Being Sara » preschooler

My High and Low Kid

Sara — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 19:09:33 +0000

My first kid was pretty even tempered. Sure he had his moments, but he is pretty much the same relatively happy kid all the time. Parker on the other hand, is my high and low kid. He certainly makes things interesting!

High: Spontaneous ‘I love you Mama’

Low: Pulling out the 6th and last pair of clean underwear and pants for the day during potty training (and yes, the dryer has been broken for over a month…)

High: Excited exclamation from the back seat as Zach is driving past a speed reader “39! Mama, that’s 39!” (yep, the number on the reader was 39 – no clue how that happened…)

Low: Ear piercing screeching in public places while spread flat on his stomach (i.e. Olive Garden, Boston Museum of Science, etc…)

High: Happily playing with his brother for nearly an hour!

Low: REFUSING to let anyone except Mama comfort him (which is simultaneously sweet, but sad because this ‘phase’ has been lasting for over a year now…)

High: Getting closer to potty trained!

Low: Still going through 1-2 pair of underwear and pants every day (the shoes are slightly more problematic)

High: The mimicking is just so adorable ‘Have good dreams Parker’; ‘Have good dreams Mama’

Low: He figured out how to properly use the word nuts. ‘You drive me nuts Mama’ or (loud Parker sigh) ‘Them dinosaurs drive me nuts Xander’ (yep, it’s really tough to keep a straight face when he says this stuff)

High: Regardless of the day I’ve had, or the day he’s had, when I walk in the door at day care I am always greeted with a running hug and the biggest smile ever. Hand’s down one of the best parts of my day (who doesn’t love it when someone is happy to see you?)

He’s my high/low kid. The highs totally make the lows worth it and I wouldn’t want him to be any other way.

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Conflicting Feelings

Sara — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:26:33 +0000

I like to sleep. I sleep pretty well when I don’t have small children climbing into my bed in the middle of the night. I also like to eat foods that my kids don’t yet find appetizing. I like to go out to dinner and a movie with my husband. I like to close the door to the bathroom and keep it closed the whole time I’m in there. I like it when my house stays picked up for more than an evening. Sometimes I miss the days of sleeping in and eating what I wanted and the freedom to do things on my own schedule. Sometimes I look forward to the days when my children will be self sufficient. When they will be old enough to stay home alone, or to the days after they have moved out of our house and I find free time again.

The other day I told Xander when he was older he wouldn’t want to hang out with me, he’d choose to hang out with his friends instead. Xander giggled, smiled and told me he’d always want to spend time with me because he loves me (duh Mom).

And then, things like this happen. And last night when Xander crawled into my bed at 11:30pm saying he’d had a bad dream, I didn’t send him back to his bed. I wrapped my arms around him and held him for the rest of the night.

When I drag my exhausted body out of bed at 5am so I’ll have enough time to make lunches and breakfasts and find clothes for everyone it feels like these days will never end, but I remember that soon enough I’ll be trying to drag my boys out of bed and frowning at the piles of smelly laundry on their floors. I will think back to all of those nights where I held a sleeping child in my arms and miss the days that I sacrificed sleep or privacy or sanity for my babies.

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This Kid

Sara — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 17:58:20 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about this kid. He is still head-over-heals in love with dinosaurs. We talk about and learn about dinosaurs every day. He teaches me new things every time the subject comes up (which is quite often). He knows and understands the differences between Therapods, Sauropods, Prosauropods, Ceratopsians, Stegasaurs and more. If you’ve got a question about dinosaurs let me know – I’m sure he’ll have an answer for you.

He loves to be in the water, and refuses to get out even after his teeth are chattering and his lips match his blue swim suit. He is so close to having the confidence to swim unassisted – if only we had more time to spend in the water…

He is very excited about Kindergarten, but I’m not sure his mind has fully wrapped around the huge changes in his life happening in 4 short weeks…

He is still my shy guy, and takes a long time to warm up to strangers and still refuses to speak when people he doesn’t know are watching him.

He is however a very sweet brother and friend.

He is still planning to marry Katie and have four children with her, though the names keep changing. He’ll give you answers to any questions about his future plans – the kid has their entire life planned out already.

Even though he’ll be 5 faster than I am ready for, he still likes to cuddle and will once-in-a-blue-moon wind up snuggled next to me in bed in the middle of the night. When I ask him the next morning why he got in my bed, the answer is sometimes ‘I just needed some more cuddles Mama’ I am happy to accommodate that request any time.

