The Last Days of Kindergarten

I can't believe my baby girl has finished kindergarten.

On Friday, I took a couple of pics before leaving for school and then drove Amelia to school and walked her inside so I could help her deliver a few end-of-the-year teacher gifts. Then I had to get out of there in a hurry because I could feel tears welling up in my eyes, and I didn't want to be "that" mom bawling in the hallway.

(To add insult to injury, she also lost her first "top tooth" this past Wednesday. So far, all her lost teeth have been bottom ones.)

It isn't so much the "being finished with kindergarten" that was upsetting to me, but it was saying goodbye to many of the people who have been a huge part of our lives for the past two years. (We are moving back to Georgia in a couple of weeks -- more on that later.) We are excited about what the future holds for us, but saying goodbye is never fun.

(You should also know that because I am a glutton for emotional punishment, I decided to finish cleaning out my office after dropping off Amelia for her last day. The Dixie Chicks' version of the song "Landslide" came on Spotify, and I got all teary-eyed again. Pull it together, Amy!)

While I'm on the subject of the end of kindergarten, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't mention the ridiculously precious kindergarten play that Amelia and her class put on the week before.  The play was called "Our Year in Kindergarten," and they essentially went through the year of special events, with each student dressed as something or someone who represented that particular event or holiday. (You know you are in Louisiana when there is a Mardi Gras King and Queen and the class sings "Mardi Gras Mambo.")

Amelia was the Snow Queen, and her friend Marshall was the Snow King. I was so proud of how they sang their duet of "Winter Wonderland" loud and proud in front of an audience of parents and students!

(I tried to include the video, but I am apparently technologically challenged and cannot get it to upload successfully.)

(I realize that the video might be of interest only to me and the grandparents, so you don't really care if I can get the video to upload.)

(That's okay, because TRUTH: I rarely watch videos on other people's blogs. So there you go.)

Here are a few pics from the day...

We have made some sweet, sweet memories in the past couple of weeks!

And...it is already March

So much for that plan to be better at blogging. I completely skipped the month of February. The last time I wrote, we were in the midst of some inclement weather. When it was all said and done, Amelia missed four days of school, and I missed two. (Fortunately, two of her days were on days I didn't have to teach.)

ANYWAY...

I can't really explain why I've been absent on the blog. I think sometimes I just don't know what to write about - sometimes, I just want to write about TV shows I watch, if I'm being completely honest. (Parenthood - so good! Parks and Recreation - so good! Nashville  - what happened? How I Met Your Mother - the first half of the season was terrible, and now that it is finally getting good again, it is going to leave! Scandal - I have no idea what is going on!)

Sometimes, I feel like I should write about Amelia. (I think that is all my mother is interested in reading about, anyway - ha!. I'm not sure about my other dozen readers.) She is at a funny age (really, almost every stage has been funny in its own way), and I have some good stories, but then I feel like they are funny only if you hear her / see her say and do these things. But I don't want to forget these stories, either. #thestruggle

I often would like to blog about work - student stories, teaching, etc. - but I have recently been convicted of telling funny or cringe-worthy stories - and let's face it, those are the BEST stories - about my students without their knowledge. That doesn't seem fair. (Would I want my shortcominsg put on display for strangers to wag their fingers and shake their heads about? Probably not.)

So I guess I have felt a bit directionless lately in terms of the blog, but let me at least give you a rundown of our February...

• We had a good Valentine's Day. Amelia was really into it (candy? pink and red hearts? small gifts of affection? what wouldn't she love about that?), and Darryl did really well. Amelia and I came home to a dozen roses and cards for each of us, and Darryl also bought me this cookbook, which inspired me to try to bake more often.
• Amelia was in a little musical program at her school. The kindergarten classes sang "You've Got a Friend in Me" from Toy Story . So cute.
• My parents came for a few days for Grandparents' Day at Amelia's school (it was the day after the musical program), and we enjoyed visiting with them. My mother was particularly helpful in doing our laundry, because I had a lot going on. In the midst of the craziness...
• We took a trip to Disney World. I may or may not blog more about this. Honestly, blog posts that involve photo uploads ALSO make me not want to blog very often. :-/ It was a bit more crowded than we would have liked, but we still had a great time. 
• And now, for whatever reason, Blogger will not let me write  unless it is in the form of a bullet point. Long sigh. I think that is a sign I should wrap this up.

