DRAMA!

For some reason (probably in the interest of population growth) people always warn you about the terrible twos, but what they don't tell you is that the terrible twos start around 16-18 months and, apparently, last until the 4th birthday.

Naively thinking that, with the big THIRD birthday nearly around the corner, this period of momentary insanity on Lily's behalf might be almost over...I'm now hearing grumblings that the threes are actually even worse than the twos.

Kill me now. Seriously.

Where did my charming little baby go? I see glimpses of her. In fact, many glimpses. She can totally knock your socks off when she tells you "you're the best mommy in the whole world" and "you make me so, so happy." (Clearly she's my child...has already learned the art of the schmooze!)

But we also have meltdowns. Many, many meltdowns. So many that Noah and I are going in for a "consultation" with her beloved pediatrician...the woman who can do no wrong in Lily's eyes (even though she's the one ordering SHOTS)....the woman who Lily says she wants to be "just like when I'm a grown-up." Bless her heart. Anyway, I'm hoping that Dr. Palmer will be able to give us some coping tips and techniques!

In the meantime, I thought you'd get a kick out of the latest drama to surface.

Morning drive time has, more often than not, recently turned in to screaming fits. Lily will turn her body in to a board, so try as you might it's nearly impossible to stuff her in to the car seat. She then sobs all the way in to the city -- she hates her school, she hates her friends, her friends are "yucky" and "old" (I mean, give me a break!).

Yesterday, though, I had to pick her up early so that we could make it to Arlington by 5 p.m.; I was dropping something incredibly time sensitive off for a client.

When I arrived at the Huck, they were talking about fall...what we eat in fall....and about to start assembling an apple pie. Yum.

Even though Lily got to take a quick turn at putting a few slices of apple in the bowl (soon to be greeted by cinnamon, sugar and butter), she was beyond devastated that we had to leave.

Yes, she's the kid who cried all the way to school yesterday, begging to come to my office, insinuating that I'm a monster for even dreaming of leaving her at school.

The same kid screamed all the way home -- "how could you do that mommy? But I didn't want to leave. I'm missing all the FUN!"

In the end, we devised our own fun. Not really interested in peeling and slicing a ton of apples, Lily and I baked a pumpkin pie. Which we then enjoyed for a less than traditional breakfast treat this morning. And I can assure you that after the emotional roller coaster Lily kept me captive on yesterday, I slept really, really well last night!

She is still, however, my "sweet angel darling."

Tutu

Last Saturday was Lily's first day of dance -- a pre-ballet, pre-tap Mommy and Me class (AKA total humiliation if anyone I know ever saw me during this). I think that I had more fun dressing her for class than she did actually participating, although she totally loved it. Yes, Lily is Cinderella in training... A big, huge THANK YOU to the Buckners in Lexington, KY for the totally fantastic hand-me-down clothes!!

(ok, so it was a little cold outside when I made her pose for my camera!)

Vacationland

Feeding the ducks in Vermont....

...enjoying Lake Champlain by boat....

...a trip to the Children's Museum of Maine with Katie Galka....

...along the Maine coastline...

...enjoying a summertime concert in the park....

...a rare time when I was actually in front of the camera...

...do you know what an Alpaca is?....

...Lily's hand post-manicure (notice the jewel on her left pinky!)...


...some serious cake-baking with Aunt Jamie in New Jersey...

...have you ever seen a more beautiful Cinderella cake?!?

Bravo Jamie and Lily!

Suffice it to say, vacation was wonderful. We started in Vermont, traveled to Maine (Boothbay Harbor), stopped in Connecticut and finished in New Jersey. Our Easy Pass got a world-class workout, as did our portable DVD player, but Noah and I loved every minute (ok, every non-tantrum minute) with Lily over our 12-day adventure!

Huckleberry Cheesecake Newsletter, 9/14/07

OK, ok, so I promise to stop cheating and publish a real post....but not today. Work has been nuts (that's what I get for taking 12 days off!), and yesterday was Rosh Hashanah (Lily was devastated to discover that, while we were celebrating "the world's birthday," we we not doing so with cake...yes, I was forced to make an emergency stop at a bakery to buy cupcakes for the "celebration").

I just haven't had time to actually upload our vacation photos.

I PROMISE I'll get to it this weekend.

I'll have great incentive too...tomorrow marks Lily's first DANCE CLASS (we "had" to buy the most adorable, tiny tap shoes and ballet slippers!). She has to wear a skirted leotard, dance tights, proper shoes....hair tied away from the face....whole nine yards. I cannot wait to document it on film!

Anyway, this week was an exciting one at school. It was the week of the dinosaur, complete with a field trip today to the Museum of Natural History to see the giant dino bones! Read on and enjoy!!


