The Ditto Heads: 1st Grade

I stopped for a minute this morning to think about all the students heading to a new year of school and immediately thought of Lydia. She would have been my little first grader this year. Growing up and going to school all day. I imagined what our morning would have been like: her excitement waking her up super early, a new outfit that had been spread out the night before, and her favorite breakfast (maybe pancakes?) Owen and Savannah would have been watching on with wide eyes and I'm positive Owen would be sad for his best bud to be gone all day. I imagine fresh-baked cookies out of the oven to welcome her home and her talking non-stop about her fun day.

Instead, our day is really not any different from yesterday, or the day before that. Without children in school there isn't much fanfare at this time of year. But that's ok. We are all healthy and happy and have so much to be grateful for.

Speaking of Lydia, we celebrated her 6th birthday in July. On her first birthday, when it was just Dan and I in St. Louis we ordered one of those butterfly kits where they send you some caterpillars and you get to watch them go from caterpillar to butterfly. We knew we wanted to do it again but wanted to wait until the kids would be old enough to appreciate it. So this year we started a new tradition. A couple of weeks before her birthday I ordered the caterpillars. It was super fun for the kids to watch them move around and turn into cocoons and eventually butterflies. I tried to time it right so we could release the butterflies on her birthday, but we were a few days early.

Also, each year we do some type of service project on her birthday. This year we decided to drop off a bunch of treats at the NICU for the NICU parents. Dropping everything off was a quiet affair as I just left everything in the lounge, but it was definitely crazy to be back. Crazy as in, the sights and sounds and smells may have set off some hidden PTSD and I had to take a couple of deep breaths. Let's just say that I would be perfectly fine if I never had to step foot in the NICU again.

After the NICU drop-off, we headed down to Thanksgiving Point and took the kids to the Curiosity Museum. We've heard amazing things about that place and we thought Lydia would more than approve of using her birthday as an excuse to do something special with the kids. They LOVED it and it made me wish we lived closer so we could get a pass and go all the time.

We ended the day by blowing out some candles on some cupcakes we bought (I didn't want to make an entire batch of cupcakes for the 4 of us, so store-bought for the win!) It was a fun day and it's nice that Owen is getting old enough now to understand at least a little of what we tell him about Lydia. Sure do love that girl!