Transitions

Therese practicing her Ruy Lopez opening

We always knew she was smart...

Well, the first week of school and a new babysitter proved to be a bit difficult for Therese. It is a lot of transitioning to do at one time. By the end of the week she was moody and clingy - the holding-on-to-mommy's-leg kind of clingy. It was more than enough to bring on a fresh wave of mommy-guilt every time I had to walk out the door. It's funny, Reese LOVES school and really gets excited to play with her new sitter, Kassi, but I guess a summer of nothing but all mommy all day made the school year difficult to get used to. To be honest, it's been really tough for me, too. Last week I walked Therese to the nearby Dollar General to grab an ingredient I needed for the crockpot meal that was underway and it reminded me of Germany, walking her to the store nearly every day. It made me very sad...

But our little princess has done her best to cheer me up. This morning, when I asked what she was doing, she said she was "being haved." I think she meant "behaving" :-). She's been trying to figure out language a lot lately. In the car on Saturday night, Todd said something about something being too tricky. Therese said, "Too tricky...one tricky, two trickies..." She also makes very obvious observations with the greatest amount of enthusiasm - things like, "Brian IS a Brian" and "We're all people!"

Therese is also learning the art of persuasion. She can convince Brian (our housemate for the next week) to do ANYTHING. He was ready to walk out the door, backpack and all, and she gave him a sad look. He put down his backpack and started coloring. Just tonight after an afternoon of trying to get me to play in the playroom, she sat down next to me and started rubbing my back. I told her that it was very nice. She then grabbed my finger and started trying to walk me to the playroom :-).

Perhaps my favorite thing she did this week was trying to convince me to let her wear a "red pretty dress" to Mass on Sunday. I asked her where there was a "red pretty dress." She held up one of Todd's old UD t-shirts :-).