Inclement Weather (?) And Rambling Thoughts

So.

The city of Baton Rouge apparently SHUTS 'ER DOWN at the slight mention of sub-30 temps and light rain. Amelia's school announced it was closing before any rain happened at all, and my school decided to close at 5:00 this morning.

And I find this all pretty hilarious. When I taught high school in Georgia, I worked for a school system that was well-known for NEVER shutting down, regardless of snow, ice, whatever. If the roads were "passable," then school was on.

There IS a very, very light dusting of snow on the roofs of the houses in our neighborhood. (I mean VERY light...just on a few select shingles.) Amelia asked if we could climb a ladder to the roof to build a snowman. 1) Is that an ER visit waiting to happen, or what? and 2) Bless her heart. (If I were Oprah Winfrey or someone of similar wealth, I would have had a snow machine installed in our backyard for Christmas. ALL Amelia wants to do is play in some snow.)

But anyway, so far I've enjoyed a morning of sleeping in (until 8!), and then leisurely sipping coffee while watching Good Morning America. And I totally teared up watching the feature they did on Liz Vargas (love her) and her recent effort to conquer her alcoholism. Just seeing the support of her colleagues (including Amy Robach and Robin Roberts, who have been on the receiving end of that support as well) was very moving. (Also, I find that the tears come more easily as I get older. Why is that?)

On a lighter note, and speaking of GMA, I never cease to be amazed at the transformation that George Stephanopoulos has undergone over the years. Do y'all remember when he was all frumpy and disheveled-looking as Clinton's press secretary? (I tried to find a good photo of this and failed.) And now he is this suave, sophisticated news man? Who knew?

(I think I've spent too much time thinking about that.)

(And I think I'm obsessed with GMA, despite the fact I rarely get to watch it these days.)

And speaking of transformation, I (well, my hair "stylist") chopped about eight inches off my hair yesterday. My hair had gotten REALLY long, and I just needed a change. I'm not sure if I love it yet, but I don't hate it. I think I wish it were just an inch or so longer, but it's hair. It will grow back.

(That last sentence shows tremendous growth -- pun not really intended, but there it is -- on my part. There have been MANY times in my past when I cried over a haircut. Who has time for that? I'd rather cry about the cast of GMA and their personal struggles.)

The news just came on with a special update on the "havoc" that this "winter weather" is causing. I better go so I can...do absolutely nothing.

Random Things from the Past Week

I am trying to be better about blogging. I really am.

Here are a few things that have been going on since I blogged last...

--I started a new semester. I don't really have anything significant to say about that other than I am teaching the two courses I enjoy teaching the most, so I'm hoping for a good semester. I'm not so sure about my lit class, though; on day two I had eight people absent (out of 35). Hmmm...

--Because of Harry Connick, Jr., I am giving American Idol a shot this season. So far, I'm enjoying it. The chemistry among the judges - Harry, J. Lo, and Keith Urban - is fun, and Harry has the ability to be honest and charming at the same time.

--I am a little too excited about the Winter Olympics starting soon. And don't judge me, but I have possibly arranged some assignment due dates to accommodate my obsession.

--Amelia is into all things related to Frozen. I'm wondering how many times I hear the song, "Let it Go" in a day.

--Speaking of Amelia, can I say that I wish I could hit the pause button on the passage of time and freeze this age for a couple of years? She is 6, and I am enjoying it so much. Granted, it isn't always rainbows and tulips, but for the most part, this is a fun age.

--I began my weekend Friday afternoon by shopping for some pants to add to my "teaching wardrobe." Let me just say that it was a depressing way to begin the weekend. However...

--I ran (and by "ran," I mean "slowly jogged and walked") a half-marathon yesterday. For some reason, that has always (and by "always," I mean "for the past five years or so") been something I've wanted to do. My time wasn't excellent (2:45), but I did it...and the race itself was rather fun. I do think I'm going to stick with running for a while because I don't hate it, but I don't think I'm going to do another longer distance race for a long time. I hope to stick to some 5Ks and maybe 10Ks and just work on getting faster and running more and walking less.

And that's about it.

