first day of preschool

today was ella's first morning at cuvilly school. i got her dressed and went to work, j. dropped her off, and i picked her up. j. says she could tell he was getting ready to leave her there and got a little clingy ("10 more hugs, daddy") and she cried for a few minutes when he left, but then she was fine. when i arrived the principal said "you didn't tell me what a little helper she is!" i guess that after snack k. started putting the chairs away and ella went over and started handing the chairs to her. when i went back to her classroom to get her, the teacher said she had a good day. she was very happy. i also heard that elenora informed the teacher that she'd "had a good day, but i'm ready to go home now" out on the playground just before i got there.

here she is before leaving for school. i realize it's not the cutest outfit, but they told us to dress the kids in play clothing because the children will be spending a lot of time doing hands-on activities including things such as sand, water, food coloring, paint, glue, etc. anyhow, she's still, of course, the cutest kid i ever saw in my life.

notice ella's lunch box. i didn't realize until after i'd bought it that the illustration is done by a famous tattoo artist. oh well. it's better than dora or disney princesses.

she was kind of low-key and tired when i got her home, so i took her on a little walk around the neighborhood before lunch. then she said she'd like to go grocery shopping with me, but on our way to the grocers we decided to go to newburyport and wander around. it was a lovely, cool day and we went in and out of shops together, including a used book store and a candy shop where i let her pick out one piece of candy for a treat (she chose a chocolate covered pretzel with tiny m&ms stuck to it). then we walked down by the water and ate the treat. it was so relaxing. she's been so good lately--none of that terrible twos stuff we dealt with in July. then we went grocery shopping and she was such a helper.

tonight at dinner she was telling us she wouldn't eat her shrimp because she didn't like shrimp, so i told her about the fishermen in gloucester who catch the shrimp and how happy they would be to know that a little girl and her mommy and daddy enjoyed the shrimp that they'd caught, and i reminded her about the times she looked out at the boats in the ocean in gloucester.

she ate up all her shrimp happily after that.

i did a lot of canning the last 2 weekends. took all my tomatoes and some peppers and onions over to momby's and spent 8 hours over the past 2 weekends canning salsa and stewed tomatoes and salsa verde. last night i made chili with the stewed tomatoes. yum.

the other day elenora was using her imagination and she said something to me that sounded like "we have to get warry" and i said "we have to get 'warry'?" and she said "no, we have to get warry" and i said "'warry'?" and she said "mommy," (picture her disdain at her mother) "it starts with an 'L'."

oh. right. "Larry." from veggie tales. got it.