What is it if you don't have a head?

My kids are inquisitive. The princes especially so. Her questions amaze, confuse, blow me away, and drive me crazy. I try to answer her questions honestly and completely because I know she genuinely cares about the "why"s and will retain the information. But sometimes I just want to say "why do you care????". Usually I will just cop out by saying "I don't know" or "maybe daddy knows". That last one backfired recently when she asked why "daddy knows so much more than you?". Lately I've started to realize, as exhausting as it is for me to answer all these questions, it must be ridiculously more so exhausting for her brain. I mean, how can a person want to know everything about lighthouses (a 10 minute conversation consisting of at least 15 "why"s) and then immediately ask how dinosaurs became extinct only to switch over to why we have boogers when the dinosaur conversation is over? Those things are not related. And yet they were all swimming around her head, probably among a hundred other things she did not ask that day. It is just truly amazing.

Yesterday we were talking about disabilities. Her class read a book about being deaf and is doing a bit of sign language, so the princess wanted to know what it is called when you cannot hear (deaf), when you cannot see (blind), and when you cannot talk (mute). Then she asked "what is it if you don't have a head?" Weird, but okay. It took a while for her to get how critical a head is, but I think she finally did. I am interested to see what she comes up with next!

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

Perfect Little Saturday!

Our weekends seem to fill up so fast with birthday parties, family events, house projects, errands, etc that we rarely have a weekend or two looming with nothing on the schedule for Saturday. This weekend, however, was one of those fabulously empty weekends! The princess has been talking about flying and asking how things fly recently, so I decided we would get up Saturday and head downtown to check out the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was just the four of us, no schedule, no worries about meeting up with anyone, so we got up slowly, packed up some lunch, and hit up Dunkin Donuts (or "DD" as the kids call it!) for breakfast.

The museum was awesome. It was our first museum experience and we made it very low key, bypassing the tours and shows, just letting the kids walk around and look at stuff. Obviously they cannot read and we did not spend much time reading the placards to learn. But, they did learn just by looking and hearing little snippets. We got to check out the lunar lander, see astronaut suits, touch a moonrock, look through telescopes, check out planets, play with a prism, and tons more. The kids favorite part was seeing Amelia Earhart's REAL plane! When the princess was a baby a friend of mine gave us a book "You Can't Do That Amelia", which is a kids book about Amelia Earhart from childhood through her infamous plane ride across the Atlantic. We have read the book probably a hundred times and every time we talk about being brave, Amelia Earhart is the reference we all use for bravery! It was awesome to see how excited the kids were to see her statue, her flying goggles, and of course, her red plane.

After walking around the museum (we only stayed about an hour to an hour and a half), we headed back to the car to get our lunch. Turns out the parking space we got was right next to this gorgeous, big autumn tree. So we sat under the tree with the brown, orange, and yellow leaves and ate lunch, played in the leaves, and ran around the beautiful buildings of DC. It sounds cheesy, it felt cheesy, but it also was amazing. Taking the time to enjoy beautiful weather and beautiful scenery with no cares to the time or a schedule was phenomenal.

After getting a second wind from lunch, we headed up the street to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinosaurs. There is so much to see in this museum, we will definitely be heading back there sometime soon. But, for Saturday, just the one exhibit was enough.

We are so blessed to live so close to DC that we can make a quick trip down to check out all of these (FREE) museums. I am glad we took advantage of this on Saturday. It was the kind of day that was "nothing special" yet one of the best days I have had in ages and I am glad to have a place to document this memory!

Thanks for listening!
~Erin

The Selection Phase

I love our daycare/preschool, I like the school, the administration, and most importantly all of the teachers. At this point we have been there almost 3 years and while that seems like a short amount of time, we have really had an opportunity to grow a lot here. The munchkin started out in the infant room, moved up to the mobile infant room, then over to the toddlers room, which is where the princess started her journey at the school. They had the same toddler room teachers, the same two-year old room teachers, and they will have the same three-year old room teachers. But because of teachers moving around to different rooms and the fact that the classrooms of same ages come together on the playground, in the morning, and in the afternoon, we have been able to get to know all of the teachers. And we love them, I could not be more thrilled that we found this tiny little church daycare. Sadly, we are hoping to move next summer, which means big changes. The baby will never go here. The princess will leave her friends and start kindergarten. The munchkin will have a totally new school for pre-school, one where she does not know the kids or the teachers, one where her sister never paved the road for her. I am scared because she is the shier child, the more reserved one, whereas the princess  had no problem making a name for herself (in a good way!). The truth is, she is will be fine. And if she is not, we will find a different preschool. The problem is me, how will I keep my fear and my reservation from holding her back? I have noticed more and more recently that I feel more affected by things that happen to or around my kids than they do. If a child tells one of my kids they do not want to be friends, I hear the story in the same tone of voice as I hear about playing on the playground. So I try not to pry and make a big deal about it, because if it is not a big deal to my kid, I am not going to push that on them. But inside, my heart is racing. Why does that kid not like mine? What did she do? Is that kid a bully?

I asked today at the princess's parent teacher and they said it is normal, a part of the selection process, where kids select people they want to be friends with in life. It is totally normal. And all of the kids are friends and get along. There are no cliques, no issues, no bullies. It is just life.

Thanks for listening!
~Erin