Preschool, Here We Come

Just before Riley turned three I started to think about preschool. Not in an immediate sense, but that we should probably transition Riley from her in-home daycare (which we love, love, love) to an environment with a curriculum at some point. I was going to mention it to Jesse, but was concerned that he wouldn't want to move her from her current daycare (see above: love, love, love) so I held off for the moment.

When we took Riley in for her three year wellness check our pediatrician highly recommended we think about preschool. Again, I thought Jesse might be hesitant, but he was all over it. All of a sudden, I was the apprehensive one. I wasn't sure what that was about at the time, but while Jesse kept saying we had to start doing our research I didn't take any action on it even though I knew it was the best thing to do.

Eventually, (after Jesse sent me an email filled with local preschools) I started setting up tours to check places outs. Turns out that searching for preschools in April for a start date in September is late - for some places it was a year too late (note to self: you may want to start the kindergarten search any day now). The preschools we looked at varied in cost, curriculum, philosophy, hours of operation, and so on. We weren't sure what exactly we were looking for, but had a general idea and hoped that one of the places would click for us. We toured a total of five places (two of which did not have any openings for September) and ended up applying to two (one of which we are on a waiting list because of said lack of openings).

The preschool that we are on the wait list for is a pretty awesome place, but it's also a big jump in cost. I hate to say it, but I'm secretly (or not so secretly) hoping their wait list doesn't open up (we are second on the list)... partly because of the cost, but also because I don't want to have to make a decision between two preschools when I've already got it in my head that we'll be taking Riley to the other one.

I've found this whole process interesting and exhausting and way more emotional than I thought it would be. Riley is growing in leaps and bounds... doing and saying new things everyday. She is SO ready for preschool. She NEEDS this. It's like she wants to learn new things ALL THE TIME. So this will be a good thing for her. I'm the one that needs to adjust.

Yeah, that brings me back to my apprehension. Once I started to think about it more I realized that this is probably typical mom stuff. My baby is no longer my baby. She's a big girl and it's probably more scary for me to be sending her into a new environment than it will be for her. She's way more adaptable than I remember myself being.

As a kid I stayed at home with my mom until I was three years old. It was at that time that my parents divorced and I ended up with my dad. I ended up going to two different in home daycare's (one fantastic, one served powered milk - enough said) and one day care center (hated this place - made me a little scared of centers) over a span of a few years. Plus, once I started school I was in three different schools by second grade, four different schools by 4th grade. I was a pretty shy kid so I don't think I handled change quite as well as Riley, but I still don't want her to go through that. I want her to feel some stability.

That's also why I am leaning towards the program that the city runs. I'm betting that most of those kids will move onto the same school that Riley will when kindergarten starts. And if she is lucky enough to make it into the Spanish Immersion school by the time she hits kindergarten she'll actually end up in the same building. A nice familiar place. On top of that we like the curriculum (there is an online component that we can do with her), the staff is very established there, great location near our house, big and bright rooms, a reasonable price... it seems like a great place.

So our decision has been made (barring an opening at that other place). I hope it was the right one. We've even put off a big trip we had planned to see family in Luxembourg in September to make sure this transition wasn't too overwhelming. We've been talking with Riley about going to school and she seems pretty excited about it, but I don't think she understands yet that she won't be going to Char's house (our current daycare) in a few months anymore. I know she will miss Char (we all will), but I know she will adapt. She's surprised me many times when she's been faced with something new at how well she does... even if she's a little shy at first.

It will be a big change, but a good one. And it will be the first of many future changes. Let's hope they aren't so overwhelming... for me that it, because I know she'll adjust faster than I will. She's a champ like that.

Born with a hammer in one hand and a tape measure in the other...

As many of you know I like remodeling. This blog doesn't really show the scope of remodeling I've done, but let's say if I started a blog 10 years ago that probably would have been it's focus. About that time I bought my first house, a duplex, that was built in 1900 which had multiple updates through the years... and was in need of additional love. Let's just say it was dated and was clearly impacted from years of renters.

