria, two super-energetic women who seem to have a lot of fun things for the kids to do. His first day was Monday. I walked him in with Anna. She let go of my hand as soon as we were in the door and headed to the water table and kitchen play areas without a second thought. William clung to my leg and looked a little shy. He started quietly trying to talk his teachers ears off after I introduced him, but his head was still bowed so I'm not sure how much they heard. They got him interested in the car play mat and he was fine with me leaving. Anna cried, though, when I grabbed her and dragged her back out to the car. Today when we went for round two William went in happily and Anna again cried. "I want to go to school!" is one of her favorite phrases. I'm glad not to have kids who cling and cry about being left behind. I really wasn't as emotional about all this as I thought I'd be once the time actually came to leave my little boy. He'll have fun. If only I can get Anna to start her nap a little earlier so I don't have to wake her up and make her cranky when it's time to pick him up.

It's a .....

I had my big ultrasound today and found that we are indeed having a baby. Yup, a healthy-looking human baby. Oh, and it's a girl one. I've had several dreams involving babies lately (ah the dreams of a pregnant lady!), and they've all been ones with baby girls. There was one, after watching an episode of Doctor Who (the new ones) where a slimy, bulgy alien being was trying to take over the world. It would call people to it telepathically, getting into their heads and guiding. When they reached it, the thing would take control of them and use them to take over the world. Well, it 'called' my baby girl, but she let me know it was OK (telepathically too, I guess because she was pre-walking and pre-talking). She let me know that she knew what to do. I carried her to the alien confident that my baby would defeat the creature even as it thought it was controlling her. I can only assume that we succeeded because I woke up just as we approached the beastly thing. The feeling of the dream was very confident, so we must have won. My baby must have saved the world. The other dream I remember well involved William and Anna fighting at Grammy and Grandad's new home, a 4-story, pillared, white mansion in Chicago where, in my dream, Grammy had lived as a child. The new baby was a sweet, smiley toddler standing beside her sister and brother and taking advantage of their fight over dum-dums to eat all three while they squabbled. I took the suckers from her and gave them back to William and Anna and encouraged them stop fighting. The new little girl just smiled in a good-natured way and went back to eating her own sucker without complaint. So, in my dreams, this is a happy, sweet, kind little girl who can calmly save the world from invading alien evil. I guess we'll see later if she's really anything like that.

Portland Airshow

The airshow was the second weekend of August this year. We decided not to go since the kids' attention spans are a little on the small side. Instead we went to the Friday morning meet the pilots event. It's free. You just show up at the airport and walk around and see some of the planes close up and meet some of the pilots and the parachuters. William and Anna loved it. And there were free Krispy Kremes and water. The kids got posters and cards with pictures of planes on them.

Because we no longer live in the flight path, we didn't actually see much of the show. So, Saturday afternoon we took the kids to a park near the Hillsboro Airport where they could see a lot of the action. They were really more interested in the play structures than in the airplanes, so it was a good thing we didn't buy tickets. I was kind of sad, though, that we didn't last until the blue angels. But it was hot and nap time, so we went home instead.


This was William's favorite airplane.

Couldn't get William to pose with us...

Anna actually smiled after the picture was taken, but she wouldn't smile when the camera was up.