Gotcha Day #2

It's hard to believe we're celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the most important day of our lives. It's funny that we were so impatient waiting for something we were afraid might not happen (or couldn't imagine actually being real), that 2 years have gone by already.

We spent the day at Blizzard Beach, a water park at Disney. Needless to say, we had a blast. Amelie had to ease into a little, so we went to Tike's Peak first. There, she got to get comfortable on the little kiddie slides and shallow pools. Then, we spent the rest of the day trying to keep up with her. We did the family raft ride where 6 people get in a raft and go down a rather fast slide to the bottom. The only drawback to this ride, at least for me, was the ski lift you had to take to get to the top. Mama was white-knuckled all the way to the top. Amelie kept saying "Mama, don't hold me". "Uh, no, I'm holding you". "But, Mama I'm okay". "But, I'm not". So went the trip with me like a psychotic person going "Ha ha ha, isn't this fun?"

The rest of the day was spent with multiple laps around the lazy river (Amelie actually did sit in a tube for a little while); jumping waves in the wave pool (which we called the "ocean"); and going down this gigantic slide (I mean gigantic because of the number of steps involved to climb up) where we could go down in a double tube and Amelie wanted to do over and over. On the last trip down, I lost my sunglasses. I get my sunglasses at Wal-mart, sub $10 as I tend to lose them in pools and restaurants, etc. Amelie seemed overly concerned about this. For a while afterwards, she kept asking "Mama, what happened to your sungassees?" "They fell off in the pool honey". "Go get them!" "It's okay honey I'll get new ones". "No! get those sungassees!" I'm not sure why the attachment to those, but I think she finally got over it.

Toward the end of the day, we all shared a chocolate drizzled funnel cake, which I feel safe in saying was a highlight. They announced that the park was soon closing so we told her we had to hurry if she wanted to go on a few more slides. She asked if her Gotcha Day was closing too and we told her that, no, just Blizzard Beach was.

On the way home, we had one sacked out toddler, so we stopped for some take out Chinese food.

School followup

So, last week was the first entire week we've had where Amelie did not cry when I dropped her off. The teacher and preschool director told me on Tuesday that Amelie was very good about putting bunny in her cubby and not being distracted by him while she was at school. I think this is because Amelie did such a great job in prepping bunny on the way to school. She carried bunny as I gave her a piggy back ride to school and told him "Now bunny, you have to stay in my cubby while I'm in class, okay?" And bunny replied in a high voice, "Okay, I will". Bunny later went on to say he'd probably take a nap while she played and Amelie thought that was a good idea.

Amelie has been getting treats while in school because she helps clean up her centers as well as those of the other kids. She tells me she's been having fun and once asked if the kids from her class can come over to play. Each time I pick her up, I watch her for a little while before going in and she's always playing happily with the other kids or chatting with the teacher. Her teachers names are Miss Milley and Miss Nicole. At home, she likes to pretend to play school and will have me be Miss Milley and she will be one of the kids.

In the end, I do feel as though she is adjusting and getting a lot of of going to school.

This past Friday, we got to go back to school for school pictures. This was the first year they did school pictures for the 2 year old class and it was somewhat like herding cats. I almost thought getting Amelie's school picture was not going to happen as, for some reason, she despises posing for pictures. The shots the photographer did get were quite close up in order to get me and bunny out of the shot since that was the only way she would even consider posing for the pictures. They did come out good though and I'm curious to get the proofs now.

Most of these pictures are from the zoo this past weekend and the last one is when we went to Green Meadows Farm with Abby, Malia and Emerson back in July. Amelie's favorite things to do at the zoo are to feed the giraffes and pet the stingrays.