First Day of Preschool

Yesterday Callum had his first day of preschool.   This is how I do things.  Normal people start their children in preschool at the beginning of September or even the beginning of January.  I arbitrarily pick a day that works for me, and yesterday happened to be it.

 The other one was full.  

Let me say this again - I heard good things about this school!  That counts for something!  Plus, when I met the teacher I really liked her!   And it isn’t a half an hour drive!  And this school is WAY cheaper meaning I have money left over to buy craft supplies.

oh, shut up.

Like I was saying, yesterday was Callum’s first day at the school even though I had gone the week before to “observe” which turns out means more than just “show up for 10 minutes” and I ended up staying for the entire 2.5 hours.  This is so you can appreciate the entire preschool experience.  I didn’t realize there was an experience, I thought preschool was kids playing someplace other than at home.  And that is basically what it means, except that there is some structure to it, and they learn to count. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, those 2.5 hours of preschool basically knocked me out.   Children are exhausting. 

Callum was over the moon to go to school.  He’s been talking about going to school since the fall so the fact that it was actually going to happen was almost as exciting as Santa stuffing his stocking with markers.  I didn’t exactly share his enthusiasm, but my first (second) day of preschool involved criminal checks and about 5 forms to fill out asking me questions about car insurance and updated immunizations.  Information that is not at the top of my head.  Seriously, can anyone else fill out a form without having to dig through all their files every.single.time?  Steve was all “what the hell sort of school is this?”.

Callum wasted no time enjoying everything that preschool had to offer, didn’t care one iota that I stuck around, and even ate a carrot stick (I LOVE PRESCHOOL).  But the best part was the last 5 minutes.  Just before the teacher let the kids out for the day, she would call their name and they had to put away their carpet and tell her an animal that was featured in the story she just read.  This is not an easy task for the 3-4 year olds I’ve learned.  When she called on Callum, who was one of the last to be called upon, he stood up, put away his carpet and said “penguin”.  No one else had yet to mention the penguin, which I’m sure he found remarkable because penguins are probably his second favorite animal, next to turtles.  He knew he was good to go, and turned on his heel immediately to do so, that is how sure he was.  The teacher was visibly amazed and showered him with praise.  I think she was impressed that he had an answer at the ready and that he remembered an animal no one else had mentioned.  I don’t think she realized just how much the kid wanted to get outside and play.  He’s my son, no doubt about that, thinking ahead about how to get everything in place to get what he wants.  He’s learned from the best!

Once we were out in the park, the teacher approached me to talk about Callum’s readiness for preschool.   When I went to observe I noted that Callum would be the youngest in the class by 6 months and I had some concerns.  When you’re 3, 6 months can be a big gap in development.  I wasn’t sure he would be developmentally at the same place as the other kids.  I’m the mommy, I’m allowed to obsess.

Anyway, the teacher approached me and said he was most certainly ready.  In fact, she found it exceptional that his memory recall was so good and was really impressed with his ability to pay attention and sit still.  I guess all that crap about engaging your children in conversation really is good for memory recall.

And you know I’m going to go there, right?

MY KID IS EXCEPTIONAL.

That’s what I learned yesterday in preschool. 

Why purposely trying to annoy your friends never pans out

I had this idea for a blog post where the main purpose was to annoy the hell out of my friend Sole.  Yes, this is the kind of friend I am.  I intentionally do things in life to annoy my friends.  I wrote it all up the night before the earthquake in Haiti and then didn’t post it the next day because, well, talk about a petty first world issue. 

Although the bottom line is my blog isn’t heavy.  I’m a mommy blogger.  I blog about my kids, and the very, very, very small annoyances in my life, which are the things that you all must be ok with reading otherwise you wouldn’t be here so onward with the trivial.  Or in this case, annoying the hell out of my friend Sole.  Hi! Sole!

 So, Sole was getting irritated with the hand-made gifts and getting up early to make cinnamon buns crap.  Not that she doesn’t love me (right Sole?) but you know how all that sunshine and lollipop business can get to you.  Sometimes you want to hear about the bad stuff, it makes you feel normal (and a little happier on the inside, I can admit that).

I thought  to myself – self, let’s annoy Sole further -  I know! We’ll make home-made pasta with our new pasta machine!  And home-made Alfredo sauce!  With local salmon!    And we’ll document it all on film with beautiful pictures!  And the kids will help!  And they will get all covered in flour and be adorable!  And I’ll post those pictures too!  And through the whole post I’ll add little annoying comments like Hi!Sole!  or I Love You Sole!  And she’ll want to jump through her computer and strangle me and it’ll be awesome.   And we’ll laugh and laugh.

 ok, so that is only awesome for me but you’ll note the title of this blog is Amberism because I’m original like that and hello?  ALL ABOUT ME.

 I made me some pasta.

 Except, well, that’s about where that little game of Annoy Your Friends ended because the only idyllic and fun part of the whole process was cracking 4 eggs into a pile of flour (which, in case you didn’t know, is all pasta is).  From that point on, there are no more pictures.  There are no more pictures because at that point my children roamed into the kitchen and while they were keen to help judging by the incessant whining and chair moving and general sibling strife about where they thought their chair should be placed, they were not – hmmm, how do you say this with love? – photogenic.  Or cute.  In fact, they were bloody annoying and whiny, and breaking out into full fledge tantrums because the apple they just threw on the floor was now bruised and gross and how dare their sibling be in a 10 foot radius of them.  Or whatever, they’re toddlers, they don’t make sense.