A December / Christmas Recap

So, here's the thing: I dread posts like this because I find them overwhelming. And then I end up taking a longer-than-planned blog absence because I feel like I can't write about current things until I cover the "big events," and, as I already have said, I find the "big events" quite daunting.

Therefore, I'm going to compromise and just touch on a few highlights of our holiday season. Okay? Okay.

Honestly, December seems a blur. There were Christmas activities, events, birthday parties for friends, Christmas itself. Something seemed to be going on constantly.

One Friday evening, Amelia's school was supposed to have a movie on the playground, but they had to postpone because of the weather. We invited her friend Grace (and Grace's mom) over, and we had just the best time. We ordered pizza, hung out in comfortable clothes, snacked on Christmas cookies, and had a nice evening. The moms chatted while the girls played.

We made a spontaneous, unplanned trip to see Santa. He was at an outdoor shopping center on a VERY cold day, so there was no line. Amelia wasn't wearing anything Christmasy, and the set-up wasn't very elaborate, but again...NO LINE. Priorities, people. (She asked for a princess guitar and a soccer whistle. Y'all, that soccer whistle was a 59-cent whistle she saw at Party City when we were shopping for goody bags for her birthday. You'll be happy to know Santa delivered the soccer whistle...and Aunt Ashley delivered on the princess guitar.)

I graded like a crazy person the last week or so of school. One day, though, my friend Martha and I just HAD to take a break, so we spent a day in New Orleans. We had lunch at a yummy place called Dick & Jenny's and did some Christmas shopping.

Now, here's a story I must tell...I had bought tickets for Amelia and me to see The Nutcracker at the River Center here in Baton Rouge. I had great seats, and we were pumped. It was going to be a girls' afternoon out! I showed up at the Will Call window, and there were no tickets under my name. The woman took the credit card I purchased them under, and still no tickets. I pulled up my confirmation email on my phone. She scrolled through the email and showed me that I had purchased tickets to The Nutcracker at the River Center in COLUMBUS, GEORGIA. Y'all. What. On. Earth. I almost started crying because I was so mortified / in disbelief that I had done something THAT nutso. I had no clue. Anyway, by this time, the performance was about to start and Amelia was tugging on my arm, ready to take a seat. Since we were already there, I purchased the cheapest tickets they had...and those landed us in the top row of the balcony. Womp wompppppppp.

But my girl looked cute, and she enjoyed the show. I took a couple of pics of her. :-)

I also did quite a bit of cooking and baking this season. Here are some cookies I made to give to Amelia's teachers.

(The photo right above is of all the boxed up / bagged up goodies to take to Amelia's school.)

My parents came the Sunday before Christmas (which was also the day of the "Nutcracker incident) and stayed until Friday. We really enjoyed having them here. They play a lot with Amelia, and I have to give a shout-out to my mother, who was most helpful in washing pots, pans, and dishes while I cooked.

On another kitchen note, every year I say I am going to make the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls, and every year, I back out. The recipe makes seven pans, according to her. I ended up with nine. And dadgum it all, I don't think I took one single photo of the finished product. On Christmas Eve, Amelia and I delivered pans to Martha's family and to Grace's family. And we enjoyed a couple of pans ourselves. (I mean our family enjoyed them. Amelia and I did not consume two pans ourselves.)

Here are my elf and I, delivering the goods:

On Christmas Eve, Amelia did the usual ritual of leaving cookies and hot chocolate for Santa. She had made a special placemat for Santa at school, and she was very concerned that Santa would take the placemat with him. In fact, she wanted to start out her note for him by warning him not to take the placemat, but we assured her that if she whispered those instructions to our Elf ("Princess Ella"), she would see to it that Santa left it. And he did.

Princess Ella was a huge hit this year. Amelia would look for her every morning, first thing. (And then she would go to her Lego advent calendar, which was also a huge hit.)

(By the way, when Amelia discovered the elf standing with the Nutcracker one morning, she said the elf looked "awkward." I can't say I disagree.)

Oh wait...here is Amelia on Christmas Eve, excited about Santa's arrival. (She also checked NORAD every two seconds to update us on Santa's whereabouts. It. Was. Hilarious. Well, the first twenty times, at least.)

