Preschool Update

I wrote the first portion of this post about two weeks ago and have never gotten around to finishing it.  Thankfully, the ending now is happier then it would have been if I had posted it at that time!

Well, Nathan is enjoying preschool, but he is not enjoying the drop off time.  The second day of preschool we had lots of tears, but afterward he told me it was because I didn't give him a hug and a kiss (I did, but it was just a quick hug and peck).  So ALL weekend we talked about how I wouldn't forget to give him a hug and a kiss.  Since then I've been very deliberate about setting Sarah down and giving Nathan a big hug and kiss.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the "cure all" I was hoping for.

He also doesn't really want to be handed to his teacher (who took him crying from my arms the first day), so our bargain always is that I'll lift him over the gate to his classroom if he's not fussing, but if he's fussing his teacher will take him.  (His teacher told us at the open house that they have a gate at the door to prevent runners...)

On his third or fourth day, Nathan made it about half way down the hall, when he turned and bolted back towards the entrance; I had to chase him down and carry him sobbing to his class.  (Hmmm, that gate is for my kid, apparently!)

I had anticipated drop-off to go poorly for about the first month, and it looks like unfortunately that's going to be true.  In fact, it seems to be getting worse because this week he didn't want to even walk into the building once we got to his school.  Since I was also holding Sarah, I was having to almost drag him into the building today.  Thankfully one of the ladies at the front office area offered to hold Sarah while I carried Nathan to his classroom.  Once again, there was major weeping and gnashing of teeth when I handed him over.

It does make me feel a little guilty about dropping him off when he acts this way, but his teacher tells me he only fusses for a very short time.  Plus Nathan is ALWAYS super cheerful when I pick him up from school, although its like pulling teeth to get him to tell me what he did that day.  One night Brian told Nathan he wouldn't carry him on his shoulders until Nathan told him one thing about school that morning!  (Yes, we have stooped to coercion!)

Unfortunately, the drop-off anger carried over to Sunday school drop off last week.  I'm hoping that it was also due to the fact I took him to class, which is usually Brian's job, but he was on call that day.  This one was actually harder then school because his preschool teacher is a pro at grabbing the kid and distracting (and there's the gate), but his sunday school teachers aren't as aggressive.

And now, to the present...
  
The past two drop-offs have gone great!  He really likes me to carry him down the hallway at school, with his head on my shoulder, but then we get to his class and he's immediately cheerful about class!  Hooray!  It didn't take as long as I had anticipated for him to adjust to the separation!  And, in other good news, the Sunday school drop off anxiety seemed to be a one-time occurrance!

Some other preschool tidbits:
At pick-up one day, Mrs. H told me she had brought out her record player and records to play some songs for the kids.  Nathan told her that he had some of those at home but he called them cds!  A few days later she told me that he asked at circle time if she would play the record again, which she did. 

Nathan's not very into the arts and crafts time at preschool.  One day I noticed he was the only one that didn't have a project hung up on the wall outside the room, and another time his teacher reported that at the very last minute they finally convinced Nathan to do his project.  She said he's usually too busy playing to do a project, which I'm not surprised about in the least.  She also said they don't force the kids to do the projects if they don't want to, which I appreciate!  However after Nathan made a lion face with googly eyes, he has a newfound love and facination when them (he sometimes likes to carry two around as his special "things"for the day).

His best buddy is Logan.  And apparently all Nathan does on the playground is go on the slide (...with Logan).  And he LOVES his music class on Tuesdays!

Nathan-isms

It better be dinner or yunch?
(I think this is Nathan's way of figuring out what time in the day it is.  He's asking if our next meal will be dinner or lunch.  I usually respond with "What do you think?" or "You tell me!" and he gets it right most of the time)

Mommy, I not talking to you, I talking to Sarah.
(Oh? Excuse me!)

Mommy (please) leave.
(Usually when he and Sarah are playing together in his room.  And usually I have to prompt him for the "please".  But this request suits me just fine, I'll go read a book or do one of the hundred things on my "to do" list!)

