Preschool!

It feels good to have some semblance of a routine back in our lives! Jared started his new job last week. I forgot to take a first day of work picture, but I'll get one of him in front of his new clinic later. He's loving it so far. All his coworkers are really nice and they've started him seeing patients slowly, but not too slow, so it's challenging but not overwhelming. I will say that the plight of a doctor is they will NEVER be home when their schedule says they will be. I learned this during med school and residency, but held out hope that those days would be behind us now. Nope. His schedule says 8-5, but I'm learning I need to adjust that expectation back to 6:00 and all is well. At least no more nights and weekends! That's a big step up in the world. 

In theory Jared also gets Monday afternoons off, so we can do a weekly date then while Jack's in preschool. I have a feeling those afternoons will be sucked away with appointments and administrative items of business, but for now we're naive and excited to have dates back in our life! We're bad at getting babysitters, so the "preschool date" is a great system for us. 

^^Jack's first day of preschool! The next day I realized he was too tall for their sign, so I made him retake it standing off to the side. He was and still is so excited about preschool. I wish I'd taken a few videos on that first day of school, but I was too busy living in the moment. He flashed me the sweetest nervous, excited smile after I hugged him goodbye and he turned away to walk into his new school. Then when I went to pick him up, the rest of the kids filed out pretty quietly, but when it was Jack's turn he burst out of the door yelling, "Mom! Hi Mom! I had a GREAT time!!" Wish I'd recorded that. Then when we were getting into the car he asked if he could stay longer. Glad we went with 4 days of preschool instead of 3 for this kid. He honestly would probably prefer 5. And to answer the age-old question, no, I didn't cry when I dropped him off. I did tear up a little on the drive home just thinking about how excited I am for him to finally get all the socializing he truly craves. I'm so excited for him. And yes, also excited for me having the house to myself a few times a week. 

^^Walking into his cute preschool on the first day. I'm very excited we found this place 5 minutes from our house. I didn't have huge expectations for a great preschool program in our town of population 4000. But this place is honestly so great, and a lot cheaper than I thought it would be. We love the teachers and the way they set everything up. Lots of playtime with some Montessori learning and music mixed in. Jack loves it so much. 

^^Day 2. 

^^Jared's mom ordered a ton of peaches, pears, tomatoes, and apples from a nearby farm. She brought a bunch over for us one day when we were going to can blackberry jam together. We don't eat a lot of fresh tomatoes around here because of my interstitial cystitis, but we do love a good tomato soup. So I made a triple batch with all the tomatoes, thinking I'd put the two extras batches in the freezer to pull out over the next month or two. But then the soup was so delicious that we ate all 3 batches within a few days of it being in the fridge. (Here's the tomato soup recipe if you're interested. It's super amazing and instead of having milk or cream in it, it gets its creaminess from white beans.) We've also been making an ABUNDANCE of smoothies full of peaches, pears, blackberries, bananas, apples, and occasionally some canned pumpkin and cinnamon when I'm feeling crazy. I love fall. 

^^The promised Washington rains are starting to show up more often. We headed up the Mountain Loop to find a new lake on Saturday, but instead just stopped by the river and splashed around in the rain. 

^^Jack took these two pics. An artist. It was a good week! Jack also started soccer. Nothing too intense--it's just practices/scrimmages twice a week. For any other kid I'd probably skip on soccer until they're closer to 5, but Jack has a truly unlimited amount of energy, and he loves soccer. He actually had a better time when we accidentally took him to the wrong practice on his first day and the 7-year-old team let him play with them. He was surprisingly focused and kept up with them pretty well (they were really sweet with him too). But with the other 3-year-olds they're all pretty clueless, including Jack haha. Mostly he's pumped about playing at the nearby playground after practice is over. 

And a little sleep update--things are going better. He doesn't nap on preschool days, so those days go really well for bedtime. But then he's so tired on non-preschool days that he does take a nap, and then he doesn't go to sleep until later at night. But we've finally got him sleeping through the night again! Partially by turning up our own white noise so we don't hear the more minor cries, and partly by my mom bribing him with a new fishing pole if he stays in his room every night until she comes to visit this week. Grandmas rule.