in the swing of things.

so we're now into our second week of everyone back to school. it took a while to get here--nola had a slow start to kindergarten, the school waited almost a full week before the kindergarteners joined the rest of the school in their full time schedule. it made for some interesting days at work where i'd be teaching a class and nola would sneak up and hug me and start rubbing my belly. guess it didn't bother my students because this week i've gotten a number of questions from them like "where's that girl that was here last week?" and "what'd you do with your daughter?" :)

avery likes first grade so far. she's made some new friends, still loves all the specials, and finally got some homework to complete before the end of september. one thing that isn't going so well is the 6/7 year old attitude that i had heard about from neighbors and now have the privilege of experiencing. there's a lot of eye rolling and sighing and stomping-and for once, it's not from me :)

 aves, first day of 1st grade :)

 nola is so excited to be in kindergarten and is even more excited that she got to do "regular" math today and it was easy. she's also making some good friends and does her own thing with her own people on the playground after school when i let the girls stay and play.

 nola, first day of K :)

 walking to school with our neighbors

work is work. zane still likes elementary school better than high school and though there is a lot to learn (from little scheduling details to bigger curriculum details), it's overall a much better placement :) my schedule is a bit crappy, where i'm only a .5 teacher, so i should only be working 2 and a half days a week, but instead my 15 classes are spread over 4 days. it's less than ideal, but hopefully sticking it out this year means that i can put in an early request in the spring that my schedule be more reasonable next year.

i have 10ish weeks left!!! overall, i feel pretty good, though at the end of my days at school my ankles are puffy and i'm feeling big and tired. it feels good to be getting to the point where i'm counting down the weeks and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. as much as i know i'm starting to feel 'done', i also know how fast things go and how fleeting this phase is. i'm trying to enjoy the kicks (ehm, karate punches) and being able to fall back to sleep pretty quickly after getting up a few times a night. i know in a few months i'll miss the feeling of rolls and squirms and i'll be reliant on someone else falling asleep before i can overnight.

i've had exactly 1 person tell me they think i'm having a girl. every single person i meet that wants to say something about my belly doesn't even ask if it's a boy, they just outright say 'you're having a boy, right?' i feel like people were convinced that nola was a boy, too, so i'm not holding much stock in it. i will say though, i've bonded with this baby in my belly as though it's a boy, and even though i remember thinking nola was a boy, i never connected with either of the girls as a specific gender before they were born. hard to explain, but i will be the first one to be shocked if i hear 'it's a girl!'

we went apple picking last weekend. it was gorgeously cool out and we had a blast eating cider donuts, watching the girls play and finally picking a huge bag of assorted apples.

here's to fall and all the things that it will bring, big and small :)