School Countdown

Tomorrow is "Moving In Day" at Fiona's school and she will stay for about 20 minutes, putting her things away in her cubby and getting a look at her new classroom. She goes to the local Montessori school, which was new last year and they moved to a bigger space this year (thank goodness). She is very excited and keeps asking how many bedtimes (the spell check says this word should be beatings)away her first day of school is (that's Wednesday).

I made a nice rich gelatinous batch of chicken stock yesterday and I made chicken soup for lunch for the girls--carrots, celery, zucchini, vegetable alphabet pasta, and shredded chicken. They inhaled the soup. They were so taken with this soup that it was very, very quiet. It's rainy and cool lately, so maybe it was just what they needed.

Last Saturday we went to one of Fiona's friend's birthday party (I hope I did not make a possessive error there or I would have to smite myself) and had a great time. They had a pinata and everything. We've been to 3 parties now where the whole class is invited---I don't know what those of us with winter birthdays are supposed to do. Our house will not hold all those kids and siblings and parents--and there are MORE kids this year! Egads. One of Fiona's friends (with an April birthday) just invited Fiona and some neighbor friends, so I guess that is ok to do...I just hate to leave anyone out, especially because Fiona actually likes each of her classmates (so far). There is one child she has this weird love/hate relationship with, but he has a very similar personality to hers. He is a very sweet, smart kid but he can be rather boisterous, loud, energetic, opinionated...hm, sound familiar? Anyway, she and this particular boy went frog hunting and he let her hold the frogs (which I was really impressed with). She held on to these frogs forever. I kept trying to convince her to let them go or give the boy a turn. She kept trying to kiss one of them (thankfully Sophia did not see this). She finally did hand them over and one of them was playing dead. We thought it was real for while but her friend told us that the frog was only playing dead. Whew. But from now on, less squeezing of the frogs!

After that we went to the Champlain Valley Fair! We met a friend there who has a son who is 6 and a son who is 18 months. Everyone loved riding the horses. Even the little ones got to ride, which thrilled Sophia to no end. I took Fiona in first and Sophia was inconsolable---so after that I thought it might be worth a try (I was worried it would be hard to keep her on) and it went brilliantly! Every time the horses stopped she signed "more". She had a huge fit when it was really time to stop, though. After a birthday party and a couple of hours of the fair (which is an hour away from us) they were both totally worn out (heh heh). I think Fiona would have liked to get to know the 6 year old better---I think they have similar personalities and suspect they would really get on well, but they live in upstate NY.