The first thing I did once I closed on the house was rip the carpet out. The remodeling projects continued from there. I loved the changes I could make and the money I could save doing some of the work on my own (of course, using licensed professionals as needed).

When Jesse and I moved we knew that we had a list of updates for our new house that we were eager to tackle. We started with the basement and had big plans to knock that remodel out fast and head on to the next. Then I got pregnant and became somewhat useless. My brothers came over one day to help sheet rock the ceiling and had no idea that I was pregnant and could not help (I was having issues so the doctor ordered me to not lift anything and to take it easy). It was hard for me to simply serve people food and not get my hands dirty along with them.

Eventually, we got the basement finished, but all future remodels slowed down once we had a kid. Four years into our house and we've done the basement (minus the bathroom which is still in limbo) and the kitchen. We thought we'd also have all three bathrooms completed and the outside deck... along with all sorts of smaller projects. Bwahahaha. Silly us.

Even though I'm not as engrossed in these projects as I used to be I still love to track them and to search for new ideas. I have folders of papers in the basement of room ideas, and tons of sites 'pinned' on Pinterest, and now I have House Talent.

OMG, why was this site not around when I lived in the duplex! In those days I took a ton of pictures, which I then printed out and put into a photo album. Bwhahaha. Seriously, times have changed. 10 years ago I totally would have proudly displayed my photo album to anyone interested in seeing the evolution of the deck I built, or the kitchen floor I put in, or the tiling job I did in the bathroom... Now I can display it here, but I can also use this super cool site where people are specifically looking for ideas or just wanting to track their projects. Why didn't I think of this creating this site? Well, I guess I didn't have to because a couple of local guys did.

What I love about the House Talent site is that it is easy to use, easy to search for other people's projects and easy to interact with others. You can follow other people, you can comment, you can make things your favorite.

Ok, I will admit when they first went live they asked me to test it out and compensated me a bit (this task confirmed that I love quality assurance type tasks. Who knew all these years that I would totally dig that stuff). At any rate, they did not ask me to post anything about the site here, but I've been meaning to do so for some time. Actually, I've already been talking to people about it because I think it's so cool... and one of them even posted her kitchen remodel. (Ben, I still want to see your kitchen - this would be the perfect spot to display. Hint, hint.)

Anyhoo, I know this might not be that exciting to others who aren't into remodeling. Sure there are a lot of places I can find inspiration, but it's fun to see the process. How do people get from point A to point B when changing a room? What creative ideas do others have? I love making something fresh and new from something old... and being able to say "I did that" and to see what other people do gives me inspiration for the next project.

Speaking of next projects...we are in the midst of making some additional, yet small changes to our bedroom. Husband created these two representations of our bedroom (including Diablo, the cat, on the bed for accuracy, of course) to help me decide on how to repaint the walls.

We just painted it this past weekend and have some additional details to finish (I'll post pictures later and of course, be putting this on House Talent). Which one do you think we went with?

Red Wing again!

A couple weekends ago when we were in Red Wing for our anniversary we bought a new dresser. I'm lucky enough to know a couple people that have trucks so we secured the usage of one (my dad's) and decided to do a day trip with Riley to go pick up our new dresser. We figured there were some things (like trains) that she would enjoy seeing, and I wanted to check out the pottery stuff that I didn't get to see when we were last there. So on Sunday we headed off to Red Wing. We made a quick stop at my dad's to swap vehicles and off we went.

 

Riley really, really wanted to see a blue train while we were there which happened to be the only 'color' we saw on any of the trains. Phew! She was talking about blue trains for days prior.

We walked down to the river (which I didn't seem to take any pictures of and which was very high) and found a walking path and some points of interest like this statue.

 

Riley imitating the statue.

After getting the dresser, and wandering around town we stopped for breakfast at the St. James just as we did when we were here a couple weeks ago. One of the staff members did a magic trick where he pulled a red light out of Riley's ear and put it up his nose multiple times. The expression on her face was along the line of 'mind blown'. It was a fun, unexpected moment.

