First Day of School, Part 2

I wanted to add Tucker's impressions of his first day:
"it was a long day"
"there were instructions for everything"
"I had fun finding the gingerbread man" (apparently they read the story to them and then they had to go "find" him, he wasn't anywhere they looked but when they got back to their classroom, they had gingerbread cookies for snack!)

Despite the seemingly negative comments, he did seem to have fun. He liked that he got his own plastic basket with a box of crayons, a glue stick, a pair of scissors, and a pencil and all were labeled with his name (hey! it's the little things!) I guess I can be thankful that we are one of the only school systems in the area who does not have to provide the basics for our children. I did buy him a new box of crayons for home; I felt like I needed to get him something. Santa brought a LOT of pencils for last Christmas and he had gotten a new backpack towards the end of last year so we didn't get a new one. He was also really tired and yes, he did survive lunch (and that's actually what he said there were a lot of instructions about, like where to put their garbage, etc.)

So we did go to Chuck E. Cheese and actually the pizza wasn't nearly as bad it usually is. Let's just say that we have accepted that we don't go there for their pizza. We had a good time playing skee-ball and practically had the place to ourselves. Tucker found a few kids to crawl through the tubes mounted up by the ceiling so all was good.

I go back to work tomorrow after my little mini-vacation and I don't know that I'm ready!

First Day of School

Today was Tucker's first day of school...we went to Angela's to walk over with everyone from daycare. Tucker met his teacher and knew two classmates, one from his class last year and the other from his t-ball team. Here he poses with me and Michael and by himself (I couldn't get him to keep his eyes open; he thought he was being funny!!)



The parents got to come back at 9:45 for a welcoming speech from the principal plus some info re: the new reading program. Then we got to go do an activity with the kids in their classroom. We talked about our summer vacations and the kids drew a picture of what they did this summer and then had to present it to the class. It was actually really fun to see his classroom and meet the two girls at his table. He was really nervous about lunch so I'll let you know how that went! Tonight we're off to Chucky Cheese's to celebrate the 1st day of school.

The Other Labor Day (in my case, only one!)

I saw this on Jul's blog and stole her title!

How long was your labor?
I started having contractions around 9,9:30pm but it wasn't until around 11:30 that they became more regular (and HURT more). Michael was playing in a dart tournament and I called him there on our TRACphone (which was a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law for just this purpose; hard to believe we never had cellphones now!) So anyway, Michael came flying home in about 10 minutes (should have been a 20-25 minute drive). We got in the car and headed to the hospital where we called our parents. My parents came down right away (relatively speaking: they live 45 minutes away). After being on monitors and walking laps for almost 3 hours, they decided I was in "false Labor" (don't even get me started!) I was actually only dilated 3 cm. What I remember most about being on the monitors was my dad telling me jokes to make me laugh through the contractions. So we went home (my parents came too) and were back at the hospital at 5:30. By 7 am, they had given me pitocin (however it's spelled) and broke my water. Even though I wasn't any more dilated, it was clear this baby wasn't staying in! They told me I'd have a baby by noon. HAH! what do they know?! I labored until 3pm when the Doctor though I should "consider" a c-section (see below). Tucker was born at 3:52pm. So I guess that makes 16-17 hours.

How did you know you were in labor?
I had experienced Brach-Hicks (sorry if I spelled it wrong) before but these were a LOT different.

Where did you deliver?
At Lawrence & Memorial Hospital in New London, CT

C-section?
Yes, see story above. What I wanted to add was that when I first found out I was pregnant, I was told I wouldn't be able to have a baby more than 6 lbs because of the size of my pelvis so when at month to go, they told me I was going to have at least an 8-8 1/2 lb baby (he was 8.6), I wanted to schedule a c-section. They wouldn't. I do clearly remember when the doctor told me we would have to "consider" a c-section, I told him he could take it out my nose for all I cared (I was just a little tired and had been given a lot of pain meds. So much in fact that they didn't have to give me any more to do the c-section. At my "check-up" at the office after I had Tucker, the doctor told me that if I had any more children ,we would definitely schedule a c-section!

Drugs?
See above

Who delivered?
I'll borrow from Jul again...you mean, besides me?! Our doctor was Dr. Levin and I will always remember the moment he said "it's a boy!" (we had decided not to find out the sex, believing that this is the one of the few real surprises you can have in life).

Anyone want to add their Labor Day story (-ies)?

