Saturday, September 7, 2013

Preparing for Preschool

Well, our little girl is starting preschool in a few days. Eeek! I am so excited, for different reasons. The biggest reason is that I'm excited to see her in this new role...I'm excited to see her surrounded by kids her age. I know how much she loves playing with other kids and how she lights up when we have friends over or go to people's houses. I'm excited to see her learning and see how her vocabulary expands. I'm excited to see how she reacts to being away from me. I think she will love it and won't even notice I'm gone!
I'm also excited for myself and for JJ. I think Audrey is quite bored at home lately. We play a lot together, go outside, playdates, playground, etc, but I think she's just tired of being with us. I'm excited to have her out of the house for a few hours so that JJ and I can have some one on one time together. Our days often consist of "The Audrey Show" and that's it, so JJ gets the backseat a lot. I also cannot wait to go grocery shopping with only one child! I can hardly remember how nice that was...
I'm curious to see how the learning part goes at preschool. I was reading over the "skills" that they work on in the 3's class, and Audrey already knows many of them. She knows her colors, shapes, letters, can count to 30 and recognize the numbers, she can recognize her name, understands one to one correspondence, knows her nursery rhymes.. I predict the biggest obstacle for her will be engaging with the teachers. She is shy when she first meets people, and when she's uncomfortable she won't talk, so her speaking skills might be an issue there. She's also very stubborn and when she doesn't want to do something, she just won't do it. There's no getting around that. I know it might be different with other adults whom she deems more respectable than me, so hopefully that's the case.

Of course I will post pictures and updates to let you all know how the big day goes! I won't cry....I'll try not to, anyways.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Minivan Mom

That's me. A minivan mom....soccer mom....dorky mom. How did this happen?

We outgrew my SUV the day JJ was born. The car is great and I loved driving it, but it is narrow and couldn't fit three carseats across (if that day ever comes). It can't even fit two car seats and a third person in the back, so really it only seats 4 people...this is a problem. We knew we wanted something that could fit more people but we also wanted more storage in the back. My SUV could hardly even fit my stroller and when I had the stroller I couldn't have anything else. On top of having lots of seating and lots of storage, we wanted to be able to take Josie with us. These three requirements left us with either a minivan or a Suburban. A large SUV with a third row meant no trunk/storage and no space for the dog. The choice between a minivan and a suburban was kind of tough. Obviously a Suburban is the "cool" choice, but not practical at all. The gas alone would kill us. Plus, they are so high that I'd have trouble getting myself into the car...and what about the kids?!! haha I can't imagine myself driving one of those.
So the minivan it was. We researched them online and found features we wanted and things we liked and didn't like. Then we went out and looked at some in our price range. I liked the Nissan Quest but ultimately we found the Chrystler Town & Country that had everything we wanted and more. I drove it home that day! We planned on trading in the SUV but they weren't giving us as much as we had hoped, so we are keeping it for now. We still may sell it but we're not sure right now. Its been nice for Josh to drive it.
As dorky as a minivan is, I have to admit that I LOVE IT. I am so happy with the purchase. I love being able to hit a button while we are walking to the car and the door opens and Audrey can jump right it. No more struggling to get her wrangled into the car while I get JJ and groceries and everything else in there at the same time. We went to New York with Josh's family and we were all able to fit comfortably, with our luggage, for the 6 hour trip. And we got to watch movies while we drove! I love having the stow and go space under the floor boards in the back. The seats can fold down in there, but I use it to store an emergency blanket and diapers and car toys. It keeps everything looking neater and cleaner than having it strewn about the floor. I'm still getting used to driving a bigger and longer car than I'm used to, but its been almost two months and I LOVE it!