Mommy, I like Sarah.
(Love this one!)

What you talk-ing about?
(This annoys me to no end.  I'll ask or tell him to do something, and he acts like he doesn't understand me, but I know he understands just fine!)

Mommy, I not call for you!
(We've been having lots of trouble with Nathan calling for us during the night.  He likes to come into my room in the morning and proclaim that he didn't call for us in the night, but usually that was not the case.)

We need to jack this down, Daddy, I think. I go get two hammers to jack this down... (Once he has his hammers) I have two jackers!
(There was discussion of using a jackhammer to work on the driveway.)

I want to go some where.  Please?  That make me happy!
(Always, always, he wants to go somewhere.)

This finger has long trim nail on it.
(When he has a long or torn fingernail or hang nail that we need to trim.)

Goodbye Cookie Monster (underwear)... Goodbye Diego (underwear)... Goodbye puppydog shirt... etc.
(When he is helping me load the washing machine, he likes to tell each of his clothes good-bye.)

It better be two sevens.
(In the mornings, he likes to climb into bed with me/us.  But he doesn't want to get out of bed until the clock has two sevens on it, ie. 7:17, 7:27.  It doesn't matter the middle number, just that there are two sevens on the clock.)

Anything.
(Definition: something or nothing or anything.  For example: "Nathan what shoes do you want to wear today?"  "Anything" Meaning, any of them.  Or: "Nathan do you want a muffin or graham cracker for snack?" "Anything" Meaning, nothing.)

Buckle my shoe, buckle my shoe...
(Just some song lyrics that he sang on repeat a while back.)

Won’t by nonie...
('Won't my mommy' be so proud of me... from Bumble Bee song)

Red stop, green go. Blue stop, purple go. Green stop, red go.
(He says this in the car at stoplights and also likes to say and act this out while going potty.  He does know that red=stop and green=go)

My fishy oil cough me.
(We've started to take fish oil supplements some mornings, and occasionally he will swallow wrong and it will choke him, making him cough.)

Mommy, you hurt your toe or your knee?  Your right toe or left toe?
(Whenever I bump something or say "ow", he must determine the exact location of the injury.)

Sarah's Antics

As I continue to sort through (and back-up, hooray!) videos from earlier in the summer, I found two that I wanted to share. 

In July, she started playing the up-and-down game that she learned from a song at the library story time.  I sing "hands up!" and she raises her hands over her head (sometimes too enthusiastically and tips over backwards) and then I sing "hands down!" and she puts them down.  Or, sometime after "hands up!" we vary the fun with "tickle Sarah!".  But when she grabs onto a piece of clothing, the game turns into Peek-a-boo!

This next video is from early August after her daddy taught her a new game to play at the table.

Ordinary Days: August

Sarah LOVES to play in the dishwasher (unfortunately whether clean or dirty). This always cracked Pawpaw up at the beach... he would open the dishwasher to load or unload, and Sarah would appear within a few seconds ready to "help"!  I'm finally getting into the habit of pulling the utensil caddy out first thing so she doesn't have access to all those fun, sharp toys!

Sarah also loves her mobile and always wants to play with it.  Her favorite is when I lift her up into the mobile, but she also just loves reaching for the strands as I blow it.

We've started having some WONDERFUL, cooler weather, so we spent one afternoon with the bubbles on the driveway.  Unfortunately, the mosquitoes were out in force, so it wasn't quite a perfect afternoon.

Nathan randomly decided to play with the muffler on my car one evening before dinner and came in with these hands.  Brian gave him a little talk about how the muffler can be hot and burn him, so hopefully that doesn't happen one of these days.

Little Gardener

We planted a garden this summer and Nathan was an excellent helper for all the garden duties. Almost every day during Sarah's morning nap we would head outside to water the plants in the garden and the flowers in the front beds. Nathan had his little watering can and was always very opinionated about how the watering should be done.

Nathan watering "his" pepper plant early in the summer.

