Parenting Double Whammy

Prepare yourselves to feel really sorry for me. I experienced two big parenting milestones two days in a row:

Dane's first day of school and June's first birthday.

I don't even know what to do with myself. As I signed Dane up for pre-K (which isn't officially school yet, but since kindergarten is full day now, I put him in pre-K, and it felt exactly like how kindergarten used to be, you know? Every day for half a day? Yeah. The effect is the same.), bought his school supplies, got him excited, reminded him to close the stall door when he goes to the bathroom, etc., I really just felt excited for him. Then, the day before school, it dawned on me: he's going to school! He won't just be mine anymore! Someone else will be in charge of him! Every day! 

I was sure I wasn't going to be one of those moms who cries when she drops her kid off at school. 

I was wrong. 

He was sure happy to go to school. Now, I try not to engage in mommy bragging much--it's sort of against my upbringing. But these are the facts: Dane misses the September 1st cutoff by three weeks, which makes him pretty old for his grade. He is also a fairly precocious kid, and he is spelling out words, reading early reader books on his own, and doing math. I'm sure the benefits of putting him in pre-K will be much more social than academic, which is fine with me. But I already feel some stress about the possibilities of acceleration and what not. Having a kid in school is stressful.

Anyway. 

Here he is coveting the other kid's airplane puzzle as he was waiting for the schoolday to begin.

When I excitedly went to pick him up, I found him wearing different clothes--the clothes from his emergency extra clothes bag. He claimed to have wet his pants, but his teacher was pretty sure he just wanted to change. Later, he told me it was kind of awkward to have to wear his extra clothes. Hopefully he got it out of his system. 

He made a friend named Noah, though he sometimes gets confused and calls him Moses. 

And June's birthday:

Can you believe she is a year old already? I sure can't. In fact, I'm pretty sure I expressly forbade her from getting bigger. But she is a willful child. 

I planned a little party for her, just with family. I must say, the food was delicious. We had Cafe Rio pork tacos for lunch, followed by a lovely array of cupcakes. 

June's smash cake was Pioneer Woman's best ever chocolate cake with "the best frosting I've ever had."

The cupcakes with pink frosting were the same as the smash cake, and the cupcakes with yellow frosting were these lemon poppyseed cakes with raspberry curd. I used a different, more delicious frosting that would be utterly cruel not to share:

2 c heaving whipping cream, whipped

1 can sweetened condensed milk

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon lemon zest

Once cream is whipped, stir in remaining ingredients and prepare for amazement. It makes a ton of frosting. Like, I have about 6 more cups of it in my fridge right now. 

Rika made the happy little suns and clouds in her Cricut for me. 

Anyhow, I can't believe how big she is. I figured for the first birthday, she wouldn't really care about presents, but, again, I was wrong. She got into tearing the wrapping paper and looking excitedly for what was inside. 

Jiichan and Baachan got her this adorable shopping cart to aid in her biped adventures:

And Rika gave her a plush Grover (a.k.a. Jopie; I had a similar doll when I was little and called him Jopie), which she lovingly packaged in a casket with his arms crossed. 

I have a weird family.

June is so smart and beautiful and big. She loves books. Like, brings them to you constantly and gets upset if you don't read them to her over and over. It makes me so happy that she loves books, even when it's a bit trying to read the same book over and over again. 

Tonight, after dinner, she was walking around with her shopping cart, then left and grabbed things to put in her cart. My one-year-old is grocery shopping.

She is sleeping so much better (though a double ear infection complicated that a bit), and she is picky about what she eats. She loves chocolate. She dances by waggling her head back and forth whenever she hears a catchy tune. She plays peekaboo and "I'm bloind!" She's taken up to five steps and has twelve teeth. She is sweet and snuggly when she wants to be and is a squirmy jellyfish when she doesn't. 

I love her so much. In many ways I can't remember life without her. Dane likes to smell her hair and say, "I'm smelling the cuteness!" Yeah. She has a lot of cuteness emanating off of her. 

Happy Birthday, sweet baby. Thanks for being born to us.

Incidentally, Joel and I went to the cattle baron's ball last night. It was a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, and you had to be a cowboy. 

We had fun and good food, and Joel got to experience seeing his coworkers inebriated. That was less fun. 

And in case you're wondering, I made Joel's belt buckle out of a picture frame. It was pretty awesome and made all the drunk poser cowboys jealous.