And Christmas morning was the usual, but fun, flurry of activity. Amelia was quite thrilled with this Elsa dress that Santa brought. She pretty much wore it nonstop for two days...and danced MANY times to "Let it Go."

My parents gifted Amelia with a karaoke machine. Enough said.

(I think I will enjoy the karaoke machine more when I find a karaoke CD with "Strawberry Wine" or "Walkaway Joe" on it.)

That evening, our friends Damian and Rebecca came over, and they joined all of us for a yummy dinner of prime rib, baked potato casserole, Yorkshire pudding (my first time attempting that, at Darryl's request), roasted asparagus, and dessert. It was a fun, wonderful day -- I really think there is nothing like Christmas with an excited kid. :-)

I thought I was winding it up, but I just realized I left out two things I want to make sure to document. First, somewhere in all that craziness was Amelia's Christmas dance recital. It was a hoot, as always. Here's my cute reindeer.

And last, but not least...this was our first year having a real tree. I. Loved. It. Our artificial tree that we had years finally just bit the dust last year, and since our housing situation is temporary, we didn't want to invest the money in another artificial one just yet. I'm hoping to convince Darryl that we need a real tree every year, though...

(Amelia always enjoyed rearranging the ornaments on it.)

This post might qualify for the most disjointed one I've ever written.

Anyway. Moving on...

It was a fun Christmas, for sure, but it was busy, busy, busy. We shared some wonderful times with family and friends, and we know we will treasure these memories for years to come!

The End.

2014 Resolutions and Whatnot

The fact I am writing about 2014 Resolutions the day after New Year's Day should show just how resolute I am.

Not very.

Here are some things I'd like to see happen in 2014. They aren't necessarily "resolutions," but maybe just "goals."

1) Be more diligent about exercise. I don't have a specific weight-loss goal in mind, but I think if I make an effort to exercise more frequently, some pounds will drop (provided I don't follow up the exercise by eating cookies and cake).

2) Be better about cooking at home. We tend to eat out a lot, even when Darryl is traveling. Is it really THAT much easier to pick up a grilled cheese at Sonic than make one at home? Probably not.

3) Drink fewer diet sodas. I'm not ruling them out completely, but if I could move to just a couple a week as opposed to a few a day...that would be a good thing.

4) Read more books for fun. I tend to get so bogged down in reading things for my classes and reading students' papers that I typically don't run to a book for more reading when I get a spare minute. However, I've done a good bit of reading over my break, and it has reminded me how much I enjoy a good book.

5) Get involved in a church again. This is a long story, and I don't want to get into it at the moment, but in short, we've really struggled to find a church in Baton Rouge. Amelia DOES get a decent amount of Biblical teaching through her school (and we try to supplement/support that as well), so that helps, but I miss our whole family being involved in church.

6) Take a family vacation. (We already have plans for this, so this should be an easy goal to accomplish, right?)

7) Have a house that we OWN. We have been renting for almost two years, and while there is nothing "wrong" with renting, and while I realize many people rent for their entire lives and are perfectly content doing so, we are ready to get to a house that we can make our own.

8) Blog more often. :-)

9) "Unplug" more often. I confess I'm addicted to my i-Devices and probably should be on them MUCH less. I haven't quite figured out how I want to go about this, but I'll report back with my efforts.

10) Get off this couch and computer and clean out my daughter's room while she is at my parents'. That is is the final item on my to-do list for this week, and it needs to happen. So Adios!

2013: The Year that Wore Us Slap Out

My parents were here for the holidays (which I plan to recap later this week), and they took Amelia back with them on Friday. For the first 48 hours or so after they left, Darryl and I basically rested on the couch, napped, read, watched TV, napped some more, went out for a bit only to return shortly to rest some more -- in other words, we were SPENT.

(Quick note: On one of our brief excursions out of the house, we saw Saving Mr. Banks. Excellent movie. See it.)

I told Darryl that the past few weeks had been exhausting and that I just needed to catch up on some rest. Darryl responded with, "Really, this whole year has been exhausting."

And he was right. This year HAS been exhausting.

2013 has not been a "bad" year by any means, but we do feel as though it has been a bit of a roller coaster. A non-stop roller coaster.

--Darryl traveled A LOT for work this year, more than he ever has before. That in itself has been tiring for him, but it has been tiring for me as well as I juggled a few more responsibilities at home while he was gone.

