Nov 2009, lost tooth:

Lost tooth : Chloe lost a 4th tooth, this one on the bottom next to the center 2 and on the opposite side as the big gap from one she lost on the top. Casey told her that her smile looked like a jack-o-lantern and she thought that was funny. The next morning when she woke up, the tooth was still under her pillow and there was no present from the Tooth Fairy. It was in the middle of the nor’easter so I suggested that perhaps the Tooth Fairy had been rained out. Chloe hung her head and cried softly while she got ready for school. I felt terrible. While she was at school I did an internet search to see if other children had experienced a tardy Tooth Fairy. It turns out it is quite common. Apparently she has lots of problems from not being able to carry enough money in one night, to conflicting flight patterns, to delays because of the new TSA regulations. Some of the children even received notes from the Tooth Fairy explaining the cause of the delay. When Chloe got home I told her what I’d learned “from the computer” and Chloe said “how does the computer know?” I explained that other moms had written about what had happened to their children and written it in places on the internet that I found. She was very excited that she might get a note from the Tooth Fairy so she decided to write her own note to the Tooth Fairy. The next morning Chloe’s note and tooth were gone and in their place was a note from the Tooth Fairy in a curly purple font and a ring with a jeweled butterfly on it. The note explained that children all over the world lose their teeth and that on the night Chloe lost her tooth more children than usual also lost teeth. The Tooth Fairy started with the kids who lost their teeth earliest in the day, but since Chloe lost her tooth at dinner time, the Tooth Fairy was unable to get to her before sunrise. Chloe exclaimed “The Tooth Fairy knows my name!” and Alex exclaimed, “The Tooth Fairy IS real!” and all was well in the Phelps household again.

nov 1 2009:

The day after Halloween we went to a free Intro to Hockey class at Piney Orchard that Granddad had learned of in the Annapolis news paper. Chloe got brave and skated without holding on to anything for the first time. For Alex just getting on the ice was brave since he has been refusing to try for over a year. Both kids enjoyed it and want to try again. Their cousin Natalie tried it too. She was the first one to let go of the "walker" and skate on her own. Natalie is in purple pants, Chloe in striped pants, and Alex in a blue coat.

The rest of October 2009:

The rest of October 2009: Well, it has been a month since I’ve written, so I can’t really remember what happened each week. The kids got a fever/cough thing one week and cleared up pretty quickly. We went to a family party for our cousins Sarah and Cori. My friend Jamie took the kids to Chuck-E-Cheese for a belated (and much appreciated) birthday present. We carved pumpkins, had a vocabulary parade and Halloween party at school, and went to the community Halloween party, and went trick-or-treating.

The kids have been doing really well adapting to school. They seem to have gotten used to getting up to an alarm clock and having to focus on getting ready for the bus. We have missed the bus one time, so that further enforced that if they don’t do what they are supposed to in the morning, they will miss out on that time with their friends.

Alex got upset a few weeks ago because he got put in “sit and think” (got in trouble) at school for not following the rules. Recently he told me “Mom, I haven’t been in ‘sit and think’ in a long time. I’m good at school!” He was proud of himself, and I’m proud of him too.

Chloe has been recognized for her artistic abilities. One of her pictures was sent to the office, another was held up by the art teacher for the rest of the class to see. While I was in class volunteering the teacher whispered to me “Chloe’s project will probably look like a Rembrandt when she’s done.”

Both kids have been bringing home papers with letters and numbers and words that they have written themselves. Over the summer I couldn’t seem to get the kids to be interested in writing at all, but the teacher has got them motivated. She told them not to worry about spelling, just to sound the words out and write them down. She calls it “Kindergarten spelling”. Chloe especially likes this lack of pressure so much that her writing has become prolific. The teacher told her she could be an author one day since she practices so much. Chloe was really pleased by that idea so she decided to write about it. She spells author “ofr”.

It was our first time going to the community party and the kids loved it. Before the party adults had filled small plastic pumpkins with candy and hidden them in the softball field for an Easter-egg-type hunt. There was also pizza and the general joy of getting to see all the costumes of the kids in the community during the day light. Alex dressed as a Clone Trooper (from the latest Star Wars movie), and that turned out to be the most popular costume as there were 4 total Clone Troopers. Chloe dressed as Mulan. Blade, Skye, Tricia and Grammy Barb came over for trick-or-treating. When the moon peaked out from behind the clouds we noticed that it was a full moon. Blade said “Watch out for werewolves!” Chloe said “that’s just a Halloween legend”. Aunt Tricia couldn’t believe knew how to use the word “legend” in that context.