After food we decided to stop at the Pottery Mall. I anticipated pottery stores to be there, but no, not really. We did see the pottery museum in there and bought a book for Riley for a dollar at an antique store, but not what I expected. 

We headed back a bit before lunch so we could get home in time for nap time. Nothing too exciting, but I nice little get away. It's not that far of a drive so I can see ourselves coming back from time to time in the future.

And maybe next time we'll actually stop at a store that sells pottery.

New Friends

This past weekend was full of different activities, but was marked mostly as the weekend Riley made some new friends. She occasionally plays with my friend's kids and of course, has her friends at daycare, but this weekend seemed like the theme was 'new friends'. She even seemed to get what was meant by 'friend'. When she was younger these were just other kids that were there to play with, but now there is some connection, an ownership of sorts, with other people.

 "That's my friend."

The way she interacts in these situations is different than in the past. It reminds me how much she is changing and growing up. This weekend especially created one of those 'she'll always be my baby even when she's not a baby anymore' sort of feelings. Plus it brought out a range of emotions in me that I wasn't quite expecting (more on that later).

I missed the first friend event, a play date with Grant (Jesse's co-workers' son), because I am an idiot (I drove 45 minutes to a funeral that is NEXT weekend. *sigh*). Grant will be attending Riley's day care one day a week starting this week. It was a bit of a 'get to know a familiar face' play date and while I was bummed to miss the get together it was ok I wasn't there because Riley had fun even without me (shocking, I know). Apparently, she was a little shy at first, but the kids quickly warmed up to each other. The play date started at our house, moved to Panera for lunch, and ended up at the local pet store which is a new hot spot for Riley.

On Monday when Grant arrived at daycare I was told that it was a little overwhelming with all the kids gathering around, but apparently my kid walked up and said "Hi Grant". I can only hope it brought him a little comfort to see a familiar face.

On Sunday afternoon Riley made another new friend. I had just come home from my dad's house when I found Jesse outside with Riley talking to the 7 year old neighbor girl and her dog. I've seen this girl around as she's always riding her bike past our house and waving, and only lives a few houses away. I always got the sense that she wanted to play with Riley even when Riley was a baby. Many of the other kids down the block are older than her so I could tell she wanted a play mate. 

We invited this little girl, Greta, to play sidewalk chalk with us. The girls seemed to click even with an age difference of 4 years. Some of the older girls down the block came outside and Greta said 'hi' to them. And then my kid, who can be a little on the shy side at first, started walking over to this other yard telling these girls about her new friend and making sure they knew I was her mommy. They pretty much ignored her. I don't know if it was because she was hard to understand (soft spoken 3 year old talk) or if they were just too cool for the little kids. Every time they would ride their bike past our house Riley would attempt to talk to them, but they wouldn't really respond. Greta had to point out to them that Riley was trying to talk to them.

It broke my heart a little. 

They weren't outright mean and I'm not sure she totally got that they weren't really giving her much attention, but I did and it made me think of all the times in the future that some other person might not be nice to her and might hurt her feelings in some way. 

It made me feel so vulnerable for her.  I wanted to give her a big hug to remind her that she is unconditionally loved by someone.

And at the same time I was so proud of her for attempting to talk to the big girls, for making sure to point out who I was, for her exuberance in playing with this new girl. It made me laugh and it made me want to soak it all in to share with Jesse and to remember every detail for myself.

So many emotions!

Eventually, Greta and Riley moved to the back yard where they made food in the playhouse kitchen. And Riley started up a conversation with one of our neighbors (seriously, whats up with this girl). And then they kicked the ball around and played with the slide. And then they made beds out of lawn furniture cushions. And I thought it was going to go on forever - which is good except when it's dinner time and playtime just has to end. Riley looked so excited that I didn't know how to break it up. 

 

 

But eventually, we did have to end playtime. Greta said she would look for us when we were outside in the future and she encouraged us to stop by her yellow house when we wanted to play. I took Riley inside and she started crying, not able to comprehend why the fun had to end. She only cried for a short while and then went to the window to look for her friend. 

You're breaking my heart kid.

