First Day of School!!

Getting your picture taken in front of the flowers with your lunch box, always a tradition for me growing up, now passed along to an uncooperative Tyler.

My sweet baby boy went off to his first day of preschool today! He was very excited because I'd been talking up what great new toys there would be for him to play with and look at. I failed to mention that he'd be looking and playing at them without me (was that mean?). So, when he was distracted I hit the road and tried not to look back (or cry). Luckily, we did not receive a call from the school so he clearly did okay. When I came in the room at the end of the 3 hours, he ran to me and said, "Go home now!!!!" like he'd been in some horrible Thai prison for the past six months instead of making cute Valentine's day bags and playing with choo choos. The teacher said he did great, right as T said, "You were exercizing, Mommy," which is apparently what they told him I was doing. When we got into the car he mentioned that he cried at school because he was sad and that he had had a poopy diaper there. I hope he wasn't crying, that just breaks my heart to think of him crying and sad while I'm just trying to catch up on stuff at home! I think he'll really like it, though, once he gets used to it and realizes that I will always, always, always come back for him. I had asked the teacher if he ate a good lunch (I packed enough for 3 toddlers) and she said yes, but I looked in his sack and it looked like he ate all of 3 raisons. So, during our errands after school he proceeded to eat all of his cheese, crackers, turkey sandwich, more raisins, cheeries, grapes, biscotti, fruit roll-up and cereal bar. Preschool made him hungry!!! He's now sleeping like an angel and I couldn't be more proud of him! Boy, it's hard to think that we're on that very, very first step of letting our little one grow up (especially when we've been able to totally protect him from everything and the preschool wants us to pack an "emergency kit" with water, blanket, non-perishable food items, etc in case something should happen). I can't imagine! My kit was 5 times bigger than it was supposed to be so the teacher sent me home to re-pack it, but I couldn't help it! The thought of Tyler being somewhere in an emergency without us kills me. So the least I could do it put in extra Pop Tarts and a bigger blanket to help console him until we were able to get there to save him, right?. Why do I think I'm going to blink and I'll be sending him off to college? Isn't there some way I can stop him from growing or at least slow it down? Please, someone create a pill that does this!


In the classroom curiosity.

The second day of preschool T's curiosity did not help as he cried for me more than on day one. It was heartbreaking! But, when I went to pick him up he had frosting and sprinkles all around the outside of his mouth and Valentine's Day stickers all over him, plus a big bag of Valentine's to take home so I know he had a good time (once again, first words out of his mouth were, "Go Home Now!!"). We ate our lunch in the car on the way home and finished it up in the front seat with a special "car picnic" that I'm guessing will be our routine from here on out.

Big Valentine smiles with a few remnants of sprinkles and face paint left.

The next week school was cancelled for "Ski Week" so we've been doing some fun stuff around town. I took him to the Clifford exhibit at the Science and Discovery Center (he calls it the "Recovery Center" and I think to myself, oh, not yet, honey) where he was able to play with Clifford, Cleo, T-Bone and do all sorts of things like sort mail, drive boats and cars, fill Clifford's dog dish with bones, etc. We've also been to the mall, the beach, Choo Choo train park, My Gym and hosted a pizza party playdate at our house. I'm dreading next Tuesday when we go back to school without a special holiday, but it's got to be done. He's waking up from his nap now so I've got to run. He wakes up singing a different song every time these days. I think I hear "Zippidy Doo Dah" right now - hilarioius!

It's a dog's life, Tyler Shea!

Brrrrrr! Co co co co cold Colorado!

You paid how much to drag me here?

Snowsuit - $90
Snowboots - $45
New thermal mittens - $25
Flight to Colorado - $550
Rental car - $250
New sled - $15
Tyler's response to his first sledding ride down the hill: "Go home now!" Not exactly priceless. And, of course, my reaction was, "Get your cute little butt back on that sled and we're going down again!" In his defense, there was a lot of fresh powder on the sledding hill and it was all going straight up into the only little 4"X4" space of exposed flesh he had on his entire body (right into the face). John said it was hilarious to see him coming down the mountain trying to block it all out. I guess we should have invested another $10 in a pair of goggles! All was not lost, however. Once we got to the tubling hill and he could sit on my lap and due to my rather heavy backside (or frontside thank you, baby) we would inevitably end up going down backwards which was scary as hell for me but more fun if you didn't want snow flying up in your face. Then, of course, the biggest problem was the fact that we both felt like we were going to have heart attacks walking up the hill!

Can't we just ride it in the lodge?

Our next activity was taking him out on the ice rink in a nice blizzard. Normally I picture keystone ice skating as filled with people all buzzing by happily on the lake. When I looked out towards the middle Christmas tree, I could barely make out the other two figures on the ice as they were bracing themselves against the wind. But, we came to this place to experience winter and goddammit we're going to experience winter! So, into the sled he went. Onto our snowboots went little tread things. Out onto the ice we all trudged. We slung him around for all of 10 minutes before admitting we were soft Californians no longer interested in roughing it and all those movies like "Eight Below" or "Survivorman" that make the snow and the cold look fun and romantic are just a bunch of crap. Back into the lodge we came, defeated by the elements.

Arcade games, now this is more like it!

I think we've gotten the notion that a family snow vacation just isn't for us right now. We honestly felt like the penguins in "Madagascar" who finally arrive in Antarctica and plainly state, "well this sucks!" Perhaps it was because the weather was so drastically cold, snowy and windy. Perhaps we truly are soft, pathetic Californians. Perhaps we should return to the mountains in the summer and try some summer sports when mama isn't pregnant and can't breathe. Perhaps. In the meantime, we were happy to get back to the beach and the 75 degree weather where we could go barefoot and make sledding hills for our "guys" out of the sand!

Best part of sledding? Getting back in the car for a lollipop!