Babies to the Max: School House Rock

Freshly sharpened pencils. Squeaky new sneakers. Boxes of unblemished crayons. New classroom, new teachers, new traditions. Time to go back to school!

In college, my roommate Sally and I loved to rock a theme in our dorm room each term (Big Willy Style, anyone?), so it seemed appropriate to start this school year with a "theme". Our fall theme is "If one falls down, his friend can help him up." Ecclesiastes 4:10.

The festivities were kicked off with a Back To School Feast featuring a classic menu of flapjacks (Max's choice) and strawberries (Sarah's choice). Pictures of bees and "beehive" cups with reminders to Bee Helpful and Bee Kind helped communicate the theme. Clearly the decorating was last minute and conditional on the resources on-hand!

Max was very eager for Sarah to fall down so he could help her up. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I'm not sure he gets the greater concept yet!

Sarah has made her school choice!

Max is attending 4K on 4 mornings each week. He was thrilled with his new classroom and to be reunited with some of his friends from last year. The most exciting part? Moving his carseat to the other side of the car for drop off in the carpool line - he informed everyone he encountered that his seat was now on the Big Kid side.

We debated (and debated and debated) about whether to put Sarah into the Mother's Morning Out program at Max's school. We are very fortunate that I work part time and my mother provides child care, so Sarah does not have to go anywhere. Maybe because she is our second (and possibly last) child, we are prone to holding her a little closer to home. We have only one regular babysitter, who also works in the church nursery, and we almost always still wait to leave after Sarah is in bed. She's just a baby! We finally decided to let her attend one morning per week to hopefully make it easier for her to adjust to being with others. Naturally, she was enthralled by the new toys, new friends, and the new outdoors!