--We began the year believing we were making a move back to Atlanta - so much so that I turned in a resignation letter (that was able to retract, thank goodness) and even went to a job interview in Atlanta - only to have things not work out as planned. We STILL had to move to another rental house here. The whole process was exhausting physically and emotionally.

--This last semester was more challenging than any I remember in recent history. I taught freshmen for the first time in oh, twelve years or so, and they needed a lot of attention as they were adjusting from life at home to life at school. Our holidays were out of whack as well, with a really late Fall Break and a later-than-usual finish to the semester. Good times!

--We have been going nonstop since late October. Between Halloween festivities, all of our birthdays, the New York trip, and then the holidays...it has been a wild ride!

There were many fun moments this past year spent with friends and family, and we DO realize we are blessed in many ways, but yes, 2013 was definitely a tiring year. Not bad, just tiring.

So...on to 2014.  I hope it holds many good things for everyone!

A Look Back: Amelia Turned 6!

One more event I wanted to blog about before the "fresh blog start" of 2014 is Amelia's 6th Birthday.

Seriously, how is she 6?

Like her mom, Amelia enjoyed celebrating her birthday all week.

The day after Darryl and I returned from New York, my parents, Amelia, and I celebrated by having dinner at Chuck E. Cheese...her request, of course.

The next day was her actual birthday. She had requested that I bring "rainbow cupcakes" for her classmates, and I had lunch with her before the partaking of the cupcakes. She was SO excited to celebrate her birthday at school because she was going to get a visor, a pencil, a bookmark, and a couple of other treats.

Good grief, I love that girl.

On Sunday, we had her actual birthday party. She wanted to have her party at a painting place called Mud Pies and Masterpieces because she had gone to a friend's party there months ago and really enjoyed it. She wanted it to be a princess party as well, and we invited the girls from her class. Only four girls were able to come (one of her friends was out of town, another had committed to another birthday party, and so on), but it ended up being a perfect-sized group for this painting endeavor. :-)

(On a side note: I cannot recommend Mud Pies & Masterpieces strongly enough. The women who run it are not only great with kids, but they were also SUPER helpful in assisting me with setting up for the party. They made it so, so fun!)

Here are some different photos of her big day...

It was such a fun little party, and Amelia LOVED it. And isn't that what birthday parties are all about?

New York, Baby!!

Hello there.

One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get back to blogging more regularly. I want to start 2014 with a "fresh start" with blogging, but before I begin anew, I want to talk about one thing that happened last month...

A trip to New York City.

For whatever reason, I had NEVER been to NYC, but I had always wanted to go. As "the big 4-0" was looming in the horizon, I was telling Darryl that I wanted to do something really monumental and fun to mark this milestone birthday, and I hinted VERY strongly that I thought it might be a good time to take this trip. So we did!

My parents were sweet enough to come stay with Amelia for a few days and keep up her routine (school, mainly) while we were gone. We were/are very grateful to them for that.

Darryl and I left EARLY Thursday morning. Here we are as we were taking off on our adventure:

Once we arrived in the big city, we got situated at our hotel and set off to find the nearest Shake Shack (which for us turned out to be the new one at Grand Central Station). Shake Shack did NOT disappoint.

We were extremely tired, so we went to our hotel to take a nap. We had a show to see that night, and I knew that if I didn't get a nap in, I would never make it through the show.

Before our show, though, we met up with Darryl's cousin Malorie and her roommate, Ashley. We were so happy to get to meet up with them! We ate at the famous Junior's, and while my meal was just okay, the cheesecake was delicious!!

Our show, Pippin, was literally across the street. Malorie snapped this pic of us before Darryl and I headed over to see it.

And here I am, so excited to see Pippin. Our seats were phenomenal!

Y'all. This show was SO GOOD. I was somewhat familiar with the story, but after seeing the cast perform on the Tony Awards, I really wanted to see this production. (A huge selling point, too, is that the original cast is still performing.) Here's the Tony performance, if you are interested:



Friday morning, we were up bright and early so that we could hang out at GMA. If you know me at all, you know I LOVE the cast of GMA (especially Robin Roberts). I didn't care anything about getting on camera; I just wanted to hang out and watch. Malorie was sweet enough to hang out with us for the morning, too. I didn't get a glimpse of Robin, unfortunately, but we did see Sam Champion and Lara Spencer. And it was COLD.

