Archive for the ‘Preschool Posts’ Category

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This Boy…

July 29, 2010

Xander checking out some birdsThe boy in this picture – he moves to a preschool classroom tomorrow.  He starts skating lessons on Tuesday.  He can pluck anything he wants off counter tops.  He likes to have privacy while using the potty, but still wants help getting dressed.  He loves his new swing set but doesn’t really want to play outside by himself yet.  This boy will have a sleepover with his best friend or any family member anytime he can and asks just about every morning “what are we doing today?”  This boy has the sweetest disposition ever.  He dotes on his younger brother, looks out for him, plays with him and loves him without any prompting from his parents.  He can also be a little shy and timid in new situations.  This boy will be 4 years old in 53 days.

This boy can’t possibly be the boy that I just gave birth to – it can’t possibly be almost 4 years ago now.

Our first day

Our first day


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Friends

June 28, 2010
Parker still refuses to pose for pictures - this was the only non blurry one I managed of the two of them...

Parker still refuses to pose for pictures - this was the only non blurry one I managed of the two of them...

If you read my last post you already know that we’ve been pretty busy lately.  This means that Zach and I sometimes are running in different directions (usually him out in the yard trying to pick up or mow or plant things while I’m busy cleaning or cooking inside) and when it works out, the boys are left playing on their own.  This doesn’t mean they are locked away in some room by themselves, but they are in the living room or the play room while I bee-bop around them.  On both Saturday and Sunday this weekend they amazed me with their ability to play so well together.  On Saturday they played together for over an hour without a single tear or screech and no interaction with me.  I watched from the kitchen while they played (mostly with a big cardboard box) for an entire hour.  It reinforced my belief that kids really do love their siblings, and although they fight like cats and dogs some days, there are other days when they are the best of friends and at least in our house, at least for now, they play more than they fight and I love it!

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Time…

June 10, 2010

I never realized how much I took time for granted until I had kids (and really, multiple children – looking back, one seems like a piece of cake!)  These days I sometimes hear someone talk about their weekend, how they “puttered around in the yard” and took a nap.  Or sometimes I’ll hear college students complain that they are bored.  These types of comments start a subtle twitch near my eye.  Words like bored and nap (unless referring to a child’s nap) left my vocabulary 4 years ago.

Now there is never enough time.  Not enough time to sleep, not enough time to clean the house or put away laundry.  Not enough time to cook real food or play with my children.  Everything I do is done quickly and usually half-assed because there isn’t time for more.  This past weekend is a perfect example of what our lives are like:

Friday night – Zach played golf with some friends from work.  Sara took the boys home, fed them dinner, bathed and put them to bed.  No time for playing or enjoying children, just time to get the bare necessities done.  Then a little time for folding laundry.

Saturday – We are all up by 7am.  We shower and get the kids dressed and fed and leave the house by 10am.  We have to stop at a friend’s house because Zach forgot his laptop and keys in the car when he was dropped off after golf the previous evening.  Then we rush south to the nephew’s baseball game.  We are 15 minutes late (as usual).  We move from the baseball game to the niece’s softball game.  This one is slightly more stressful with Parker because there is a dirt road behind the dugout with  a slow but steady stream of traffic, and Parker thinks that running into the road is the best game ever.  After the softball game we grab some lunch with the family.  Then we pop into Lowe’s for a housewarming present, and head to a housewarming party (both kids crash in the car, which is a relief).  We stay at the party for several hours until Parker starts with the ear piercing screaming.  Zach and I have gotten used to it (the hearing loss helps I think) but we didn’t want to subject the rest of the crowd to his noise.  We got home in time for me to jump in the shower to rinse 8 hours of sweat (it was sooo very hot and humid that day) and dirt off before a friend arrived to bring me to a bachelorette party.  I arrived back home at 2:30 am.  My sweet husband let me sleep until 9:30 the next day, then we rushed to feed the kids brunch before heading out the door for a birthday party.  We arrived home Sunday night at 8:30 pm.

The piles of laundry and dishes and general house tidiness that I ignored last weekend are shameful.  The lawn is ridiculously shaggy.  The litter box has been ignored for far too long.  The list goes on and on.  Children are a choice.  Zach and I chose this lifestyle and 80% of the time I am completely satisfied with it.  However, when I hear about spontaneous vacations, naps on lazy afternoons, boredom, and a thousand other things that I no longer have now, that ugly green jealousy monster rears it head.  There is just never enough time…

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Busy Week

May 14, 2010

I don’t have any good excuses for my lack of blogging (plenty of bad ones, but no good ones).  It’s been a busy week.  Work has been very busy.  Home has been pretty busy too.

Xander managed to give Parker his first black eye this week.  It happened at day care.  Whenever I see the day care number on the caller id I expect to hear either that someone is vomiting or that someone has broken a bone (I’ve never received the second call yet, but I’m expecting it).  I love that the first thing they tell me is “this is not an emergency” (phew!).  Apparently Xander and Parker were playing, and even though we *just* had the conversation about why it isn’t ok to pick up your brother the night before, Xander tried to pick Parker up.  Of course, Parker is catching up to Xander, so it’s tough for Xander to actually lift his little brother off the ground.  To account for this challenge, Xander tried to pick Parker up by grabbing him around the knees, which of course caused Parker to tumble forward and conveniently directly into the edge of a heat register.  The shiner is impressive.

