I could begin this blog post complaining about the 100+ temperatures. I could gripe about how hot it is outside. I could tell elaborate stories about how hard it is to drag Charlie out into the heat to walk him every day. (Seriously, the dog hides when I get his leash out!) I could snap a picture of how super-sweaty Ana is 24-7 thanks to the summer highs.

But I won’t. Because I know a frigid winter is on its way, and I know I’ll be longing for sweaty days all over again. So, hooray for blistering heat!

We tried to cool off this past weekend by traveling further south to Wichita Falls. (Where it was actually hotter.) I wanted to get out of town on the only day out of the week that we don’t have to wake up early, be somewhere, or have a firmly established routine. (This was something that didn’t even cross my mind when we registered Ana for school. Saturdays suddenly have meaning in our house!) Wes needed to pick up something for the church, and I wanted to find a Pre-K workbook for Ana. She brought a tracing worksheet home in her binder on Friday, and it was obvious from looking at it that Ana didn’t have any idea what she was doing when it was given to her. I sat her down that afternoon, put a pencil in her hand, and showed her what she was supposed to have done. She figured it out in no time at all and was tracing anything I put in front of her. So much so that she worked most of her way through the smaller workbooks that we already had for her. On Saturday, we found a huge binder full of Pre-K activities that I can go through with her here at home, and I’m super excited about it. So is she! We got a little bit of grief from some people for making the decision to put our girls in public school instead of homeschooling them, but I can tell you now, after just a short while in the public school system, that there’s no way I would have thought to do half the things that Ana’s teacher is already doing. I’m sure there are many homeschooling moms who know what they’re doing and are qualified to do elementary education, but I’m not one of them. I love hearing Ana talk about what she’s learning, knowing that she’s really benefiting from the expertise of someone who was trained to work with students just her age. (And I love stealing her teacher’s ideas for home use! One of which is the “A&E’s Good Nights” chart, where we award the girls smiley faces and hearts when they spend the entire night in their beds without coming to visit me at 3:30am. After seven smiley faces/hearts, Papi has promised to take them out for ice cream. We think the cost of ice cream is well worth the return in sleep-filled nights, and the promise of ice cream has been enough to keep them in their beds all night. Woo-hoo!)

We have a busy week planned, which includes the girls’ yearly visit to the doctor. I intend on asking about nighttime potty training for Emmy, who unlike her sister, didn’t go from dry days to dry nights without any effort on my part. I haven’t a clue what to do when it comes to nighttime potty training. We’ve been taking her right before she goes to sleep (in a PullUp) then right when she wakes up. Her accidents are happening at night when she’s asleep, and given that they’re only wet accidents, I haven’t been bothered by it. But I would like to stop buying PullUps sometime in, oh, the next ten years. Maybe the doctor has some suggestions for making that happen. Maybe YOU have some suggestions for me, too. Anyone?

And on a fun note to end this really boring blog post (preschool and nighttime potty training — exciting!), I’ve started Christmas shopping. I’m not sure why all of these companies are offering free shipping right now (school shopping, perhaps?), but I’m taking advantage of it. We had kicked around waiting until Black Friday to do all of our shopping… but I couldn’t wait. Christmas in August! So fun.

Hope your week is off to a great start!