Bruce Almighty: Happy Birthday Andy and Audrey started a new school

Now that we had one week into the new routine under our belt, we were starting to get into a groove. However, Audrey was not happy staying home while Matthew was having all the fun at his new school. Everyday she asked me when I was going to find her a school. St Anne's did not have any openings for Pre-K 3 right now and we put her on the wait list for Pre-K 4 in the fall. Since she is a sibling, she will be higher on priority on the list. I spent some time filling out her application, finding her immunization records (after searching 4 boxes I found it!) and requesting teacher recommendations in order to complete her file. It was top priority for me last week. After submitting everything, I found out that Audrey was #6 on the list and that meant that she would likely not start until kindergarten. I was planning to keep her at home mostly with a part-time Mother's Day Out until the fall but after I heard it may be kindergarten, we decided to go with a different plan.
I toured a recommended daycare and loved it. They have live chickens and bunnies, a garden, and several covered play areas. Audrey couldn't wait to go! We toured the school on Tuesday and she started Wed in the part-time program. She was so excited to play with the doll house, dress up, and play outside. She misses her previous teacher and friends but she was happy to start a new routine here in Houston. I feel a little weird that I am a stay-at-home mom with no kids at home. But it's probably best for me to focus on the grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking while Audrey is learning and playing. Life has been so hectic for me that I could use some down time to get things done at home and volunteer at church. I went to a meeting at the church on Thursday for a mom's spiritual discussion. It was nice to meet other women and I had a lot in common with them having young kids, especially one at the school. It will be a great way for me to get involved in the community.

We started off the week with Andy's birthday on Monday. The weather was cold, typical for Andy's birthday. We ate king ranch chicken for dinner and cake from whole foods. We also made brownies. The kids made Andy a card and we gave him a few gifts. During the day, I cleaned and Audrey helped. We hung up a responsibilities chart and the kids like checking off tasks in hopes of a prize at the end of the week. We wrote some belated thank you notes from her birthday party in mid-Dec....just now getting to that! I took Audrey for a bike ride to do something because she was getting bored. She enjoyed the exercise and so did Rusty.
By Tuesday, Audrey was starting to get an attitude. It was clear she was not happy staying home all day. She begged me to go to the mall but I didn't go. We toured the school and then met Andy for lunch. We talked it over and once we agreed, I filled out the application and turned it in for her to start the next day. She was so excited to go on Wed and bragged to Matthew about the play areas, chickens and bunnies.

On Wed, Matthew's school got out early so he went with me to pick up Audrey. He was a little sad that her school had more play areas than his! We went to the park afterwards and the kids had a blast. They call it the train park and beg to go back all the time.
With Audrey in school, I was able to get some errands taken care of and catch up on the phone with a few people. I am liking this new routine. Audrey takes a nap at school so she comes home in a good mood. When she stays home all day, she fights the nap so she ends up cranky around 5pm (aka the witching hour). I bring snacks in the car for both kids and we have a couple of hours to spend together before preparing dinner for us to eat together. It's a smoother routine on the kids than our old schedule with me working. I thought Matthew would enjoy the after school program for just an hour to get to know more kids, but he is liking this down time with me and Audrey right now. That's fine with me. We hope to get him signed up for t-ball when the sign-ups come around for him to get to know the kids better.

On Friday, we had the routine down pretty good. I bought a bunch of used uniforms for Matthew so that was an accomplishment. I can't tell you how many uniform stores I have been to in the past couple of weeks. After school, we decided to tour a couple of houses that we were interested in and then we went to dinner afterwards. The kids did well, although they missed our family game night on Fridays.

I took Audrey to her dance class Sat morning. She wanted Matthew to come and watch her so he did, pausing from the iPad more often than I thought he would. We ran some errands trying to get new tap shoes for Audrey and new shoes for Matthew. We bought subway sandwiches and ate them at memorial park. What a nice park! Andy joined us and played soccer with Matthew. It was a sunny, warm day and we soaked it all in because it's been so cold here.

On Sunday, we watched the Houston marathon in front of our apartment and then we were off to look at houses again and out for lunch at a burger place. We went to mass Sunday evening and out to dinner at a casual kid-friendly place, Mia's. I'm sure we will be back there a lot.