Happy Labor Day (Also Letterboxing and A Night at the Demolition Derby

Yesterday we went for a 2 hr hike in one of the conservancies here in town (we actually have quite a few). This one is called Milo Light and it's over on the Salem-side of town. Maybe I just don't know how to estimate a mile walking (entirely possible) but it seemed a LOT longer than a mile to get to where the clues started.
Tucker found the first of three in a stone wall:
The other two were on our way out. I found the second one hidden in the wall of an old foundation (hard to imagine a farm here now). According to the clues, it's from the 1870s. Michael found the last under a fallen log. Note to self for future letterboxing: bring water and bug spray. It was a lot further than we had planned on and we got eaten up by bugs!!!

Last night we went to the Waterford Speedbowl for what was supposed to be the Annual School Bus Demo. But they couldn't find any buses. We first heard about this from my friend Tracy (Andrew's mom) and they were going to go with us until we found out it was at 7 pm instead of the afternoon. With Emily being only 5 months old, they decided to pass. We had gotten passes from Budweiser so our Niece Cassandra and her boyfriend Eric came with us. It was actually a lot of fun! They had a burnout contest, a tire relay (where they push a tractor tire around the track), a boat race (they push the boats around the track, and also a sliding race where they put snowmobile skis on the back of the cars. They ended with a demolition derby. Here are some pictures in no particular order




Today we headed out to Bluff Point in Groton which is usually absolutely gorgeous and today was no exception! There were a lot of people there at the picnic tables, enjoying the day. We were going to try to find three letterboxes. The first we needed a compass for (we still haven't gotten one and try to weed out the clues that require one; this particular clue didn't mention a compass until the the second to last line and we couldn't figure out which way 21 degrees to our left was!). The second we found (a really cool parrot) and on the way to the third, Tucker tripped and skinned his knee so that was the end of that! We'll go back again but in the meantime, we did get to enjoy a nice day out by the water!

Tomorrow is the first day of school (I can't believe Tucker's going into 1st grade!) and then we're taking him to Chucky cheese for a special dinner (I try to only go there for "special" things).

Catching Up...

Once again I find myself trying to catch up from the previous week! Work has been crazy-busy with some really difficult issues to help my patients deal with. One that really affected me is a 54 year old with end-stage rectal cancer who is actively dying. When I last saw him about a week and a half ago, he was sitting up and laughing with me about the craziness of life and now I go see him Tuesday and he's hallucinating from the morphine he's on every 4 hours. His wife is barely holding it together emotionally and trying to take complete care of him, including setting up IV hydration! I never fails to amaze how strong the human spirit can be. I know that if any of us were in that position we would do the same. What makes the situation even more difficult is that they have never discussed end-of-life issues like hospice, pain management, going back to the hospital, or resuscitation. Needless to say, after that visit, I was in a funk for the rest of the week that just didn't seem to go away.

I had yesterday (Friday) off because my daycare lady closed for a three-day weekend. Tucker and I met Andrew and his mommy (and of course, Emily) at a playground to play and have lunch. We then went for ice cream at a new place-yummy!
We then got a "sneak peek" at the school. Tucker's school, where Tracy teaches fourth grade, has been under major reconstruction all summer and the teachers have just finally gotten in to do their classrooms on Thursday. So we got a peek at Tracy's new room, the new traffic re-configuration, and most importantly to Tucker, he got to play on the new playscape! Always exciting to be first! The school looks great and Tucker is excited to start on Tuesday (at least that's what he says!) We then dropped off my paperwork for the week at work and stopped to rent "Nim's Island". Tucker had seen it at Angela's and really liked it. It was really cute and of course, I love anything Jodie Foster is in!

Today we did our usual Saturday activities (library and Target). we got Tucker a new lunchbox for school; Spiderman again because the other choices for boys were Hulk, Cars, and Speedracer-none of which he's really into. As usual, there were a million choices for girls including pastel camo which I would have gone for if it was regular camo. When we came home, tucker put in some time in his cons ruction site(the dirt area around his playscape) which is all MUD because it has been raining off and on all day as we deal with the end of Fay (thankfully nothing like what my friend Julie contended with in FL!!!) then of course, it was in to the bath tub with the dirty, muddy boy. He actually ended up taking a shower once we realized he was just sitting muddy water and he hadn't even really begun to clean off! So now he's in his pajamas which he will usually change into anyway once we're done going out for the day.

Now we're watching "Shrek 3"--pretty much a staple in our home. right now it's the scene where Prince Charming is in the bar with all the villains and trying to get them to revolt against Shrek and all that is good. In the background, some one's singing "I've been to paradise" by Charlene. It's from the 80's and I swear I still know every word, including the spoken part: "hey do you know where paradise is? it's a lie, a fantasy recreated by people and places as we liked them to be. But do you know what truth is, it's that little baby you're holding, it's the man that you fought with this morning, the same one that you'll make love with tonight, that's true, that's love"...how scary is that?! I've added it to my songlist because I can't get it out of my head...