The next night after I put Riley to bed our doorbell rang several times. I, of course, cringed that it was ringing as I was afraid that would wake her up, but I knew who had to be at the door. It was Greta and she even brought a friend who looked to be somewhere between Riley's age and Greta's age. Unfortunately, I had to turn them away, but it made me realize that Riley's getting to that age where she'll have the neighbor kids over... and eventually will hang out at other kid's houses and I won't always be there when she's playing.

Seriously, how did she get this big? And how can I slow her aging down a little - I don't want her to grow up too fast.

My husband shared that the girls played together this afternoon while I was at work. He noted that Riley was soooo excited to have her new friend over. And apparently, the new friend's parents want to meet us. Oh my, another thing I didn't think I would be doing already - getting the approval from other parents.

Oh, how my life has changed in the last few years. And how cool it is to see my baby develop into a little girl.

Easter 2013

My Easter post.

Finally.

Easter kind if got the shaft this year (my Easter post that is) because of the whole computer upgrade, photo's being lost, the very manual process of retrieving them, and waiting for Photoshop and Bridge to be installed back on the computer. Instead of retrieving the pictures I would have been posting this... and once everything was set with the computer I started posting other things. So yes, I realize Easter was forever ago, but I am going to post about it because it did happen and I might want to look back on it one day. Nothing too exciting happened and the pictures aren't that great, but IT HAPPENED.

A few days before Easter we colored eggs. I acquired an egg coloring kit from somewhere. Not sure where, but best bet is I found it at my dad's house. I know I had it last year, but figured Riley was too young to get the whole egg coloring thing so I waited until this year to use it.

Luckily, waiting a year didn't make much of a difference since the box suggested it not be used after 1998. Yes, 1998. I debated for a split second to not use it, but I had already talked the egg coloring process up with the kid so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. 

Turns out everything was fine. With this kit you put the egg in a plastic bag and squirt some of the color in and squish it around. No vinegar or water needed. Super easy and fast and the eggs came out with vibrant colors. Riley was pretty excited and even wanted to eat one even though she doesn't like hard boiled eggs. She daintily ate a few bites of the egg white and then essentially ordered me to eat the rest. 

Just as I thought.

The night before Easter I planned to hide plastic eggs filled with crackers and letters (it's a tradition, I guess) and hang some empty plastic eggs from somewhere (ceiling, lights...). I finally decided to do all of this (with Jesse helping) after 10 pm. Great planning, poor execution (as in... I should have done it before my bedtime). Getting that yarn into those tiny holes on the eggs took far longer than I hoped and I found myself getting to bed an hour later than usual.

Last year the weather was super nice so we did the Easter egg hunt outside midday, but this year we had the never ending winter so we got Riley up and put her to work finding the eggs right away. And this sort of turned out to be breakfast too since many of the eggs had crackers in them. Win win.

I debated about getting a basket for her since she gets one from grandma and grandpa, but I grabbed this inexpensive one and filled it with just a few things. It is really hard to find non candy items, but I did find this cool egg shaped sidewalk chalk which was a huge hit.

Smile or silly face? I can't quite remember.

No interest what so ever with the egg hunt, but the other cat was totally underfoot.

After a successful egg hunt Riley and Lucy naturally sat in the window and watched all the birds who were like "WTF, it's Easter. Why is there all this snow on the ground?"

After a little bird watching we got dressed and headed to grandma and grandpa's house. Of course, there was another egg hunt. This time with candy, but also some with money. Nice thinking. She likes adding coins to her piggy bank jars so I will have to remember to add the coin thing into the cracker and letters mix for next year. In fact it might have to replace the letters, because she might not be in love with letters like she is this year. And crackers? Who doesn't love crackers?

Instead of a traditional basket, grandma and grandpa hid gifts around the house along with the plastic eggs. She got a number of things including the matching game below and some Play-Doh. I also don't totally get why we give gifts at Easter. I don't remember this happening when I was a kid, but that might just be because I am getting old and can't remember that far back. Wait, I do remember getting one hollow chocolate bunny to eat. And I am pretty sure when I was a kid I hunted for colored hard boiled eggs around the house - not chocolate filled plastic ones. Once found they went into a bowl that sat out on the table all week. That had to smell nice.

