Little Lewie's First Day of Pre-School...(Yikes!)

Last Monday was Little Lewie's first official day of "Pre-School."  His days of daycare are now long gone.  While it's exciting to start him in a "school readiness" program, it's also a little bit intimidating...not for him...but for me.  The week before, we had an orientation, and I was already told that he would need to wear full blown underpants.  (No more pull-ups.)  Even more, besides getting him fully potty-trained, the pressure's on to get him better acquainted with his numbers and letters.  I'm proud that my little boy can count to thirty and, more or less, knows how to sing at least some of the alphabet song.  Still, now it's "GO" time.  Mommy is expected to work with him at home. 

So, the big first item on my agenda is to get my little guy potty trained.  While he's good about going pee pee on the potty, he's still shying away from the other.  He also still prefers going in his pull-up instead of telling me that he has to go...which means that both the ladies at pre-school and my family have to bring him into the bathroom at least every 20 minutes or so to make sure he stays dry.  I've bought a couple of cool aids (a book, DVD, and potty chart) to help me with the training.  I can't wait for them to arrive...

Yes, the milestones keep on coming...Last week was his first day of pre-school and his first time wearing big-boy underpants.  Who knows what this week will bring?!  I'll just work on trying to keep up with it all!

Little Lewie's first day of school--the day after Hurricane Irene. 
We had no power and were still picking up branches.

"Common Mommy"

"Cheese!"

"I'm growing up."

"Ready when you are..."  (Of course, I'm not ready...Oh, I'm still not ready.)

Still No Power after Hurricane Irene!

Hi Everyone,

I'm happy to report that we finally do have power after Hurricane Irene!  A crew from New Jersey hooked us up on Friday, and another gentleman from AT&T got our U-verse running on Saturday.  I wrote a blog entry during the week on another computer but was unable to post.  It was difficult to be without power.  I didn't mind not watching TV for the week, but I didn't realize how 'addicted' or 'dependent' I'd become on using the internet!  It was tough not to be able to blog, answer work emails from home, or even get updates from friends and family.  I LOVE my computer, and even more, I LOVE my electricity and internet access.  I'll never take these for granted again.  Anyways, here is my mid-week rant about having no electricity and another tree falling in our yard (we had one fall on the house only a few months before)--the tree mess is still yet to be cleaned up!

As many of you know, Hurricane Irene "visited" the East coast last weekend and caused quite a bit of destruction.  For Connecticut, we had lots of  beach erosion, fallen trees, and knocked down power lines.  While we don't live anywhere near the beach, we did have another tree come down in your yard.  Fortunately, it missed the house, but as it fell on the side of our house, it took down our power lines and the pole on our house that attaches the power lines to our meter.  After hearing a large thud in the afternoon, we looked out our window only to see the mess--the scariest part is that even with the power lines being knocked down and entangled in the tree, we still had power.

To be safe, we called our town's emergency number.  After they came in record time to survey the damage, they decided we needed to shut our power off to avoid a fire.  Now, here it is...day five after the hurricane, and we are still without power.  We've been told it might not be restored for another ten days...  The frequent trips to my in-laws to take showers, the visits to the laundromat, or the daily trips to get ice haven't been my idea of fun, but it certainly has made life interesting this week...  At the same time, this week was Little Lewie's first day of pre-school.  Not only is he trying to get adjusted to a brand new classroom and brand new teachers, but he's also trying to make sense of our lifestyle change--no lights, no TV, no baths, and even no cooked meals, to name a few.  He's been telling everyone..."Fall down tree and no TT."  The translation is "our tree fell down in our yard, and now we can't watch TV."

Finally, Little Lewie has been a little traumatized by other changes.  I tried to give him a bath this week at my in-law's house and he screamed bloody murder.  With his strength and persistence, there was no way I could get him in the tub.  He still wouldn't go in after we put toys and bubble bath in the tub either.  Then, today, I took him to a laundromat for the first time.  Once we stuffed everything into the dryer and left to go back to the house, Little Lewie started to sob hysterically.  "Clothes Mommy.  Clothes!"  I guess he thought we were leaving our clothes behind for good.  Poor thing.  I do hope things improve next week...

Here are some pictures of our "fall down tree":

We're very lucky the tree didn't hit the house!

It's hard to tell in this photo, but we have at least three other trees that are ready to fall down too!

The glorious pole to our meter that came down with the wires.