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I’m Hungry

Sara — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 10:46:25 +0000

So, I was prepared for the invasion of locusts disguised as my children when they become teenagers. I know that my cupboards will be bare and I’ll spend hundreds of dollars in food each week only to see it devoured in days. I was not however prepared for this to happen when they are 2 and 4. The most common refrain I hear in my house these days is ‘I’m hungry’. I hear it every afternoon without fail when I pick the boys up from day care. I give them a snack when we get home, and then they have dinner, and often another snack after dinner.

Last night was a perfect example. We got home, the boys ate applesauce. I gave them a bath and then made dinner. While making dinner they ate cheese sticks and two helpings of yogurt. They ate sandwiches for dinner (I didn’t have the energy to convince them that homemade pesto really is yummy) followed up by a popsicle and more cheese sticks. They ate constantly from about 5:30-7:30. And since I hadn’t really planned that much snacking into the weekly shopping list, it sort of depleted their breakfast options for the next few days.

Please tell me this is just a growth spurt and eventually we’ll get back to normal. I’m not sure my wallet can handle this level of eating for the next 16 years. I’m certainly not filling them up with junk food, and we always have plenty of leftovers for them to have seconds or even thirds of dinner and sometimes they do. Apparently the locusts are making an early stop at my house…

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My Graduate…

Sara — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:16:09 +0000

You did it Even though it took begging, pleading, lots of snuggles, endless practices and discussions about the big day, you did it (well, some of it). You participated in your preschool graduation to the very best of your ability (which consisted of signing the pledge of allegiance in tears, playing a drum nearly in tears and taking your diploma before retreating back to my lap). Despite your fear that the people you don’t know in the crowd won’t like you, you did the very best that you could and I’m proud of you for that.

Your preschool must be one of the most fabulous preschools on earth. The amount of effort and preparation the entire staff and students put into the event truly shows how much they care and love your class. From the large framed picture of what you want to be when you grow up (a paleontologist of course) to the gift bag, to the book with personal messages from each of your teachers to the CD with pictures of your class throughout the 4 years you’ve been there – all amazingly wonderful.

You are also amazingly wonderful – and I’m not the only one who thinks that. The evidence is in the book, where every message from your teacher refers to you as a sweet, kind, smart child who is happy to play with everyone.

Your current love/obsession is dinosaurs. I’ve learned more about dinosaurs from you and trying to keep up with you than I ever thought I would want or need to know.

You are currently this wonderful mix of an adorably sweet little boy who thinks about dinosaurs about 90% of his day and a kid who is still little in a few ways. You still like help getting dressed even though we all know that you can do it on your own and have been able to for years now. Every few months you still wake up in the night and crawl into bed beside me, and I don’t make you leave because I cherish those cuddles – I know they will become more and more scarce in the coming years (although you can’t seem to believe that yet).

You know all of your letters and numbers and enjoy doing addition and subtraction on your hands. You like to write, but some of your letters still give you a little trouble, and adding the extra tails to your small a’s and to the tops of your small n’s is still super cute, though I expect/hope that kindergarten will help you get those figured out.

I am so excited to see your next milestones – to see you play organized sports, to make new friends, to start at a new school in the fall and I have to keep reminding myself that despite your smarts and excitement, you are still the youngest child in your class and some of the things might be more of a challenge for you. Don’t worry though, your father and I will be there to help, support and cheer you on the whole way. It is bittersweet to see my squishy little baby shed his baby-ness and grow up.

Congratulations little man – we love you so very much!

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I’m going to hold you to that.

Sara — Fri, 13 May 2011 11:18:01 +0000

Xander informed me yesterday that when he grows up he is taking all of his ‘guys’ (stuffed animals) with him, and that he’s going to put them all on his bed or in his room. So, he can’t be surprised or upset when I arrive at his college dorm room with a big box of stuffed animals, right? I’m sure I’ll be happy to get them out of the house by then.