I took a lot more pictures at the grandparents house than displayed, but so many were blurry. Just imagine Riley holding up a different colored egg in each one with a huge grin on her face. There were some other family member that joined us for food and company that day. So much wonderful food and good company. 

We lazed around watching TV (Jesse getting in his HGTV fix here) before heading home to wrap up another holiday.

Happy Easter!... even if it is over a month late.

Red Wing Anniversary Getaway

Jesse and I decided to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary (7.5 years together!) by getting away for a night. I sensed we really needed more than a night out to dinner and suggested we check out someplace within an hour or two from home where we would spend the night. We settled on Red Wing, MN since we'd be heading south anyway to drop Riley off at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Red Wing actually holds a lot of history for me, but I've never gone there just for the enjoyment of it. When I worked in the adoption field I had to go to the hospital there to visit with birth and adoptive parents. And when I was really young I spent random weekend days with my parents visiting my brother in juvie.

Red Wing 1977? One of my favorite pictures of my brother.

My parents were divorced at the time so my memory either includes driving with my dad in the 1969 Custom Newport Chrysler to visit, or hopping on the Greyhound bus with my mom who was going blind. The bus driver was nice enough to drop us off at the bottom of the hill to the juvenile center instead of dropping us off in town. While these weren't terrible memories, I was excited to add a visit as a tourist. I was looking forward to exploring the city of Red Wing and what it has to offer - even if we were going to be there for less than 24 hours.

The plan was to drop Riley off with grandma and grandpa, but when we got to their house they weren't quite home yet. So naturally, I took this picture and texted my mother-in-law " Hope she's still here when you get home. See you tomorrow". Luckily, grandma and grandpa pulled up right after that. Who knows what would have happened. : )

We arrived in Red Wing around 1:00 pm on Saturday afternoon and walked around until we found a place to eat. Actually, we parked the car and followed the smell of grilling burgers to Bev's Cafe. I really wanted to have a burger because it smelled so good, but couldn't bring myself to do so since I technically had two the day before (one regular beef, one wild rice turkey). Instead, I had the crab salad wrap and Jesse had the gyro salad. They were both ok, but I think the gyro salad was the winner of the two.

Check in to the hotel was still at least an hour away after we ate lunch so we took advantage of the sunny day and warmer weather (although still way below normal) and hiked up Barn Bluff.

There are numerous routes to the scenic view at the top and we decided to take the most difficult - the North trail.

The North trail runs along the Mississippi river side of the bluff so the view is a little more appealing than the South route.

We saw guys rock climbing, and ran into a guy named Mike G (at least that's what was on his coat). Mike was a nice, older gentleman who shared the story of the quarry that we just passed.

There wasn't a ton of snow, but this is where we saw the most snow the whole time we were in Red Wing. They obviously had less snow overall than the Twin Cities. We got about a half mile in when we came across a 'closed' sign and had to turn around. It might have been nice if they had noted that at the beginning of the hill, but I'm glad we went that route for the view alone.

We headed back down and took the south trail which wasn't exactly easy either. It was a long steady incline to a set of stairs that took us to the very top. I was still feeling the strain in my legs and knees several days later.

Once we got to the top we got to take in a great view of the city and the river. It was perhaps about 44 degrees that day and the motorcycles and boats were out soaking up every bit of the sun and warmth that they could... and we could see it all from about 400 feet above the river.

We ran into a lady who shared that the flower below is the first flower to bloom in the spring. She and her friends were beyond excited to see a whole bunch of them sprouting up from beneath the dead, crunchy grass. They took multiple pictures of the flowers and once they were gone I did too. I can't remember what she said the name of these flowers were, but surely a good sign to see them.

Another good sign? Bugs! Gnats, actually. Normally, I would not be a fan of these, but I welcomed them as an indicator that spring was here (never mind that it snowed the next morning).

