Zach's First Day of School

One last entry for today - we wanted to document Zachary's first day of preschool yesterday. He started in the toddler program at Jarrow Montessori School, which is the school Logan has been attending since we moved here to Boulder. Zach was very excited and proud to finally get to go, although we're following a soft-entry program to ease him into it. Yesterday Jason and I stayed with him in his class for an hour and then brought him home, and I did the same today. Tomorrow I will take him, stay for about 20 minutes and then try to leave for 20 minutes or so to see how he does. Then if all goes well I will try a regular dropoff on Friday, but it will probably be a short day again. Eventually Zach will be attending the same hours as Logan, 8:30 - 12:30 every day (they didn't have a three-day-per-week option).

Pictures here include Zach showing off his new backpack, putting his belongings in his cubby, washing his hands in his class (a favorite activity of his), doing some of the works and being taught how to self-serve his snack by his teacher, Angelica. The cutest (to me) part of his first morning was when he was getting his snack - Jason and I were sitting across the room, observing, and Zach looked up to say "look Mommy, I'm having a snack. Do you want a snack?" He proceeded to get up and pull out a neighboring chair for me. It was very sweet and more than a little heartbreaking...he doesn't quite realize yet that this is an adventure he will be embarking on by himself. From previous experience I know he'll be fine, will love going to school and will still be my little sweetheart when we are together, but it's still a little tough to know that this is only the beginning of a long process of letting him go.

Tummy time

The last post and the next one don't include pics of Max, so here's a cute one of him working on his upper body strength. He's not crazy about tummy time but getting better, especially now that mommy has a star chart to help her remember to flip him on his tummy from time to time. He'll be crawling after his brothers soon enough!

Mommy and Logan and Zachary Day

With our new little guy needing a lot of my attention (and nursing every few hours or so) over the last three months, my ability and energy for real quality time with Logan and Zachary has been pretty seriously impacted. But we've been working toward getting Max to take a bottle reliably, and this past weekend Jason decided he was ready for a quiet morning with Max while I took Logan and Zach to Denver to visit the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

This was an especially exciting outing for me because at 2 1/2, Zach is finally at an age where he doesn't automatically run off when presented with a large, crowded space where he could easily be lost. It's sad to say but this is the first time I've taken the two boys out on my own for a fun outing in a loooong time - it was too tiring at the end of my pregnancy and then it's been too difficult since Max was born to do something like this.

Anyway, Sunday morning I packed up a bag with just a few emergency supplies, we kissed Jason and Max goodbye and hopped in the car for the 40-minute drive to Denver. When we got to the museum I decided to take a chance and leave the stroller in the car, and it worked out wonderfully. Both boys were very well-behaved, had lots of fun exploring but stuck reasonably close. The highlight of the trip in my opinion was going to the planetarium to watch a short film about the solar system - both kids are really into planets and space exploration right now, and I was thrilled that Logan overcame his fears about movie theaters long enough to become captivated by the amazing special effects as we toured each planet.

After spending some time in the space exhibit we headed to the Hall of Life to learn about human physiology with lots of fun hands-on activities, then it was time to get lunch before heading home. We stopped at a nearby McDonald's because it has a play place, and I can say I am not a fan. The kids ate the (to me, completely unappetizing) chicken-flavored-nugget-products but the restaurant was out of the milk and apple slices that they supposedly offer with happy meals. So it was fries and apple juice. Ah well, I guess I'll pack lunch next time.

At any rate, we had a really nice time and it was a nice chance to reconnect with the boys after a somewhat tumultuous few months.

Putting my new Sienna to the test

Between the snow and some minor but annoying illnesses running through the children, we've been doing a lot of relaxing around the house lately (read=passing several days without leaving the house, or even getting out of pajamas, for that matter). Today we decided we'd pack the kids into the van and take it for a drive to check out the nearest ski resort. Funny, but on the one hand this was not as big of an undertaking as it sounds...Eldora Mountain is only 21 miles from our front door. But on the other hand, with three children under the age of five, there is no such thing as a quick, spontaneous jaunt so it took us about five hours from decision time (7am) to get out the door (12 noon).

When we started out from Boulder the weather was 40 degrees and sunny, but as we wound our way up into the mountains the snow started to fall and the wind started to blow. The Sienna handled it all admirably, although I think I did give Jason and Andrew heart attacks when the car lost traction briefly and I had to guide it out of a fishtail. And then, just before the entrance of the resort, we got onto a road that follows along what was clearly the shore of a frozen lake. And the wind was blowing snow across the lake and in front of the car...at times we were in total whiteout and it was pretty scary (Jason took a picture of my death grip on the steering wheel). The only thing scarier was coming back down through the same stretch, because then we were on the side of the road closest to the lake, and all I could think about was that I might at any moment take my entire nuclear family plus my brother in law over the edge to a watery freezing grave. Needless to say, we made it.