I wanted to post some pictures from Michael's party last Sunday. Before we had cake and presents, Michael tried to join Tucker on his boat which as you can see didn't work out that well!
Here Tucker helps Michael blow out the candle. In case, you're wondering about Michael's fancy hat, my friend Joan gave us the hat after we had Tucker to start a "new tradition" so everyone gets to wear the hat on their birthday (and Tucker usually wears it too!)
And finally, just to show off Michael's age (and mine too!), here he is trying to understand how to use Cassandra's iphone. (We are not the most technologically-savvy people!)
Plans for the rest of the weekend include finding some letterboxes here in Montville-there's actually quite a few (that would be tomorrow-Sunday). And hopefully just relaxing on Monday.

Lordy,Lordy! Look Who's Forty!

Today is Michael's 40th birthday! Happy Birthday, sweetie! (We'll celebrate tomorrow at my mom's)

Dinosaurs, Letterboxing, & The Civil War

As you can probably guess from the title, we have been VERY busy for the past two days! I took yesterday off for a little extra family time. We spent the afternoon at the dinosaur park in Montville (actually only 5 minutes from our house). It's actually more than just dinosaurs, as they continue to add each year! For those who don't know about it, it's a huge nature park that has trails with life-size dinosaurs in the woods (I think there 15 but don't quote me!). At Christmas time, local groups decorate them to raise money for a local charity. They also have a great playground and last year added a splash pad. For inside activities there have panning for gold, digging for fossils, and mining for gems (these are a little pricey though. We did go to a birthday party last March that was a lot of fun and the kids got to bring home the "gems" they found!) .As many times as we have been there, I had never taken a picture of Monty (the t-rex out front, named such because he's in Montville)) in his summer gear: green sunglasses and a cup of coke! Here Tucker poses with him (notice the big grin, on Tucker, not Monty, although Monty's grin is nice, too!))




Tucker really enjoyed the rope climbing web this time and kept going up to the top over and over. Even though it was a little on the cool side, he did enjoy the splash pad too! Mostly he had it to himself! And of course, he loved the water table which he enjoys with Daddy here



This time we actually didn't have ice cream (it was almost 5 pm and we were heading home for supper but typically no visit is complete without an ice cream from their ice cream stand!

Before we even went to the dinosaur park we stopped at Michael's and picked up some supplies for letterboxing. We have been talking about doing this for a long time
(For those who may not know, letterboxing is an activity where you search for hidden letterboxes by following clues; the clues are found at letterboxing.org or atlas quest. Each box has a logbook that you log into with your personal stamp and trail name and a stamp that you then enter into your own logbook). So we picked out our stamp: a little boy and a blue ink pad as well as a journal (really an artist sketch pad); our trail name is Felix and Friends (our cat;s name is Felix and this is the name Tucker wanted-I thought we should have a cat stamp but...)

So on our way home, we stopped at a cemetery that we drive by ALL the time to attempt to find our first letterbox and we managed to find it! It was neat too because this cemetery is on the die of a hill and from the road it looks really tiny but it actually goes back pretty far! There was actually two in this cemetery so we took care of the stamping and journal ling and we were on our way, pretty proud that we found our first 2!

Today we headed to the library for Tucker's prize for reading books this week (a smile stamper) and attempted to get the free library pass to fort Trumbull where we were headed to for Civil War Days. The free pass was already signed out so we headed out to find yet another letterbox that was located near the pond by the library! These things are everywhere! This one was in memory of a young girl who was a girl scout and was actually the Girl Scout stamp which , being a former girl scout, I thought was cool!

We then headed to Fort Trumbull which is in New London and sits on the mouth of Long Island Sound. I tried to find out some basic info to include here: It was built in 1777 and named after the governor at the time, Jonathan Trumbull. During the American Revolutionary War, it was attacked and captured by British forces under the command of Benedict Arnold (Apparently a local boy, I'm sure you all know his story). During the Civil War it served as an organizational center for the Union troops. This weekend was their Civil War re-enactment. The soldiers were all camping in tents outside of the fort and patrolling the fort. We talked to one of them on top of the fort about his gun. Here the 'changing of the guard' so to speak


The fort is actually a really neat place and is incredible on a nice day, like today.
While we there, we tried to find 2 letterboxes (we're becoming addicted!) We couldn't find the first one after a 1/2 hour (!!!) so we tried to find the second one found it right away and got a cool stamp of a cannon! We are definitely having fun doing this!!!

After all this busy-ness we headed home to clean out our garage and tomorrow, it's the rest of the house. Plus, Michael gets the fun task of trying to fix the front door sill where we have termites and he'll be placing all the bait and stakes. Fun, fun, fun!