kindergarten started today. all day, 8:30 am to 2:30 pm. ava is totally excited. she has her bookbag, her new lunch tote (very cute), and her uniform. when she found out that the uniform was navy and khaki, she was upset, until it all came in the mail. then i could not stop her from wearing it every day.

both kids are worried about not seeing each other all day. that was a nice thing to hear.

we walked up the hill together and ava was very quiet and observant when we arrived in her classroom--carter immediately made himself at home, and she walked around slowly. there are several girls in the class that she knows, and as they settled in, she relaxed.

but...her teacher is pregnant. which is great for her and all that, but this will be the 2nd teacher in 3 years that is going to leave in the middle for a baby. ava is going to think that she is the root cause of all these pregnancies. i hope it is not as upsetting for her this year as it was for pk3.

carter is eating like a horse these days, and very emotionally fragile. which says to me: growth spurt. today, in order to weather ava's absence, we are going to go to the beach. this evening we have soccer--ava should enoy it, but carter is not a huge fan--only because he was unable to secure one of the 2 blue balls floating around the field. he absolutely refused to play with any of the other hundreds of black and white balls. maybe tonight will be different.

as for skating, we are having a heck of a time with coaches and ice time (that is not as much of an issue anymore). i absolutely cannot believe how difficult it is to get a regular schedule of lessons established. the sport has not endeared itself to me...

and of course, to save the best for last, we have a new addition to our family: midnight, the teeny tiny black kitty that arrived yesterday afternoon. he is pretty darn cute, and ava and he have struck up a nice friendship already. the best part? when the sun hits him just right, you can tell that somehow, despite being all black, he has tiger stripes. almost like matte and gloss stripes.

but he did get us all up at 6 am today...