After freezing our rear ends off at the GMA set, we looked in some of the touristy stores, like the M&M store and such.

We tried to get some good photos in Time Square, but the camera / lighting / whatever wasn't cooperating very well. We had fun trying, though!

We strolled over to the Museum of Modern Art. It was pretty cool -- I would have liked to stay longer, but we had tickets for the 9/11 Memorial AND we wanted to eat lunch (we can't skip lunch, y'all), so the trip to MoMA was quick. After lunch, Malorie had to leave for her own out-of-town trip, but we were glad to get to spend some time with her!

The 9/11 Memorial was, as expected, overwhelming...but it is definitely a must-see if you go to New York. Such a peaceful and beautiful tribute to those who lost their lives on that day.

We rested again at the hotel (NYC involves A LOT of walking) before dinner at a place my friend Tim recommended, Blue Smoke. This was probably one of my favorite meals. So good!!

After dinner, we strolled over to Top of the Rock for a view of the city at night. I know some people are not "big city" people and all that, but is this not beautiful? It looks as though the city is sprinkled in glitter...

Saturday, we decided just to walk around and look in some of the stores -- Bloomingdales, Saks 5th Avenue, and so on. (Before hitting the stores, we found a delicious bagel place.) It was just a low-key day with no agenda. We had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall Cuban place that we found via Yelp!, and the food was tasty.

That evening, we saw our second show, Newsies. I had several friends who had recommended it to me, and it did not disappoint. I can't really say that I liked one show better than the other because they are completely different shows, but Newsies was really, really good.

Sunday was our last day. We had decided to spend the morning in Central Park. If I had known how much I would have loved the park, I would have set aside more time to spend there. The leaves were AMAZING; and I'm pretty sure I could have sat on a bench and read a book and people-watched for hours. Here are a few shots:

After our time at the park, we had lunch at an Italian place Darryl had eaten at before, stopped by a couple of shops on our way back to the hotel, and then packed up our stuff to come home.

We really had an amazing time; as much as we might see NYC in movies, TV shows, the news, etc., I think it is something that needs to be experienced in real life. Our plan is to take Amelia when she is just a little older, so that is why we didn't do things this time around like the Statue of Liberty, the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular, and so on.

And while I don't really have a desire to LIVE in NYC, if anyone would like to buy me a little apartment so I could visit a few times a year, I would be okay with that...

"I still remember when 30 was old..."

Two points if you know the song that lyric is from...



(I want to clarify to any interested parties that this song is in no way autobiographical for me.)

(However, that song played pretty much on a constant loop during my mid-20s because HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE IT???)

Anyway. The point of this post...

Today is my last day I can say I'm "in my thirties."

Yes, my friends, tomorrow is the big 4-0. And if I can "remember when 30 was old," I can also remember when 40 was ancient. And I'm almost there.

This week has been busy, but I have also had a little "introspection time" here and there. While we have had some challenges of late (that's another post for another time), I have to say the 30s were maybe my favorite. Here are a few reasons why:

• When I turned 30, I was working my only job outside of academia -- I was a paralegal for a little over a year. I kind of hated the work (and missed teaching desperately), but I made a couple of friends that I remain friends with, and I'm thankful for that.
• I began and ended (although perhaps only temporarily) a job as a high school teacher. Now, to appreciate this fact, you must know that there was a time I said, "I will NEVER teach high school." I think God likes it when we say things like that because He must be thinking, "The joke's on you, girlfriend." HOWEVER, for seven years I had that job, and it gave me the opportunity to work with some amazing people and teach some great students. Most rewarding job, for sure.
• I've made some awesome friends who, I think, are friends now for life -- friends in Georgia, new friends and old friends here in Baton Rouge. As frustrated as I get with social media sometimes (yes, people, we know your health insurance costs just skyrocketed!), I am grateful for it simply because I still feel very much in touch with everyone.
• I think I gained some perspective on things. While I'm still very much a people pleaser, I also have accepted that not everyone is going to like me, and that's okay. And a bad hair day doesn't put me in the bad mood it used to pre-30s. (Confession: In the early days, I was known to throw a hair brush. I'm not proud, but I've come a long way!)
• Most importantly, I became a mom, something I have wanted to be my whole life, and it has been even better than I ever imagined. If things had gone "our" way, we would have had a kid much earlier in life, but I'm glad things worked out the way they did. Again, that whole perspective thing I just mentioned has been, I think, very important in how we have approached parenthood.