After our hike, we explored a couple stores in town. Of course we had to check out the Red Wing shoe store and museum, but we also wandered into a furniture store and walked out with a dresser. Well, we didn't buy it right away, but we did fall in love with a Paula Deen dresser. Yes, Paula Deen of food lore. Apparently she makes furniture too. Who woulda thought. We'd been looking for a new dresser recently and hadn't found something that we liked enough in our price range. Thankfully, we were able to afford this gem due to a very slight crack on the bottom. Jesse wanted to go home and take more measurements (even though I had them in my purse), but I wanted to commit to it. The next morning I told him I would be sick if we lost out on that dresser so we headed back and purchased it. And now we have an excuse to go back with my dad's truck for a day trip with our kid to pick it up.

After shopping we checked into the Country Inn which we found to be quite nice and modern. I'd go there again.

Once we cleaned up we headed out to the Falconer Winery to sample some wine and eat some food. We showed up at the tail end of a busy period where we were able to experience a bunch of inebriated people sipping on their wine samples. It took a bit for us to get service, but once it started to clear out our server gave us her full attention. Jesse is a fan of red wine and, well, I am too, but I can't drink it so I sampled some white wine while Jesse tried the few red wines they had. They had a lot more white wine so I didn't try them all, but the ones I had were quite good. In the end I walked out with two bottles while Jesse had none as he wasn't in love with the red wine offerings. The food was delicious. Many of the ingredients were apparently grown on site. Actually, the desert (brownies with melted Ghirardelli chocolate) was to die for. To DIE for. I'd go back for that alone.

As we were heading back to the hotel after the winery we decided to stop at Walmart like any good couple celebrating their anniversary. Actually, I sorta hate Walmart. I don't mean to offend anyone, but I just have issues with their business practices. At any rate, we were given a gift certificate over a year ago to Walmart that we hadn't used yet. As we waited at a stop sign with Walmart straight ahead we decided now was the time to use it. My husband declared that they were winning if we didn't actually use the gift card so that's how we ended up buying a video game, some kids clothes, and a bead bracelet making kit for Riley while slightly liquored up.

It was still fairly early (8:00 pm) when we got back to the hotel, but we're not the partying type so we were a-ok with that. Jesse read while I watched cable. We got rid of cable long ago, and even though I came across some interesting shows I still found myself surfing through all the channels repeatedly. No regret that we no longer have it at home. Jesse fell asleep by 8:30, but then woke as I was posting the following picture on Instagram. He wasn't all that exited about that, but he married me so I assume he knew what he was getting into (I like to take me some pictures). Happy Anniversary, Babe.

Sleep wasn't as glorious as we hoped. Some neighbors came 'home' around 1:30 and stomped around. Plus, even though I probably only had the equivalent of two glasses of wine, I had about 5 different wines which I think contributed to me sleeping poorly and feeling cruddy in the morning. 

Even though the hotel provided free breakfast we decided to check out the St. James, partly because it was recommended and partly because Jesse was craving an omelet. While eating breakfast we had a nice view of Barn Bluff in the distance. It actually looks like someone is standing up there which seems ridiculous because it was snowing and then started to rain.

It was at breakfast that I talked Jesse into buying the dresser so we swung by the store just to see if they happened to be open and they were. It was still fairly early and most stores were closed so we debated about what to do after we sealed the deal on the dresser. We wanted to check out the pottery mall, but that didn't open until 11. Finally, we decided to head back so we could pick Riley up before her nap. Plus, we knew we'd be back in a couple weeks for the dresser and could check out the pottery stores then. Not that I am huge into pottery, but it's the thing to do while there, right?

Not long after we arrived at Jesse's moms' house Riley asked us if we wanted a 'spot of tea'. Well, of course, my dear... especially if you are offering crumpets (aka animal crackers). Where does she get this stuff? So cute.

Seriously, this trip was so amazing even though it was short. I love my kid, but it was so delightful to have a conversation with my husband at a restaurant where we weren't constantly interrupted. I almost had forgotten that it was possible.