He adopted two of the plants in the front flower bed and one of the pepper plants in the garden as "his". Every day the first few weeks he would always remind (command?) me, "Mommy, don't water mines!" But since his aim with his watering can usually left a lot to be desired, I would have to water his plants while he wasn't looking. And if I got caught he would be pretty annoyed with me. Finally, after weeks and weeks of this struggle, we came to an agreement that Mommy could "help water mines" most days.

In the garden we planted four tomato plants, four basil plants and two pepper plants. We didn't get anything from the pepper plants, two of the basil plants died, one of the tomato plants got bottom rot on most of the tomatoes and then the heat did a number on the rest of them. But we still got a decent yield of tomatoes and it was Nathan's FAVORITE job to pick the tomatoes. In the picture below you can see him carefully picking off the leaves at the top of the tomato, which he always called a "scab" for some reason. But he was of the opinion that tomatoes were not allowed to come into the house if they had the "scab" on them!

Early in the season, Brian and I told Nathan that he couldn't pick tomatoes without us there to help him. But he couldn't help himself sometimes and would come find me with his hands and/or pockets FULL of tomatoes. Almost always he did a great job of only picking the ripe tomatoes, so finally we gave him free reign to pick when he wanted to (since he was basically doing that anyway and it wasn't a battle that I really wanted to fight).

After getting wet feet lots of times while watering, by the end of the summer Nathan's rain boots became a popular footwear choice for gardening.

A pocket full of tomatoes!

Occasionally Nathan would want to eat a tomato straight from the garden, just biting into it like an apple!  But mostly I used them to make pasta sauce.  I will definitely have fond memories of gardening with Nathan at this house!

Talking, Wrestling, Laughing and Gum!

I have at least a month's worth of videos that I just pulled off the video camera (hooray preschool!), so here are a few to share!

Sarah's started saying "Da-da" about two weeks ago and I got it on video the very next day!

Nathan's favorite song on the radio is "Lights" by Ellie Goulding, but he calls it the "Calling" song. Everytime Brian surfs the radio channels and he hears a familiar song, Nathan says "This might be 'Calling'?"

Nathan has been asking to try gum for months and we finally decided he was old enough. Here's his first gum chewing experience!

Nathan was cracking Sarah up one afternoon with his impression of a scene from that day's "Imagination Movers" episode.  Its not super clear, but he is trying to fix "voicemail" (represented by the strainer in the dishwasher), but keeps sneezing and falling down.

First Day of Preschool!

Update: I forgot to mention that Nathan wass wearing his favorite red dinosaur shirt (and his favorite Diego underwear) for his first day of school. And now, for the rest of the first day story... When I picked him up, he seemed super cheerful and it sounded like he had a good time. I got various sporadic pieces of information about the day: they had music class where he played the drums and stood (danced?) on a butterfly; he didn't get a sticker because he didn't go potty at school (even though he didn't want to potty at home because he said he wanted to go at school); he didn't sing any songs but they had storytime; they couldn't play outside because it was wet. Since then, he has alternately said he did not and did enjoy preschool. I anticipate Thursday's drop off to be even more traumatic, but I hope that things will get better from there.

Now that its finally here, I can't believe its finally here! We all experienced our first "first day of school" today as I sent Nathan off to 2 1/2 year preschool this morning.

The morning was alternately extremely frustrating (Nathan didn't want to eat breakfast, get dressed, go potty, or brush his teeth) and surprisingly smooth going (he cooperated SO WELL with the picture taking this morning).

He even wanted to include Sarah in the pictures at home, and then requested that I also take pictures at school. But by the time we made it to school, he was already getting nervous about it.

When it came time for him to actually go into class, we did have the crying/kicking/screaming meltdown that I had feared. We had been talking all week about being brave, no fussing, and that Mommy always comes back, but its always easier to discuss academically then to put into practice. So I just pray that he wasn't upset for too long before he found the puzzles or little panda figures that he played with during the open house. I really think that he'll enjoy preschool and I know I'm thankful for a break during the week (especially if Sarah takes some good morning naps for me!) So I pray for courage and success for you, son of mine, as you embark on your first year of school, with many more to follow!