First off, happy eleventh birthday to my one and only niece, Addy!

Milly had a first semester awards ceremony at school today. Spoiler alert: She got awards for perfect attendance and A-B honor roll.

On most Thursdays, Torrie takes the twins after she drops Sebastian off at school and Laura takes Griffin, but Laura’s in Cozumel right now and didn’t want to fly back just to watch her youngest grandson for a few hours, although I was invited to go down there and drop him off.

Milly’s thing was from 8 to 9, and Torrie doesn’t get back from dropping Bash off until close to 9, so I decided to take all the boys with me. It really didn’t go too badly, although I’m not sure why I decided to leave the stroller in the van. I strapped Griffin onto me, which is where he stayed the entire time, and I carried the twins all the way to Milly’s room. I did let them walk back when we left though. I’m sure it was a very cute sight to see me with Griffin strapped on in front and holding both twins’ hands walking down the school hallways.

Milly was excited to see all of us, as were lots of the kids in her class. Her teacher offered to let the twins play with some LEGO-type blocks, but they were too weirded out by all the people in the classroom to do anything but cling onto my legs for dear life.

We moved towards the back corner of the room, near Milly’s desk. One of the twins, I think Fawkes, was being kind of fussy. Milly came over and offered to take them to her desk, but only Phoenix went. That lightened him up a lot. She let him play with these little animal eraser things (I think they’re erasers) as he sat in her lap at her desk. It was very sweet.

I told Milly later that I doubt Fawkes, Phoenix, or Griffin will specifically remember that day, but that I think it would be a sort of foundational memory or feeling; like they’ll always have an idea of what school is from that visits and any other ones similar to it, even if they don’t know how they know it.

I had a few other parents help me out, too. Anke, Bridgette’s mom, whom I’ve gotten to know some, helped some, as did the parents of Abigail, another girl at Milly’s cluster of desks. They were there with their twin three-year-old daughters. I chatted with the dad a little.

After the awards there was time to read stories the kids had written as well as help the kids give themselves a self-evaluation for how they were doing in different aspects of the subjects they’re learning. When I volunteered at the school last week I actually helped proofread a few of the stories, so it was cool to read a few more.I dropped Fawkes and Phoenix off at Torrie’s. I got a call from Tristen not too long after Griffin and I got back. She needed me to bring something by her work, so we did that. Since I was picking Sebastian up from school, there wasn’t much point in me going back to the house with the time I had left, so I hung out at the office for a little bit. I let the ladies Tristen works with fawn over Babiest and I may or may not have pocketed some of the leftover Halloween candy they had laying about.

I picked Sebastian up and took him home. He’s enjoyed watching The Little Mermaid when I pick him up. That’s the DVD we have playing in the van. He said he’s never seen it and he hasn’t seen the whole thing yet, but he does remember up to which chapters he’s seen.

Griffin got to take a nap when we got back and I got to check some emails and such before having to head back out again to pick Milly up. I don’t usually have her on Thursdays, but her mom had a thing downtown tonight. Milly was given the option of spending the night or having her mom pick her up on the way back, and she opted to stay over, which I appreciated.

She did have a bit of an existential crisis though. Tristen and I were both tired and had gone to bed a little earlier than usual (and I read to her for maybe the second time since Griffin’s birth), but I got a text from Milly around 10:00 asking to talk to one of us. Tristen went to see what was up and Milly’s wandering mind picked that time to wonder what happens when you die. Tristen explained to her that a lot of people believe a lot of different things and that it was a bit too heady a subject for right then, but she got her to calm down about it.

Unfortunately, Milly still had some trouble falling back asleep, so I ended up going to talk to her after a little bit. I got her to calm down and had her, of all things, count sheep. I explained to her that the trick of that was to make your mind focus on something, and that she shouldn’t just count numbers but actually envision a sheep, whether it was just walking by or jumping a fence or whatever. I remember her telling me when she got to 100, 200, and 300. I would just pat her knee and tell her to keep counting. I think I may have nodded off for a few minutes myself, but she eventually fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until the morning, when I let Fawkes and Phoenix walk into her room.