First Day of School

So yesterday was the first day of school. It went really well. Rico is now in first grade and Marielle is in second.

Marielle was thrilled that I let her pick her outfit to wear. She wanted to look really "rockerish". Rico could care less about what he wore, except that he got to wear his new shoes, which we bought last week and I told him had to wait for the first day of school to be worn.



Of course, both kids were thrilled with their new back packs.

Today was really sweet, though. We had all the school supplies to bring along, so both Ralph and I went to drop them off. Ralph was with Marielle and I was with Rico. As the bell rang and the teachers came out, I went over to Marielle's teacher to let her know that I'd put some things for her in Marielle's back pack. (I gave her a copy of the book Educating the Child with Cancer and copies of her neuropsych test and school psychologist test results.)

So the kids went into their classrooms and I was standing and chatting with some of the moms, when all of a sudden, across the play area, Rico's teacher waves to me and then Rico comes out. He is crying. I come over and he said, "You left and didn't give me a hug or a kiss". So I walk him back in, holding his little hand and give him a hug and a kiss. Then I stand there for about 30 seconds and he looks at me and says, "Ok, go now".

Sorry I asked...

So yesterday, around 3 pm, Rico was in the dining room eating something. Huh? He shouldn't be eating anything, the kids are supposed to ask before they grab a snack....

He was over by Ralph's computer and he had that "caught in the act" kind of look on his face and I thought maybe he snagged something Ralph had near his computer. When I asked him what he was eating, he just grinned and didn't say anything. Then I asked again and he opened his mouth and I turned away, not wanting to see half eaten food and said sternly, "No, don't show me, tell me, use your words...what are you eating"

"Boogers" he said with a big grin.

Sorry I asked.

Rico

Poor Rico, he's the unsung hero of our family. You see, we were supposed to go up to the snow this weekend. He's wanted to go up for a long time. Both the kids only experienced snow once before and Rico is too young to remember it. He'd been looking forward to our trip for a long time, counting down the days. We were going to pull the kids out of school on Friday and do an overnight turn around.

With Marielle sick, our trip has been canceled. So many times, his fun, his wishes, have had to be put aside over the past 3+ years...that's just how it goes when you have a sibling fighting cancer. Now, once more, Marielle being sick means Rico's fun is not going to happen.

We will go up to the snow...just not sure when.

My Cat in the Hat

All this week, the kids have been celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday. Yesterday, they had green eggs and ham for lunch. Today, Rico and his classmates became the Cat in the Hat. Rico looked adorable when he arrived home from school today.

How my boy thinks....

Yesterday, when I took my shower, I noticed that the water was draining very slowly from the bathtub drain. I asked Ralph to take a look...maybe we needed to snake out the lines again. (We have tree root issues with the drain and every now and again need to snake out the line to get things moving.)

Marielle overhears this and says (in her 6 year old tattletale way),"I know why the drain is slow. Rico was shoving pieces of the bath sponge down the drain".

Uh, ok. So I called Rico over and had a little talk about how the grate was there for a reason, to stop things from clogging up the drain. Rico, unphased, said, "But Mom, the sponge wanted to go to see the ocean. It wanted an adventure! " Now how do you discipline that?