Dear Strawberry Parents,

It was a T-riffic week while exploring the prehistoric world of dinosaurs like the T-Rex, brachiosaurus, stegosaurus, apotosaurus and triceratops. These were some pretty tricky words to pronounce but not for our budding paleontologists. We started off learning some interesting facts about dinos such as those with long necks also have long tails to help distribute their weight so they don't tip over (concept of balance), herbivores are plant lovers and eat only plants while carnivores eat meat. The Strawberries were asked the question, "Would you be a meat or vegetable eater?" then asked to say what kind of food they would eat if they were a dinosaur. We also learned that dinos came in many different sizes ranging from very small to enormous! Many of the dinosaurs, mostly the herbivores, had built in defense weapons, like long and sharp spikes, horns, and tail clubs to help fight off other predator dinos. I'm sure you can imagine how intrigued the strawberry class became while learning such eye opening details about these grizzly looking creatures.

Circle time activities were rich with matching and sorting of dinosaur skeletons, identifying the first letter of a dinosaur and matching it to the beginning letter of a Strawberry's name and placing spikes on a dinosaur's body and counting them. Seeing the dinosaur names in print helped us identify letters while counting how many letters in each dino name. We reached deep into our vocab bag and discovered some new words to describe dinosaurs like fierce, extinct, bumpy, scaley. The book picks for the week were abundantly filled with dino stories and facts, our favs being, Dinos on the Go, Dinosaur Days, Dinosaur Roar, Dinosaur Dinners, and The Trouble with Tyrannosaurus Rex.

The Strawberries went on an "excavation" looking for dinosaur bones and remains in the sand table. We weren't sure what we'd find in there! The Strawberries continued with dramatic play as they followed the dinosaur footprint path of the color print they chose. At the end of the various colored footprints, a different dinosaur was discovered. Adding to the fun, check out our dinosaur puppets and dinosaur drawings using white crayon and watercolors. This week was dino-mite!

The Strawberries really enjoyed their day at the Natural History Museum! Thanks very much to Jen and Kathleen for making the journey with us. Not only did Jasper and Conor have fun, but you made it fun and enjoyable for all!

Emily Post appears next week as our special guest to talk about manners and being polite, a week not to be missed! If there's anything in particular you'd like for us to stress as it relates to manners, please let us know and we'll work it into our lesson plan.

All the best,
The Strawberry Teachers

Land of the Living

We are back -- have been back for a week -- and I must apologize for not posting sooner. I owe you vacation photos and stories of our adventures, of which there were many, but I just haven't found the time to download all our photos and squeeze in a real blog post.

So I'll cheat and post last week's Huck newsletter. Lily had a mixed week post-vacation. While we were gone (1) her boyfriend, Hank, transitioned to the next classroom, (2) one of her best "girlfriends" left to attend another preschool, the School for Friends, and (3) one of her favorite teachers left to finish out her pregnancy before becoming a mom full-time. So, after the initial excitement of being reunited with her school friends wore off, the absences became glaring and Lily had somewhat of a meltdown. My fingers are crossed that this week proves easier for her; Noah and I gave her a pep talk this morning to end all pep talks!

As for last week, it was "all about me..."


Dear Strawberry Parents,

This week's learning opportunities centered around a topic that all two's love talking about, All About Me! You said it, a whole week learning about what makes each and every Strawberry unique and special. Not only does this theme allow the Strawberries to talk about themselves, it also shows how we are similar or different with respect to the people in our family, the color of our hair, eyes and skin, or the things that we like and dislike. We kicked off our week with an inspiring round of Hokey Pokey and did a great job recognizing our body parts. Afterwards, we all sat down and realized that we have two of many things on our bodies. We identified arms, legs, ears, eyes, hands, knees, elbows and feet to name the obvious ones. We didn't just stop at counting to two, we used some very high level mathematics and added them all together....really great work Strawberries!

Some of the words introduced this week were unique, different, same, common, siblings, and alike. Not only did we gather a boatload of vocabulary words, we increased our knowledge and imaginations from the books of the week such as, Mom and Me, Color of Home, My Hand, My Feet, Little Pea, All Abut You: Eyes, Nose, Fingers and Toes, I am Me and What a Family! Great reading Strawberries! We discussed with the strawberries about who's in our families, how families are different and alike and how the end result is that our families love us for who we are and that each person is special in their own way. Also around the circle, each Strawberry enjoyed looking into a handheld mirror and told everyone what color hair and eyes they have. Next, the Strawberries helped to graph a hair and eye chart using an appropriate crayon color next to their names. As always, the Strawberries practiced identifying their first and last names in circle and around the lunch table. We sure are getting great at recognizing letters.

We talked a lot about our families and asked each Strawberry how many people were in their's. We made family trees and glued as many apples on our trees as the number of people in their family. We also enjoyed crinkling up tissue paper and gluing it onto our trees. The book Little Pea gave us insight into how, in this case, peas, are different from one another even though they look the same. We played a memory game using peas that looked different, hiding one, and remember which pea was gone.

This week we welcomed Ms. Yvonne back for another great fun year of Dance Discovery! The Strawberries were very excited to have their dancing shoes back on their feet.

Next week's theme is dinosaurs! We're sure to have a roaring good time.

All the best,

The Strawberry Teachers