School Pictures

Last week I was in Atlanta and as soon as I landed I got a call from Charlie demanding "Mommy, come home NOW and take me to school." That was cute (and kindof sad). He knows that I go to Atlanta for work but he has no idea that Atlanta is not around the corner.

We were on our own for the weekend while Carlos was in Chicago. It was a fun and full weekend. Charlie had his first soccer "practice" which was hysterical. I knew it would be nutty, but I had no idea how chaotic it would be. It's pretty useless but I figure it gives us organized time to kick the ball around. Let' s just say I'm not getting cleats anytime soon...

We went to an animal farm in Leesburg which I thought was weird, but the kids had a crazy good time. Charlie actually fed the animals as Diego and I looked on in horror. Here he is...

School seems to be going well. This week they had school pictures and I hung around to watch. It was priceless watching Charlie put on a fake smile and follow directions about tilting his head this way and that way. I only caught the end of it on tape unfortunately.

School certainly seems to have triggered some independence in Charlie. He is all about doing things on his own - in particular going to the bathroom. He goes to the bathroom without even telling me now - this scares me a because I've read about the lid dropping on little toddler body parts. Even more scary is that he goes poo without telling me and this is raising all sorts of other issues. Diego also seems to be captivated by the toilet -- namely putting things into it!! I caught him today trying to put Charlie's shoe in the toilet!

I volunteered to take on a room parent role for the class which has provided an interesting insight into parent involvement in the school. I guess the school was about to close 5 years ago and the parents stepped in to improve it and make it a school that inbound families were interested in. I'm usually skeptical of overly zealous parent involvement, but I'm realizing how important this has been to the school so I'm reserving judgement and scolding my presumptions. That said, it was funny going to the room parent meeting which was all women, many of whom insisted they "weren't type A people...." I figure that anyone who feels the need in a group setting to say they aren't type A are probably type A personalities...