Helloooooo Kindergarten!

This was a day I'd been waiting for for a long time. Kindergarten! I was so excited for Connor to start - he's sooooo ready and I hear outstanding things about our school. It was an exciting day then, right? I never expected that I would have reservations. Certainly not be emotional. And yet... this was a really hard day for me. Actually, the day before I began to feel some panic, and by the time we were walking up to the school it was all I could do to hold it together for Connor. I still can't totally explain it, other than I knew things were really changing, his world was getting much larger, and he would be out of my realm of control in a whole new way. No more walking him into his classroom to say goodbye even. See him walking up those steps all by himself? One of those pangs that only a mother will ever understand.

The good news? He was really, really excited and had an awesome day. We love his teacher and he even lucked out and has kids he knows in his class. All around it was great. But Mom was still weepy most of the day and unable to focus much at work. This is going to be a big transition - for me.

Its only been a year!

It was about a year ago that I abandoned this blog. I guess you could say I was decidedly overwhelmed with life in general, and this was just one more thing - something that felt more like work than fun. Two small kids (one an infant) and the final year of my PhD seemed like just about enough to hold together. And besides, I make a photo book every year. This blog was really just redundant anyway, right? And, there's really no one out there in cyberspace reading this - its not like I was letting anyone down by not continuing with it.

Well, my Mom told me I would regret it if I stopped. But, children don't always listen to their parents, even when we're grown up and a little bit smarter about listening than we used to be. In reality, maybe it really was time for me to stop and focus on other things that needed my attention more. Regardless, today I was working on my much delayed 2012 photo book that Connor has been asking me to please finish, and I wanted to remember the details for one of the pages. I pulled up this blog because I knew I'd written about it. And, oh my, to my surprise I realized how different this little endeavor truly is from a photo book. I have so many little details in these posts that I otherwise would forget all about. Its not the big milestones that are so important to write here about, but the little day-to-day things that capture our life as it is right at this moment.

What have we been up to? Well, a million, zillion, trillion, google-billion things as Connor might tell you. Our little man Connor starts KINDERGARTEN next week, and then the following week our even littler man Jackson starts PRESCHOOL. Whoa. Those are definitely milestones worth capturing with a photo, but I'm going to also take time to reflect on the small things in between the obvious parts of those memories.

So, I'm back. And you were right Mom.

Jackson learned to make awesome rainbows with the hose while trying to spray Connor

The boys found worms and had worm races along with our nanny Tonee (who rocks by the way)

Connor had his first camp out with Daddy, didn't fall asleep until almost 11, and then had to be carried inside shortly after when rain (or something more mysterious and definitely less appealing) began dripping into their tent

Walking on a bench at the Arboretum and Jackson wouldn't let us help him - "Gackson do it! No, Gackson do it!"

The boys and I went for a walk at a park we'd never been to before and even found a super cool caterpillar