Bittersweetness

Today was Mary Wade's second day in Mother's Morning Out at McEachern Methodist. Up until yesterday, only a handful of people have ever kept her for Wade and me, and most of them have been family. Even though we knew SHE needed this, WE weren't entirely ready for it. Yesterday morning when I dropped her off, she was sobbing and I thought I might not be able to leave her. I just knew she wouldn't make it a half an hour, and I told her teacher I would be sitting in the lobby with my cell phone if she needed me to come back and get Mary. After about 45 minutes, I had not heard from her teacher, so I snuck back to her classroom to peek in. She was doing just fine! She ended up staying until a little after noon and I (along with EVERYONE who knows Mary) was shocked! This morning, I took her back, and she was equally upset when I left her, but she settled down and was just fine for the rest of the day. This afternoon when we got home, I was watching her play and it felt like she'd grown up so much in just a couple of days. She suddenly seemed so independent and so BIG! I felt like she changed so much in those few hours that we were apart and it broke my heart a little bit. I am happy because this is a huge milestone for her, but I'm sad because I can't keep her from growing up.

Emma's First Golf Clubs

Wade bought Emma her first set of golf clubs this weekend and took her to the driving range this afternoon for a lesson. She did very well and she can't wait to go back! Here are a couple of pictures I took before they left...

Meet-The-Teacher Day

The time has finally come for Emma to go back to preschool and for Mary to start Mother's Morning Out. It has been such a fun summer but Emma is so excited about going back to school. She couldn't wait to get to McEachern this morning to meet her new teacher, Mrs. Johnson. She knew exactly what she wanted to wear and counted the days until Meet-The-Teacher Day.











...Emma before we left this morning. Clearly she practices posing on a regular basis because she always has a new one when I get out the camera!

















...Emma at the door to Mrs. Johnson's classroom.

















...Emma and her new teacher, Mrs. Johnson.



Mary wasn't quite as enthusiastic about this major milestone in her life. She started crying the minute we stepped in the door at McEachern, and got even worse when we stopped to talk to Mrs. MacMillan, Emma's teacher from last year. When we got to Emma's class, Mary calmed down a little bit and even played with a few of the kids in Emma's class. But she lost it again as soon as we left Emma's classroom to head over and meet her teachers. When we got to the classroom, she was very nervous that I was going to leave her, and at first she didn't want me to put her down. Then she noticed all of the neat toys in the room and some of the other kids playing and decided she might need to explore a little bit. She played very happily for about 20 minutes and actually cried when I picked her up to leave. To make matters worse, I then handed her to her new teacher for a picture, at which point Mary made it perfectly clear she was in no mood to "Meet-The-Teacher".










...She could hardly contain her excitement about her Mama leaving her with those horrible strangers who are going to love and care for her and try to get her to have fun.











...However, her mood improved when she saw all of the neat toys in her classroom.

















...She was having so much fun she didn't want to leave!















...She didn't want the teacher touching her either.

Sweet Mary at 16 Months

I took these pictures today of Mary Wade, who turned 16 months old yesterday...

Our Beautiful Girls

These pictures were taken about a week ago, and they are some of my very favorites...

My Baby Mary...

Sometimes I wish I could keep her this little...

The Girls and BoBo

These are some of the sweetest pictures of Mary, Emma and Samson snuggling after the girls' bath...

Crazy Hair!

One afternoon, Wade was doing some yardwork and I was folding laundry in our room. The girls were playing in Mary's room, and things got a little too quiet so I went to see what they were up to. Apparently, they were playing beauty shop and used EVERY barette they could get their hands on to get all dolled up! Here are a couple of pictures...

Long time no blog...

(This is just a cool picture that we took a couple of weeks ago - I love it!)
Wow! It's been forever since I posted a blog - we had computer problems, then got a new one (a Mac) which wasn't letting me update our blog. But, I think I've figured it out so I'm going to try to post something. If that works, I'll post our latest pictures.