He also tells me that he plans to marry Katie (a girl in his school – they’ve had this planned for almost a year now). And that he is going to ‘grow’ three children and name them Parker, Shell and Foot. I’m not sure if Katie got a say in what to name her children, so hopefully there is some room for negotiation there

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The Leash Debate

Sara — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 14:46:00 +0000

Apparently the current hot mommy topic is whether or not to leash your child. The ridiculously judgmental Erin Behan at Strollerderby doesn’t think you are a bad parent, but she does think you are lazy. Before I had children, I agreed with Erin, and probably thought worse. Then I had Xander, and after some work, he understood that we hold hands when in parking lots, etc. It took some time, but we got through to him. I didn’t really think much about leashes when Xander was a toddler. We didn’t need one, but I didn’t scoff at people who used them.

Then we had Parker. He has rocked our world. In parking lots we have two choices: Hold a screaming, writhing mess of a Tasmanian Devil in our arms for the length of the walk, or let Parker walk on his own. I dreaded picking Parker up from day care for about 4 months until I decided it was a battle I didn’t want to fight every afternoon. I am not lazy Erin Behan. I read books to my kid about holding your parent’s hand. I talked with him, tried to reason with him, tried to bribe him, tried to encourage him. I fought with him EVERY DAY for FOUR MONTHS. That’s EIGHTY DAYS of attempting to teach my kid. And I failed. I failed miserably. I’m certainly not going to put my kid in a stroller to walk the 20 feet from the day care door to my car every afternoon (and that would elicit some pretty painful screams as well). I continue this battle in bigger parking lots, and gather stares from everyone within a 100 yard radius for the blood curdling screams coming from my child. I’m out of ideas. Encouraging doesn’t work. Threats and punishment don’t work. Reading books about good boys hasn’t worked. Bribery hasn’t worked. He’s two and the most stubborn child I have ever met. If any child has ever been leash worthy, it’s Parker.

We don’t own a leash for Parker. But, there have certainly been times where I wished for one. These days, I get it. I could be holding Xander’s hand, and walking with him when Parker bolts for the nearest puddle. Xander can’t run as fast as me, so what do I do? Do I drop my 4 year old’s hand in the middle of the parking lot and chase my 2 year old down? Do I let my 2 year old run and continue on with the 4 year old? There is no good solution.

I have a friend who took her two children on a plane by herself last year. Her kids are the same age as mine, and her youngest has a very similar attitude as Parker. She had leash backpacks on both of them at the airport, and if I had been in her position I would have done the same thing. With everything you have to manage just for yourself at an airport, worrying about your kids darting off is just unnecessary stress.

So, I’ll take this post back to where every mommy blog will end up eventually on this debate. We’re all moms and we all make decisions that we think are best for our kids. Lets stop judging each other and get back to supporting each other. Erin Behan doesn’t have to use a leash on her kid, but she also doesn’t need to sneer at the parents who do.

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Far Too Long

Sara — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 16:45:18 +0000

I love chapstick - especially whey they let me put it on myself!

It’s been far to long since I last posted. I can point to a number of reasons for this. Wordpress works funky on my iPad so I have to type everything in the excerpt box and then move it when I get to a real computer. We haven’t uploaded new pictures to flickr for ages, and those usually give me inspiration. The second child always gets shafted. The milestones are still exciting, and while they are new for Parker, they are not new for us. Couple this with the fact that he hates to have his picture taken and the result is far, far less blogging from Sara.

Our friend Jenny gave Parker some books (among other things) for Christmas. One of the books is No No Yes Yes. The first time I read the book to Parker, I had an strange sensation of reading it before. We read through it again and I realized I had not read the book before, just lived every single No No page. The book shows two pictures, a ‘no no’ and a ‘yes yes’ (no no dumping your food, yes yes eating your food, etc.). Parker does every single no-no in the book (except for pulling the cat’s tail). He dumps his food, he plays in the toilet water, he pours water out of the bath tub (didn’t discover that one until it started soaking the carpet the floor below). He runs away from us in parking lots, he hits his brother, the list goes on. Read the No No Yes Yes book and you’ll get a pretty good idea of how Parker acts.

I love the kid to pieces, but he is just a naughty little boy about 65% of the time. It’s harder to write about that stuff – I don’t want either of my kids to look back at this digital preservation of their lives someday and see all the glowing, loving posts about Xander and pages and pages of text about Parker’s latest behavioral flaw. And yet, I constantly struggle to find the good posts, the ones where Parker sticks up for his older brother or tries to give me a fish kiss with a face covered in applesauce. I’ll try harder to find the good stories along with the not-so-good to share, and I’ll try to carve a little time out of my crazy days to sit at a computer and write, and I’ll also try to upload more pictures to Flickr which will almost certainly make me remember lots more things to blog about.

