Preschool Open House

Q seems like such a big boy and such a little boy at the same time. He loved the preschool room and didn’t want to leave. We liked his teacher quite a bit, she seems to have the same priorities we have. One of our acquaintances is an aide in the other class and sometimes will be in Q’s class, which makes me happy. Mostly just because I feel like someone knows us where we’re leaving our little boy.

Goofy Grin

N 8.19.07

Not to Forget

Qisms from this week

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As I left for my dentist appointment: “Are you going to be naked at the dentist Mommy?”

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When N was crying, he imitated her, saying, “Babies say, AAAAAH! I’m Hungry!”

J agrees, “That’s right, babies don’t have words, so they cry to let us know they’re hungry.”

Q, nodding, “Instead of whining.”

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N, after several weeks with no repeating of her laughing, chuckled Saturday night in a very subtle way, “heh heh heh.” She followed that up this morning by giggling at J when he sang along with ‘Philadelphia Chickens’ making exaggerated expressions with his face.

Wits in Shreds

Sleep is apparently irrelevant.

I discovered, mid-way through the day, that I’d put my underwear on backwards.

Later, when I was picking up the kids, I left the door of the car open by accident. (I heard it chiming, but thought I was imagining it.) When I came back to load the kids in, about twenty minutes, one meltdown and a time out later, I tried to start the car and joked that I hoped I hadn’t run down the battery.

It didn’t start.

I tried again.

Nothing.

Then I put it in park and tried to turn it on again. Like magic. Luckily my dignity has long since disappeared, so the evidence of my lacking wits was not as embarrassing as it could have been.

(And I’d like to say in my defense that I learned to drive in a stick shift car and you don’t have to be in park to turn them on.)

The Potty Diaries

Q is making serious efforts to poop in the potty this week. I attribute this to J’s motivational promise: 1 truck for the first poop in a potty, another truck for 6 successful poops following that. He’s so into the idea that he’s gone to double poop days.

Of course, he likes company, so we’ve been camped in the hallway (bathroom is too small) for 20 to 45 minutes at a time. He looks at Richard Scarry’s ‘What Do People Do All Day?’ (in which I haven’t yet seen a potty in use), and bellows:

_A GREAT BIG SQUASH JUST SAT UPON MY HAT!
A GREAT BIG SQUASH JUST SQUASHED MY HAT REAL FLAT!_

This afternoon was reward time, so I took the kids to the toy store. Q zeroed right in on the excavator he’s been lusting after. He picked it up, confirmed that I really was going to get it for him, and then went to the train table where he played for 20 minutes.

N was in a bjorn sling on my chest, facing outwards. She’s been facing inwards until recently, so she’s fairly excited by the novelty of seeing so much of the world. I paced back and forth and was looking at the baby toys when N began chatting. I looked down and she was focused hard on an object above us, and making soft inquiring noises. I turned, and her head pivoted. I turned back; she kept tracking it. She made occasional coos, chirps and barks for a while, evidently enchanted with a toy I never managed to locate.

Windows

After the initial burbles of laughter, I haven’t heard N laugh out loud. But as she gets older and more alert, I catch her smiling as if we’re in on a joke together. It’s nearly shy, she’ll grin and then quickly look away again, as if caught revealing more than she should yet. She’s plumped up now, and I never find myself thinking that her expression is troll-like. Often, however, I see that impish expression and know that she’s the same baby. Her serene sleeping face transforms her from the Maurice Sendak look into cherubic.

I am amazed at her resilience. A few weeks ago J had the kids at the park and realized that although he had formula and a bottle to feed N, he didn’t have a nipple. So, being far more imaginative than I, he decided to see if she could drink from a sippy cup.

No problem.

It would never have occurred to me.

Q snuggles close up to her, ‘I’m going to nuzzle N!’ he declares, right next to her face. She looks away if he gets too close too long, but she doesn’t cry . He’s very helpful, running over to pop her pacifier in her mouth, helping J give her a bottle, announcing that she wants to nurse, she wants her formula, that she smiled at him! ‘Is that our Nuala?’ ‘Is she cooing?’ ‘I’m going to check on my baby sister.’ I think he likes having company in the back seat.