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According to the kindergarten readiness sheet day care sent home last week Xander needs to learn how to write his name legibly and draw a person with 5 parts (head, arms, legs, etc.) and then he’s pretty much G2G and since he has over a year to learn that stuff, he’s in good shape!  He’s been overly difficult in the eating department this week and we’re not sure why.

Xander has also decided he has a friend named “Vadin” (no clue how to actually spell that) who is “brown” and lives in Campton and it apparently a “big kid”.  I have no idea where he gets this stuff but it’s pretty cute.

We’ll hopefully have some fun this weekend (the weather is supposed to be nice) so I’ve got a few things planned – we’ll see what pans out…

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It’s a Digital Age, like it or not

April 28, 2010
Photo taken with my iPhone this morning

Photo taken with my iPhone this morning

I read an interesting article on Strollerderby yesterday by Ms. Judgey McJudgerton.  Go ahead, check it out.  I’ll wait.

I think my favorite quote is this

“Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve never liked watching children play with handheld devices in public.”

Which makes cell phone use sound like something dirty, that we should only do in the privacy of our own homes, and even then we should make sure the curtains are drawn.

Which then makes me think back on the eleven million times I’ve let both my 3-year-old and my 1-year-old sons use my iPhone.  In fact, since both my husband and I have iPhones (yay family plan!) they can each have one which cuts down on the fighting over one device.

So when do I let my children use my phone?  Well, Xander loves to scroll through the pictures when we’re driving in the car.  This prompts conversations such as “wow, that’s Parker at Chuck E. Cheese!  Hey Mama, do you remember when we went to Chuck E. Cheese?  I want to show this picture to my friends!  Oh, and this one!  Oh and this one!”  (and you can pretty much imagine how the conversation goes from there).  I’d like to point out in this instance, my son is not “isolated from interacting with the people around him” but in fact, is actually using the phone as a means to engage me in conversation.

My 1-year-old likes to sit in my lap and listen to Little Red Hen or The Boy Who Cried Wolf read to him on the phone.  He has also learned that when he’s done, he can press the one button on the phone to move onto a new activity, such as baby flash cards or the Wheels on the Bus song.  He is a little too young to manipulate these stories or games on his own, but it provides me with some great cuddle time with my youngest who is generally much, much to busy to pause for cuddling.  Again, my goal is not to isolate, but to entertain and engage.  We are also big fans of using the phone while waiting in the doctor’s office.  After the nurse leaves, and you’re stuck in that room that has nothing but a bed, a chair and a stool with a nervous 1-year-old, what do you do?  I whip out my phone and distract him so he isn’t in tears by the time the doctor arrives, that’s what.

Ms. McJudgerton would be appalled to learn that we also own an iPad (an even larger device with which to isolate children – the horrors!)  So what do the children do with the iPad?  Well, Zach, Xander and I just last night finished reading all 10 chapters of Winnie the Pooh.  Yep that’s right – my 3 year old son sits still to listen to a chapter of Winnie the Pooh every night before bed.  He’s lucky if there is a single illustration on the page and yet he still listens and asks questions about the story which leads me to believe he actually retains at least some of the content.  Yep, it’s awful the way I use technology to isolate my 3-year-old, I’m most definitely destroying his imagination.

But really, none of those examples were technically “in public” – they were in my car or in my home.  The last time my child used a phone in “public” was last Friday night.  Let me set the scene for you: my father-in-law’s and his brother’s birthday.  The whole family is getting together at a steak house to wish them happy birthday.  The restaurant is nice, so I attempt to be overly prepared with lots of snacks and entire bag full of toys the kids haven’t seen in a while.  Unfortunately, due to our large party, the earliest reservation we could get (called early in the week) was 7pm.  The one-year-old usually goes to sleep at 7:30, so this should be interesting.   The week is filled with sleepless nights, runny noses, vomit and tears from all 4 family members.  We’re all exhausted and mostly recovering from various illnesses.  But, we rally and make it to the restaurant.  We sit at 7pm, and order at 7:20 pm.  By 7:30 pm I have been through every toy in the bag.  We have exhausted Parker’s appetite for puffs and yogurt and milk.  He doesn’t want to snuggle.  Every adult in the room has attempted to cuddle, jiggle or walk with him.  Other patrons are staring or glaring and sighing at us, and I’m not quite sure what to do with the poor guy.  Finally, his cousin hands him her iPod touch with a drawing program on it.  Parker and I sit and draw lines until his food arrives.  I would be willing to bet that if Ms. McJudgerton had been sitting at the next table watching us, it would have been far more comfortable for her to watch my son and I draw quietly (he had already pitched the crayons and paper at my head so don’t offer me a low tech solution) than to listen to his ear-piercing screeches for another 20 minutes.

Yeah, I’m one of “those” parents.  I share my technology with my children.  I use it for entertainment and occasionally education and often as a chance to sit and play with my children.  So Judgey McJudgerton can keep her “dumb” phone and be proud of her daughter’s ability to entertain herself (by the way, did I mention that Xander had a 15 minute imaginary conversation between two zipper pulls in the car the other day?  Some days he doesn’t even need props for his imagination…) and I will continue to make use of the technology I have – and I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t judge me for it.  Just because I let my kids use my phone doesn’t mean I’m a neglectful parent.