A Day Off

already! I'm not going to complain, though, for a couple of reasons. First, Caroline needed to sleep in, and second, after today, they go straight through until Thanksgiving.

Yesterday the girls had their first dance lessons of the year. They both loved it. On Tuesday, we had our first note home from the teacher for Caitlin. She was refusing to color something. Could you imagine? I would have loved to have been able to watch that. Like was she starting to grit her teeth and get angry? Or was she just calmly refusing, like, "no thanks, don't feel like it." The teacher said Caitlin was much improved yesterday. Thank goodness. I was kicking into worry overdrive, thinking "she's not cut out for traditional school and maybe I should be looking into Montessori for her..."

This whole incident has me thinking about the differences in my children, and I feel strongly that it's birth-order related. I feel like Caitlin is so much more of a free spirit than I ever was or Caroline is, for that matter, that just sitting down and following the teacher's directions doesn't come as easily to her as it does to me or her sister. Caroline and I are first-born, eager-to-please-by-following-the-rules people, so we do what we're told (and hope to get praised for doing so), whereas Caitlin sees the teacher's instructions as merely suggestions--just one item on the menu, and there are other more appetizing things out there. It makes for interesting parenting challenges. I know what will motivate Caroline; I have no idea what will motivate Caitlin. Maybe I need to talk to my brother and other second- or later- born children to see what drives them.

And of course, there's Bobby. I haven't really mentioned him in this post, but he hasn't really giving me any trouble! His first day of school was Monday--they love to coddle the kids at this preschool. He went for one hour with me on Monday, yesterday he was supposed to go for an hour by himself (but it conflicted with Caitlin's dance, so he missed it), and Friday is his first "real" day of school. He'll be fine. He is like a small animal--the boy needs to run and play for hours every day!

So today, we'll be starting at the gym, continuing on to the library, where I hope I don't offend too many people (since we'll be there after I'm good and sweaty), and then at some point we'll need to go to the grocery store. Terribly exciting stuff.