 I fasten my new pasta machine to the counter, as per the instructions, and am attempting to run pasta through it while Claire claws at my leg and screams about her chair placement and Callum is standing there, batting my hand away while he attempts to run pasta backwards through the machine.  

Totally idyllic.

More chaos and then the handle of the pasta machine falls on the floor, and oh, you know it breaks.  Of course it fucking breaks, but we plod on and keep trying to make our linguini noodles between cutting apples that aren’t fit for eating and fighting over bananas and I forget what else.  Then all of a sudden the thing just jams, and Claire wants milk but not in THAT sippy cup, the other sippy cup which isn’t THAT sippy cup either and in fact what she really wants is water in a yellow (green) cup and of course Callum would have nothing but water in that cup too.

So I move the stupid pasta machine to the island where there are no children fighting over sippy cups, and attempt to de-jam.  I’m losing my cool.  At this point I have almost finished cutting all the dough and I can’t let it go.  I mean, I’m almost done and the thing is brand new and the handle is already broke and IT WILL UNJAM BECAUSE I SAID SO.  Then, while I really start to get pissy with the thing, one of the bottom rubber mats falls off and the whole thing will no longer stay on the counter. 

 At this point I look up and see Callum cutting an apple with the wrong side of a knife on a chair he is now sharing with Claire, who is attempting to climb onto the counter.  The scene isn’t a good one.  When I take away the very sharp and rather large knife, he begins throwing apple pieces around the kitchen BECAUSE THEY ARE GROSS (although more likely because I took away the knife, but like I say, he’s a toddler and doesn’t make sense)

 I turn to Callum, and I’m not proud of this, but I turn and I say “Callum, I’m seriously pissed off right now.  I need you to leave the kitchen. NOW.”

 There must have been something in my mannerism, or the fact that my eyes were bulging out of my head, but the kid, bless him, takes one look at me and says to Claire “Let’s go play on the toilet paper!”  That probably needs an explanation.  Whatever, just go with it.

 At this point I admit defeat, toss said pasta machine aside and begin to prepare my sauce.  In no time children reappear with new complaints, and I’m wildly scrambling to get everything done before Steve gets home.  I fail miserably and he walks in to 36 rolls of toilet paper strewn all across the main floor, one has been unrolled because it was a “path”,  an entire sippy cup of milk dumped out (remember the toilet paper?  You know what happens to toilet paper when it gets wet?  Yeah), flour over every surface of the kitchen and I haven’t even set the table yet.  Nevermind finished cooking dinner.

 Being a better parent than I, he begins a game of putting away the toilet paper while I try to get a handle on my kitchen situation.  When I think I’m finally organized to cook my totally awesome home-made pasta I take off the towel that was covering it and it is at this point that I realize one shouldn’t pile home-made pasta on top of itself.  Turns out it is pretty sticky and will just stick together in one giant blob.  A blob that doesn’t de-blob in boiling water (because, yes, I tried).   Defeated, I throw out the pasta and boiled up a box of Catelli.  Then we sat down to a lovely dinner featuring Callum refusing to eat and Claire trying to crawl on the table and continuously spilling her drink.  And through all this I’m thinking about the last time I tried this, tried to one up a friend and instead I woke up the next morning with the worse hang-over ever and puked outside a video store while Michelle WAS FINE (it’s a long story).  You never win when you attempt to screw with the universe, people.  Never.

 The sauce was totally awesome.  So there Sole.  SO THERE.

Check it out – WORDPRESS

An early birthday present from Candi!

Happy Birthday to me!  Happy Birthday to me! 

I know if you’re not familiar with blogging software you’re probably not that excited, but if you ARE you totally understand my giddiness.    And, just how awesome the universe is because last night I was up until midnight trying to teach myself how to install wordpress on the other domain I own in an effort to experiment with a design I’ve had kicking around for oh, a year.  Then today Candi surprised me by installing it on the sly!  She’s sneaky!  And she didn’t even know I was banging my head against the desk in frustration and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I could live with the old software until my children were adults!

I can categorize!  I can update my linklist with ease!  I can upload pictures and make them look half decent (well, I’m assuming, I haven’t tried that yet!).

ha!  Look at that!  Its all custom and I don’t have to resize them, or add the border. 

Seriously, this is freaking awesome.

Meet Anna Caroline

Anna is a play on a family name on my side (a lot of Anne’s, and my sister’s middle name is Anne) and Caroline is Steve’s Mom’s name. We don’t really think outside the box when it comes to names, do we? At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter you know? She is who she is, and what I name her really doesn’t matter.
These 3-d images are creepy, eh? I think I prefer the 2-d!

The Quilt

Last March (ahem), I started putting together this little doll quilt for my god-daughter’s birthday. I had it all pieced together, and even started on the embroidery and then… I don’t know. Stopped, I guess.
I picked it up again just before Christmas, determined to get it done and sent to her as I knew she was getting a Maplelea doll for Christmas. I am SUPER pleased with how it turned out.

I didn’t do a superb job on the binding, or the quiting. It’s machine quilted, even though my Grandma – the quilter extraordinaire – kept asking me if I was going to hand quilt it. I kept laughing. I can’t imagine I’ll EVER hand quilt because whoa, that’s A LOT of work. Even piecing this together was a lot of work. But I am still pleased with the end result and my first foray into quilting.

It’s a free pattern, offered here, except I changed the butterfly applique to the embroidered butterfly that my god-daughter had drawn. It just makes it a little more personal for her, you know?

Stella (Claire’s doll) seems to like it, I hope that Taryn (Julia’s doll) does, too.