Friday Funday!

note older sister in blue, coloring. 

Well, yesterday was a whirlwind. We started with Wyatt's orientation which was great. His teacher's name is Mrs. Patterson and she's been highly recommended, so we feel lucky that's where he landed. He is not, however, in class with anyone he knows which is a bit of a double-edged sword (I'd love to know he's going to have a good buddy in there, but I'm happy for him to have the experience of making new friends from scratch. Sing it with me: make new friends, blah, blah, blah). We began in the lunchroom with information from the principal - he's been at the school for about 20 years and is kind of revered in these parts. I think he's hilarious in both content and delivery (very southern; very, very southern) and I think I could listen to him all day. We then moved to the classroom to hear from the teacher. Mrs. Patterson asked the kids to color a picture while she talked to the parents and told them that they could turn the picture into her aide, Ms. Williams, when they finished. Wyatt was in his awestruck, quiet mode (so much so that he was afraid to get out of his chair to reach the crayons in the middle of the table, I assured him it would be okay.) and focused diligently on his coloring, which turned out to be the best approach since it became clear the coloring was a competition as Johnny's* parents had their older daughter help him color his picture. For kindergarten. On the first day. Ai yi yi.

Nat and her favorite boy, Eli.

Wyatt and I then went to get a little sweet treat before retrieving Natalie from our friends' house. Jen and I had planned to take the Wyatt's (this being the 'other Wyatt' from preschool/church), Eli and Natalie to the children's museum in Columbia for the day. Of course they all loved riding in the van together, making demands of the mommies in the van together, laughing at the showing of Lion King in said van (yay DVD player! yay Swagger Wagon!) and we made it to Columbia just in time for lunch. After reordering chicken quesadillas with nothing spicy, procuring extra food for a starving Natalie, replacing my Wyatt's drink with Sprite ("the orange soda isn't fiiiiizzzzyyy!", he said in a whining voice) and corralling my two for a single bathroom trip, I kind of felt like maybe I'd expended all my energy. But no, we powered on and had a great big day at EdVenture.

the Wyatt's who are strangely COMPLETELY unable to contain
themselves when around each other. It's so weird and utterly frustrating. But they're cute, so they've got that going for them.

The last time we went to this museum was back in early spring. Natalie remembered every bit of it, even so far as to tell me to "turn yeft around dat torner and derr's the titchen!" Sadly, the kitchen has been removed to make room for an under-3 play area. She was disheartened but not completely brought down because lo, she loves the car area.

fueling up

riding in cars with boys

And considering all the fight I get weekly in the commissary, I find it fascinating that both of my kids would've stayed all day in the mini-Piggly Wiggly, which made them say in unison "local since forever." The Pig's marketing people should know their campaign is working on my kids.

checking cheese labels?

mmm….bacon!

focused shopper

let's check that cart: four boxes of cake mix,
a gallon of chocolate milk and store brand lucky charms.
But wait - he cancelled it out with two cucumbers.
Good job!

the final run; they've observed too many people doing the
monthly stock-up at the commissary, perhaps?

natalie saying, "nice tamel! good tamel. Thanks for yetting me ride you, Tamel."

We were there for hours and apparently my index finger got tired of taking pictures with my phone. These are a couple more of my favorites, though:

look out! three-year olds in a digger.

The Wyatt's doing their best tribal drumming in front of a green screen. They LOVED this! Dancing, loud noises and all of it's being shown on tv - what's not to love?

Needless to say, I was worn out by the time we got back. The kids claimed they weren't but Natalie fell asleep mid-demand for more water and Wyatt crashed about ten minutes after lights-out. Well worth it all because they had a great time!

*this name has been changed to protect the somewhat innocent.