In between the lakeshore drives, we did drive around the packed parking lot at Eldora but it was just too blustery and cold to contemplate getting the kids out of the car. One the way home we stopped off at a charming restaurant called the Black Forest - a very old-school German chalet complete with a cuckoo clock, mounted trophy heads of deer and elk, and a German-accented proprietor. Andrew and I both had the special - Elk goulash (I kid you not, and it was delicious) - while Jason had saurbraten, Logan had beef stew and Zach had chicken tenders.

December pictures and "Mommy's Winter Car"

We've had a great but very busy Christmas - several neighborhood gatherings to attend, lots of shopping, baking & candymaking, holiday cards, present wrapping, decorating, cooking Christmas Eve dinner...and of course lots of shoveling snow and chipping ice as well. Click here for a gallery of photos from the last few weeks.

Unfortunately, it appears we did not get any photos from Christmas morning, believe it or not! And none of our decorated Christmas tree (it's still up for another few days so I will snap one and post it before we take it down). Part of the reason we didn't get photos Christmas morning is because we were up well before dawn. And it wasn't actually the kids' fault - Jason popped awake at 5:45, went down to make coffee, light the tree, and then came up and bounced around until we all got up to go downstairs. He got video of them waking Uncle Andrew up by running in and jumping on his bed, but it's a bit too long to post. Anyway, suffice it to say we all had a very merry Christmas. And I should mention it was a white Christmas as well - we got about 7 inches here at the house, all falling in big fat powdery flakes all Christmas Day. The town average of 5.9 inches was a record breaker for Boulder.

Lastly for this post, I am happy to say that yesterday Jason and I traded in our Honda Odyssey (the one that caused me so much anxiety in the snow a few weeks ago) for a Toyota Sienna AWD. Yes, it's another minivan, but it's pretty sweet, with every bell and whistle you can imagine. And it is rock-solid on snow and ice. We even tested it on our hill before we bought it. Zach can't seem to get the idea that this is a permanent change, and has dubbed the Sienna "Mommy's Winter Car."

Cute baby giggles

We captured Max's second known giggle on tape the other day...here's a video of it. The next post will re-cap our Christmas happenings...

Winter (un)Preparedness

Well, yesterday morning came with more snow and, not for lack of trying, I still did not have winter tires on my car. It was coming down hard enough that Mindy couldn't make it in again (she's working on getting winter tires for her car as well) and Jason was still in Minneapolis, due back home at about 5 in the evening. Even though I'd managed to get a 4:30 appointment to get tires, I decided to pack everyone up so that, after dropping Logan off at school, I could take Zach and Max to the tire store and hope they'd take me as a walk-in.

The drive to school went fairly uneventfully although the snow was really coming down. As I pulled into the jam-packed parking lot at Discount Tire, Max began to scream so I nursed him in the car, then wrapped myself up in my Moby Wrap carrier, got Max in it, bundled Zach and myself into jackets, hats and gloves, unloaded us all from the car, grabbed my purse and a backpack full of snacks, books and other toddler entertainment, and trudged over to the store entrance. The line as we entered was not a good sign, but we waited - and then I was told it would be a minimum 3-hour wait for tires. No way Zach could sit still that long, and there was Logan to think about. So I trudged us all back to the van and decided to head home.

Well, by this time snow had accumulated on the road up to our house and I couldn't get up the hill. Although I could have managed carrying Zach and Max up the hill, the parking on 4th street (the cross street closest to our house) was all deep in snow, with more coming down. I realized I would not be able to get Logan from school if the van got stuck, nor would I be able to keep my tire appointment, and I confess I started to freak out a bit. A call to Jason for advice quickly dissolved into tears, and then I drove to a plowed parking lot to make a few calls around to local friends. I needed a safe place to park and hang out while I figured out a plan and/or waited until I could get those tires. I got all answering machines, so I decided I'd have to get Logan from school early, walk the three kids up to the house and risk getting the van stuck. Luckily, just as I was pulling into the school lot, our friends the O'Connors called me back. They were at the Subaru dealership trading in Stephanie's 2WD SUV for an all-wheel-drive Tribeca, but dropped everything to rescue us with Ryan's Land Rover.

They reached us in about 20 minutes (I cam very proud of Zach for his patience during all of the sitting and waiting we did today), I got Logan out of school, and then they followed me back to 4th and Hawthorn. They shuttled us all up the hill to the house, and although I was content to leave the van on 4th and let it get stuck, Ryan insisted on trying to get it up to the driveway and, after about 10 minutes of trying, managed to do so.

I hugged my friends, gave my kids a nice hot lunch, called to cancel the tire appointment and started researching cars with all-wheel-drive and room for five. Today's adventure crystallized for us that, if we're going to live in this climate, at this location, and Jason's going to be traveling as frequently as he does, I need a car that can reliably get me and the kids out and back safely in snowy weather.