Geeg Turns the Big 0-5

hi, i'm five and kind of a big deal

Our little lass turned five last month.  Translation: GG instantly took us up on our promise that she could have a 'for realsies' birthday party.  At first she wanted to go to a bouncy house or the children's museum but after a little price shopping we managed to convince her that really what she wanted was to go bowling with her princess friends.  YES, you WANT to go bowling.

So she invited five friends to join for bowl-a-thon 2013.  The morning started with me hitting up Sendik's to pick up the Hello Kitty cake I had ordered earlier that week.  Imagine the poor bakery guy who had to tell me that they had lost my order.  About 90 minutes before the party started.  But yay Sendik's for making it right and getting another one ready lickety split and for a much better price of $0.  Other than that the Hello Kitty decor was packed and our little bowlers were ready to kill some pins.

that's a lot of tiny shoes

look at these little cutie patooties

the girls all did really well at cheering each other on and waiting their turns.  i'm sure we won't be so lucky when luke turns 5

alana's ready for a strike

go team!

a+ parenting

We had the little party room ready for pizza and cake as soon as the game was done.  Hello to me not having to clean anything up!

proud birthday parents

what is THIS coming my way?

boom.  hello kitty roasted.

g and a

our little party goers

let's paaaaaaaaaarrrrrty!

Turns out two hours goes really quickly when there are several 4 and 5 year olds involved, so present-opening was more like a tear-a-thon with everyone involved.  So although I'm not exactly sure who gave what, the bottom line is that Genevieve was totally spoiled and has a lot of very generous friends (who have very generous mommies).

Later that night, because we hadn't had enough sugar, we all went to Red Robin for dinner.  This place makes Matt and me ill just because of the noise and the chaos, but Genevieve has been obsessed with going to dinner there for her birthday for months on end.  She has mostly been dying for the wait staff to sing to her.  It's the little things, right?  This is where Grandma and Grandpa Maio gave her her presents: the first was a pink fishing pole, and the second was a much beloved Barbie.  G had apparently been lusting after this for a while and immediately upon opening it yelled, "You tricked me!".  It was pretty dang cute.

yeah yeah, a fishing pole, that's nice

NOW this is something good

 

 

happy camper

if she gets all the attention i'm at least getting some sundae

happy kitten

The evening a success, we all went home and crashed.  The next day we took G to get her our gift - a very big kid bike.  This tot is turning into a little kid before our eyes!

dy.ing. for the training wheels to be put on.  we will be removing them in the spring, ready or not

giving it a practice spin

eat my dust

So GG at age five: she's a very bright, very grown up little girl.  She's an angel in school and around others and gives me almost 100% sassafras at home.  I'll take it.  She loves dancing and ballet, she's an awesome big sister, and she loves to do art.  She comes up with hilarious, very adult-like statements that keep Matt and me shaking our heads.  She can be extremely loving or...extremely bratty especially to mom.  She has literally turned up her nose at me as she stomped out of the room, and the other day Matt busted her sticking her tongue out behind my back.  But when I tell her to go to her room it usually only takes a minute for her to decide to change her attitude and come back and hang out.

According to GG:
her favorite foods are onions, ice cream, hot dogs, corn dogs, sausage, bacon and tootsie rolls 
her favorite activities are, play outside, do artwork, and play on the computers at st. mary's
her favorite songs are, Single Ladies by Beyonce, and Safe and Sound by Capital Cities
her favorite books are, Cat in the Hat, Pinkalicious, and If I Ran The Zoo

What a little nut our girl is.  But we wouldn't have it any other way.  Happy birthday Geegalicious!

G's First Day of For Realsies School

About a year ago my boss asked me to increase my hours to accommodate for planning for the 110th Anniversary.  It didn't occur to me then that the biggest event of my career would coincide directly with my little baby's first day of school.  Yet on August 27th, there we were, me in my neon tennies taking pictures of our Squish on her first day of 4K.

Our school district does not have a public 4K program so we chose to send her to St. Mary's.  The program is five days a week from 7:45-2:45.  And with bussing back and forth and aftercare for the days mommy works, it was the perfect place to get our little learner going.

So I told my team months ago that on the morning of the 27th they were just going to have to make it work.  We had class to get to!

a little present waiting when she got down to the breakfast table



and a couple of love notes for our new school year

while i did manage to order the required uniforms, i did not have time in august to do any other back to school shopping.  she was probably the only kid without new shoes on day 1.  the humanity!


little bro has to get in on the action with his piece of cardboard

luke is not impressed (i think i'm on 4 hours of sleep in this pic)

love the star hanging out of her backpack.  homework due on day 1

The school had given me the wrong time for her bus so she actually didn't get to ride it the first day, which, let me tell you, was akin to tragedy in this 4-year-old's world.  So we all trekked in together and found her cubby and her room. There was the usual scene of kids freaking out and parents getting weepy too, but as soon as G was settled she made it pretty clear that we were no longer needed.

here's my name!

tiny body in a tiny cubby

2 minutes in and already busy at the art center

last minute snuggles before mommy disappears for the next week

hiya st. mary's!

waiting for the bus

crossing the street while mom panics about the nonexistent oncoming traffic

look at that tiny face!

We are so proud of our big girl.  Now a few weeks in she has absolutely been thriving at St. Mary's.  They are working diligently on handwriting, letters, technology, music, Spanish, and gym.  Plus she, and hence I, l.o.v.e. hot lunch.  $2.85 in exchange for only having to pack Lukie's lunch?  Oh even yesser.  It's such a relief to know that your child is in the right school setting.  It's even more of a relief when she comes home flipping exhausted every day and bedtime by 7:30 is a no brainer.  Go big kid school!