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Choices

Sara — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:20:53 +0000

We live in a small town. I mean, really small. When we moved in, we bumped the number from 84 to 91 people in town. It’s small enough to not have a school. Taxes pay tuition for local children to attend any school in the district. So that’s kind of cool – we can pick any of the 7 schools to send our children to. It was easy enough to narrow the choice down to two schools and now we’re stuck. School #1 is in the bigger, regional town. By high school all of the children in the surrounding town are fed into this regional high school. It is also the town that both Zach and I work in. It is the town where the boys’ doctors are located as well as their day care. School #2 is also an excellent school. It’s closer to home, they have a contract signed with our town so even if class sizes are big, they can’t turn our kids away, which is a small risk at the 1st school. We’ve talked to parents with children in both schools, and everyone has had positive experiences at both schools. My next step is to contact the schools and set up some observation time.

Ultimately though, it’s a choice between a smaller school that gets fed into a larger high school or starting out in the larger school system. I went to kindergarten with the kids that I graduated high school with. My high school years were pretty comfortable (aside from all that teenage angst and drama). When I got to college I realized that I could no longer make friends by playing tag or kicking a kid in the shins. I spent exactly 1 semester at UVM before going home, completely friendless.

Zach on the other hand started in a smaller school. He had wonderful experiences with his K-8 classes and then attended the same high school as me (a year behind me). For him it was awful. He never completely fit in, and although he was a pretty good athlete, since he wasn’t part of the “in crowd” he never really got much of a chance to play. High school was much more tumultuous for Zach. He graduated 3rd in his class and when he arrived at college, he had no trouble settling in and making friends.

Now Zach and I are trying to figure out which experience to give our kids. Where do we choose their struggle? High school? College? Which fits better with their personality and learning style? They have such different personalities, how do we choose one school that will work best for both of them? This feels like the biggest, most important decision that we will make for our children for years to come. We are both worried about the decision. I have calls in to both schools to visit the classrooms, meet some of the teachers and ask some questions. We’re going to visit school #1 this week. I still need to set up a time with school #2 (the assistant principal has been challenging to get on the phone…) Like it or not, we’re going to have to make the decision sooner or later – and hopefully either way we choose it’ll be a positive experience for our kids.

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Busy, busy times…

Sara — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 16:45:59 +0000

Oh man have we been busy lately. So here are a few Reader’s Digest Highlights:

Parker and Xander are both sleeping in their own beds in their own rooms through the night. We get an occasional visit from Xander and Parker is usually up before the sun asking me what I’m doing, but I can’t really complain.

This is what the wine storage rack looks like on my kitchen island. What does yours look like?

Xander and I had an entertaining conversation the other day:

X: I’m going to get married when I’m 18

Me: 18 huh? Don’t you think you might want to wait a few years? You never know who you might meet.

X: (very matter-of-factly) But I’ve already picked!

Me: Oh really, who did you pick?

X: Katie.

Me: And did Katie pick you?

X: Yep.

Me: Well, what if you meet someone else in Kindergarten?

X: I won’t meet anyone in Kindergarten.

Me: What if you meet someone in 1st grade?

X: I won’t meet anyone in 1st grade.

Me: What if you meet someone in high school?

X: I won’t meet anyone in high school Mama.

Me: What if you meet someone in college? I met Daddy in college.

Long pause

X: Ok, I’ll wait until college and then pick.

Me: What if that person doesn’t pick you?

X: Then I’ll marry Katie.

So that’s my 4 year old with his life all figured out. Here is his Christmas list:

A Christmas tree for Parker’s room
A small (miniature) tree for his room
A house for his trains (no, not a train station – a house where he can take the trains apart and put them. It’s a picture he has in his head…)

We’ve gotten the tree for Parker’s room taken care of, so I’ll be spending the next week or so trying to figure out how to creatively find a house for trains.

Oh, and try not to leave your step ladder up when hanging Christmas decorations or this might happen:

Being Sara » preschooler

My High and Low Kid

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This Kid

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I’m Hungry

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My Graduate…

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I’m going to hold you to that.

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The Leash Debate

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Far Too Long

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Choices

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