Overall, I've got to say the 30s were very good to me, and for that, I'm very grateful.

Bring it, 40!!

Well, that month went by quickly...

It really doesn't seem possible that I've gone almost a month without blogging. How are we in the middle of September???

Here are a few updates...

Kindergarten for Amelia

Y'all, by the end of the first week of kindergarten, I wasn't sure we were going to make it.

The evening of Amelia's second day of school, I was tucking her in to bed. She seemed exhausted, and I said, "Are you sleepy, sweetie?"

She replied, "Yes. I got SO TIRED coloring my parrot today. Kindergarten is a lot of work."

The next day, as we were pulling into our driveway, she said, just out of nowhere, "I am just so tired. Today I had to make a snake. Kindergarten is so hard."

I thought we might have a long 13 years ahead of us, but now, about a month in, Amelia has adjusted to the rigors of kindergarten and seems to be doing fine.

(I also want to say, for the record, I have yet to see a parrot or a snake my child has made. Did she give up? I want to know.)

School for Me

I started back to work a week after Amelia started kindergarten. This year, I'm teaching freshmen, and it has been an EXPERIENCE so far.

"I'm emailing you, Professor _____, because I can't find your class." (I should probably correct that "professor" thing...but I don't. Ha.)

"I accidentally bought the wrong textbook. Do I need to return it and get the right one?"

"I don't think you can open PDF files on a Mac computer."

In a nutshell -- Bless. Their. Hearts.

(Also, if you are wondering, "Didn't you teach freshmen last year?" the answer is no. I taught a 2000-level composition/argument course that is typically taken by students who are at least in the second semester of their sophomore year.)

I'm also teaching a lit class. They are faithful attenders, but I'm not sure of the depth of their appreciation of fine literature.

Alas.

Other Stuff, In No Certain Order

--I am possibly funding my oral surgeon's children's education. I have had an ongoing "issue," and I won't bother going through my Maw-Maw explanation of what it is. The hope is that it has been fixed by a super-strong antibiotic, but if it isn't, he will have to -- in his words -- "go back in there surgically and clean it out." Good times. Also? Over it.

--This past summer could possibly be called, "the summer Amy caught up on a lot of TV shows." Because of that, I am eagerly awaiting the season premieres of Scandal, Parks and Recreation (y'all, I'm convinced there is no better show, at least a comedy, on TV right now), and How I Met Your Mother. Of course, rather inconveniently, the first set of essays I have to grade is coming in the week of most of the season premieres. Add to the list other shows I was watching anyway: Nashville (Connie Britton is my woman crush), Modern Family (it is wearing thin for me), and Parenthood (um, the best drama on TV, hands down).

--I could tell you about my "fit by 40" plan, but it would be the zillionth time I've discussed a new weight loss / fitness strategy, and I want to save you from witnessing another failure in that department.

(I have brownies in the oven right now.)

(But they aren't for me.)

(The smell is driving me insane.)

--I've also started scrapbooking again. Mock me if you want.

And that's it for now, folks.

And so it begins...

Today was a day that has been on my radar for a while now.

Amelia started kindergarten.

How did she go from this...

...to THIS??

But I did NOT cry.

We really couldn't have asked for a better day. Amelia woke up in a good mood, and we got ready quickly enough to have an obligatory photo session before we left.

The collage below makes me laugh. Amelia wanted us to do happy, sad, angry, etc. poses, but I don't think we ever got our act completely together. Oh, well. Good times!

 

And here is Amelia with her teacher. Amelia just walked right in, and I don't think she ever even told us goodbye!!

Then Darryl and I went to Another Broken Egg for a breakfast date. Not a bad way to spend the morning.

When I picked Amelia up, she said she had a great day. She told me all about the new rules for her class and how even though her BFF Grace isn't in her class, she still was able to see her at lunch time.

We're so proud of our little kindergartener!!