Festa Stitchiana

As we do every year at the end of July, we packed up the kittens for a fun summer night at Festa Italiana.  It was a great, warm night and we met K&K there to hang out, watch the performances, and of course stuff ourselves silly.

We started off essentially ordering one of everything.  So that was fun!  Luke ate basically nothing - he was too busy staring at the Sky Glider and demanding to go on the "whee fun".  So Luke went with Matt and G chose to go with Karl.  Whee fun, indeed!

taking off with grandpa

wave at mommy while she has a stroke

oh sweet lord, there goes my baby up in the air

After everyone landed safely we watched some performances and the kids ran us ragged on the giant playground. They were sweaty and gross so we let them dip their toes into the water at the splash pad.  Except 'dip' quickly deteriorated to 'drench'.  I didn't have a change of clothes for G so I basically just wrung her out as much as I could.  But I did have a onesie for Luke - thinking I'm quite clever - so I got him out of his wet duds and into a dry diaper and dry shirt. 

i'm just going to get my feet wet, mom

This is where things get fuzzy.  I don't know if he stepped off the back of the bench we were on, or tripped, or what, but in the two seconds I had my back to him the little lad went forehead-first into a giant curb.  I can still hear the sound in my head and I knew, I just KNEW instantly without even seeing it that he would need stitches. 

I scooped him up and tried to apply pressure as fast as I could.  Those melon wounds like to bleed so I got sprayed while the poor dude was screaming hysterically (obviously).  There were some really kind strangers who stopped by to give us water and ice, and one woman who was a pediatric nurse practitioner took a look too.  I said, "don't worry, we're going straight to Children's" to which she replied, "yeah, but don't feel bad.  I have a 2 year old with a broken arm."  Sure enough in the stroller was this little dude with his arm all wrapped up.

Anyway the EMT people at the grounds came over and took a report.  The guy was kind of a di*k (when I said L is allergic to peanuts he replied, "whoa, that sucks.  You don't outgrow that one." ::gave him my best fish eye::).  We managed to calm Luke down enough to head to the car.  Fortunately K&K were able to take G home - it was a guaranteed long night. 

triage at children's.  obviously well enough to have his pic taken

post-triage waiting for a room to open up.  matt had to stop him from climbing forehead-first on the chairs

annnnnnnnnnnnnnd running

The part that I was most nervous about was the lidocaine.  I remember Grant being maybe 7 or 8 years old and he had to get stitches.  He HOWLED while I stood outside the ER just terrified for him.  I realize now it was probably during the lidocaine.  So I had visions of having to get several adults involved to hold Lukie down when lo and behold, modern medicine came to our rescue and we got the lidocaine GEL.  Oh happy day!  The only bad part was that it needed to sit for about 25 minutes and keeping this dude from touching it for that length of time took every trick in the diaper bag.
 

fortunately there was some bee ball on - goo boo-ers - so that kept his attention for a good 2 minutes

daddy plays fetch with the slinky.  i'm telling you, we were getting desperate

Well all hail the gel, because it worked like a charm and he sat as still as could be for the three stitches.  Plus we got not just a popsicle but a banana popsicle, which obvs made everything better.

notice his hand shoving my arm forward because i wasn't getting him his treat fast enough

at home the next day - quite the goose egg

little man is all about mickey right now so 'mee-mouse' band aids were in order

Of course the real tragedy of the evening was that Matt did not get a cannoli.  But now he and his son have matching perma-dents in their foreheads.  Dear Children's Hospital: you're welcome. 

The Tooth Fairy Cometh

On our way to the cottage for the 4th I noticed that G's teeth seemed to have more space than before.  Which seemed weird but whatever.  During the kiddie's post-woods-wash down on Sunday night though, they seemed to have moved even more.  So I reached in and was SHOCKED to feel that Genevieve's two bottom teeth were loose.  Not just a little wiggly but seriously loose.  Panic ensued - she's still only 4, is that normal?? - but after a little time on BabyCenter and MayoClinic.com I saw that it's totally within the realm of possibility (the more horrifying part of course was Matt and me getting smacked with realization that we had a kid old enough to lose a tooth).  G was thrilled to death and spent the rest of that week staring at it, playing with it, and kind of drooling all over.  By Thursday it seemed impossible that the more wiggly was still in there and sure enough, she lost it at school on Friday.  Which of course meant it was time for the Tooth Fairy's first visit!

selfie with all her teeth

wiggle wiggle wiggle

this is one excited bride

friday night - it's out! 

little girl with a little tooth

proud!

the tooth fairy paid extra close attention to where the tooth was being laid

next morning: it's entirely possible that the tooth fairy didn't have any hard cash on her, so a buck in quarters it was!  she was totally pumped until i said, "wow, four quarters equals a dollar!" to which i got a blank stare and a, "that's it?".  parent facepalm. 

Two days later that second tooth was just as loose, hanging by less than a thread.  I took her upstairs to try to encourage her to pull it out with a tissue, which she wouldn't.  So I went in for it and it immediately came out.  But I kept that tidbit to myself while she hollered that she didn't want me to do it.  So I asked her to check out her smile in the mirror:

surprise -giant gaping hole!

tooth fairy better rustle up some cash quick!

And here's a little video of the adventures in toothy fun:

The kids happened to have a dentist appointment about two weeks after all of this, where they confirmed that I better brace myself because - although only very slightly - her top teeth are wiggly as well.  Oh and she already has a 6-year molar.  So, my kid is dentally advanced.  We're so proud.