Back to Normal

In case you are wondering, Jett had a "thumbs up" week at preschool last week. Not one problem at all. Whew!

As you could maybe tell from my last post, the previous week had been a pretty stressful preK week. First there was the discipline issue. Thenlast week all of my preschool friends were in a tizzy, myself included, as we all had to decide which class to send our kids to in the fall. There are three time slots to choose from, and apparently three choices were enough to overwhelm most of us.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but listen. It's so fun to see your child making his own friends that you want to honor those friendships and honestly, you want to stick with your own new parent-friends too. But not all of your friends are choosing the same class. And you might not know what your schedule is going to be like next fall. You don't know what is going to best for your family and you don't know where your friends and your child's friends are going to end up. You're only option is to obsess over it. I'm really good at obsessing over things, especially when that is the only clear option.

You can imagine our urgent conversations after pick-up, shivering on the shoveled sidewalk while our kids ran mitten-less with coats unzipped around the snowy playground. Every day after school the hemming and hawing, the persuading, the guessing. It was all we could talk about. It was madness and it was making me crazy.

And then that Saturday we had a preschool birthday party to go to. Enough! I thought. I can't stand one more minute thinking about preschool, I thought. But you know what? I could.

I could go to the party at the Nature Museum and talk with my preschool-parent friends. Of course we didn't have time to talk about next year's classes, we had kids to keep track of. We had cake to eat. We had toddlers to hold in our lap, and piles of crafts and goodie bags to keep track of. I was busy and it felt........normal. It felt good. I kind of relaxed. I took a couple of pictures:

The museum staff brought a snake and a turtle in to the room, which most kids found fascinating. Jett didn't pay too much attention to the animals, but he did enjoy looking out the big windows at the parking lot.


These two cuties were there too.

Tear-Jerk-Er

The other day I had to stay after school and talk to Jett's teacher because he hit someone in class. Actually this was the second child he hit during class. I knew something was up when all of the other students had been dismissed from the class, and Kai and I found ourselves alone in an empty hallway. Uh-oh. Again? Again? Didn't we just do this on Monday? That's when the teacher beckoned me inside.



There was Jett, sitting on his space on the floor, all bundled up in his winter coat and snowpants, sweating in the warm room. I knew he must have misbehaved, but darn it, he looked cute sitting there with his little flushed cheeks and blonde hair poking out under his hat.

So the teacher told me what happened, and I like to think of it as a minor incident. He lightly pushed someone in the coat closet. But I was mortified and worried anyway. So mortified and worried that when the teacher told me, I had to hold the wall to steady myself. I hear all of you snickering at my weakness, but you see how you feel when your child hits two kids in one week and you find yourself in conference with the teacher in a sweltering preschool classroom for the second time in four days. If you are at all like me you will hear only half of what the teacher is saying. But you will hear all of what your brain is saying, and your brain will be screaming at the top of it's lungs that your child is not going to graduate from high school or even get in to third grade because he hit two kids in preschool. Simultaneously while the teacher talked and my brain screamed, I started worrying that Jett and Charlie and I would develop a reputation among the parents as that family. That family with the kid who hit two kids on one week. Selfishly, I find this particularly mortifying because now I have preschool mom friends! Friends who I want to keep and who I want to have over for play dates! It did not help that his teacher emphasized the fact that the two kids he hit were girls. As if he has a problem with women already. (Cue the brain: more worry, coming up)!

So we talked, and the teacher was nice because she is a parent herself and she was not really phased by the whole thing and blah blah blah. I was trying to appear calm and composed the whole time, but she may have caught on to my near-fainting spell because she talked on and on about how normal it was, and just a phase, and a myriad of other things probably designed to keep me standing upright. Eventually the room stopped spinning and I was able to step away from the wall I had been leaning on (nonchalantly, I hope). Eventually she stopped talking and I stopped mumbling in reply and I gathered up the boys, thanked the teacher for talking with me, and started out the door.

But I don't know. I was so mortified and worried and mad. But he's so little and his cheeks were pink and flushed and his hair was so cute poking out from under his hat. And he had sat and listened to everything we said and I looked down at his little snow-suited-up-self, and I just bent down and hugged him.

He said, "Thanks, Mama. How did you know I needed a hug?"

Instructions on Making an Angel

It has been strongly suggested to me that I add some pictures to this blog. It seems someone is missing the boys' faces. So here I present to you: How to Make a Snow Angel.

Step 1. Stand up.

Step 2. LAY DOWN!

Step 3. Now move your arms and legs back and forth.

Step 4. Come on now! I said "swish, swish"!

Step 5. Nice swishing! Now stand up!

Step 6. Step 7. Woah, not too fast! Your snow angel is getting messed up!

Step 8. Listen: You have to roll out of it. Nice and easy.

Step 9. There you go. Much better.

Step 10. And back to standing. Nice form!

You've come a long way, Kid.

Ode to Kai

A few nights ago Kai was running around the house naked, either right before or right after a bath, running around and around our brown chair, giggling and shrieking. He runs with his belly in the lead, arms up and out, his little bare feet slapping the hardwood floor. I watched him, entranced. There is nothing in this world that is cuter than Kai in his birthday suit.

I noticed the small details. I love the part of his face where his cheeks become his jaw and his jaw becomes his neck. The small hollow space at the back of his head, in between the two muscles in the back of his neck. When he stands next to me my fingers fit comfortably there and I can play with his hair, those beautiful curls.

He is getting more adorable every day.

He walked around for days last week saying, "Muck". I thought he was saying "milk." I kept filling up his sippy cups and he kept not drinking them. Finally I watched him playing on his own one day and realized that he has been running races with himself. He's been saying, "Mark, set, go!" just like Jett does every time he sets foot on the sidewalk.

He is very kissy lately and I love it. Jett invented the "Family Kiss", where the four of us stick our lips together in one big "MMMMMMMMMMMMMwah!" and Kai loves it. If I sit on the floor he will almost always walk up behind me and put his arms around my waist. Then he'll lift up the back of my shirt and give me a zerbert on my back. Where does he learn something like that?

For months I've been asking him, "Who does Mama love?" He answers, "Me!". Then I ask him, "Who does Kai love?" And finally, finally, after weeks of practicing, he now says, "You!" And you should see him when he says it. He sticks his little lips out in a giant round "o" and says, "You!" It kills me every time.

When it comes to games, my current favorite happens during the diaper change. Once I realized that he was saying "On your mark, get set, go!" I started saying it with him. He says it when he's on the changing table. "Mark!" I kiss his knee. "Set!" I kiss an elbow. "Set!" I kiss the other elbow. (Sometimes he gets stuck on "set" for a few times). Then finally, "GO!" and I pounce on him with tickles and kisses and zerberts and he dissolves into a fit of giggles. Sometimes Jett gets in to it and climbs partway up the changing table and then Kai really starts laughing, getting such good attention from Jett. Diaper changes take forever now, and they're worth every minute.

Sweet Kai. He's somewhere between 20 and 21 months old now and he's one little luscious ball of fun.