The best I can do!

Blogging just isn't making it to the top of my to-do list lately, so for you 2-3 faithful followers; my apologies.

Luckily, Preston's school is good about sending on some pics once a month which makes it easy for me to pass them along to you. Here is a picture of Preston being quite studious, and a picture of what I am guessing is some of his artwork. Now, what precisely it says on the cut-out leaf is in question, but the important part is, it's in cursive!!!  

1st class photo!!

I love knowing that he'll look at this someday and recognize old friends, and will hopefully still be friends with some of them. And I'm proud to say he does not have the cheesiest face in the class! Although I think he is biting his upper lip..

Worker bee!

One of my first impressions when I went to observe a Montessori class last year was that the children mostly looked like sedated worker bees. Then, I reflected on the loud and somewhat chaotic environment of his pre-school at the time and thought, maybe there is something to be said for this sedated-worker-bee thing. 

Here is Preston getting his learn on, Montessori style:

Happy Halloween!

Halloween Night!! Unfortunately, the night I was up for Mom of The Year (c'mon, what mom dresses up like Chewbacca?!) I failed to get any good pictures until we got home and Preston was so cranky I could barely convince him to stand up. And it's impossible in this picture to appreciate my efforts to channel Chewie. Mom Fail.  

A dinner blessing.

The other night at dinner, Preston stood up and declared he had to do something important before we began to eat. He proceeded to demonstrate this little ditty, which, fortunately I was able to convince him to do again while I stealthily recorded.

Happy Early Halloween! (Another late post.)

From the Strathmore Halloween parade last week...with best buddies Superman (Beckett) and Raphael (Theo).

Darth.

A halloween preview: Lord Vader, and Associates

HPD to me!

Here is the lovely drawing Preston drew me for my birthday.

I, obviously, am the bigger one on the left. What's that? Why is my stomach-area filled in with a bright pink blob?? Well that's because Preston felt compelled to draw "a baby in my belly." Apparently he really, really wants a little sibling. Sorry buddy. The outlook isn't good.

****Disclaimer: just to clarify, there is no baby in my belly.

Also of interest: note the vertical line down the center of his body. What is that, you might ask? That's his esophagus. 

Apple picking (LATE POST FROM SEPTEMBER)

After a week of all new faces, we rendezvoused with some old friends this weekend for some good old-fashioned familiarity. Here's Pman hanging with his old pre-k buddies, Wesley and Leo. 

Sidenote- Lesson of the day: One should more closely monitor their 4-yr-old's indiscretionate apple-picking. After getting home and inventorying the stash, I am convinced Preston mostly picked up drops. (drops: the apples you find on the ground that either A. someone picked and subsequently disposed of, or B. someone picked, took a bite out of, and subsequently disposed of.)

The Beak & Skiff Estate.

Best buddies!

. 

C'mon...how cute is this?!?

3 boys watching a pony ride...wishing their mom's would cough up the 5 bucks so they could do it. A good lesson in "you-can't-always-get-what-you-want."

Preston and I swung by another one of my favorite orchards on the way out of Lafayette and enjoyed sharing a jug of cider. Aannnd maybe some more apple fritters.

The End.

My apologies...but it seems now that Preston has commenced the 5-day school week, and I have returned to the 5-day work-week, I think my already-dismal blogging record is just going to get worse. 

But, here are a few snippets from this week:

Preston has declared he wants to be a teacher when he grows up. Initially, he said he wanted to be a Montessori teacher (that's a good sign, right?), but by the end of the day he changed his mind- he wants to teach college kids, "like Oompy."

We are now in the habit of pretending it's his birthday every night, when it's time for his bedtime snack. He insists that I light the scented candle on the kitchen table so he can blow it out, and that I sing him happy birthday when presenting his snack.

He pretty much single-handedly assembled a lego Stormtrooper (rated for 7-12 year olds) by himself, by looking at the picture on the box. There were a few pieces that required more intricate assembly, so I helped thumb through the appropriate instructional pages, but mostly just watched as he was able to identify basically all the pieces by himself, and put them together by looking at the pictures, with very little assistance from me. He showed incredible focus and, more importantly, patience with himself, all the while. He didn't get frustrated with himself when he dropped a piece on the floor or had to deconstruct and reconstruct...which is not a typical Eckrich trait. Rapid-onset frustration and self-abuse is more our style. Maybe he'll escape the curse! 

Our weekdays may be a whirlwind, but we are still enjoying most weekends at the cottage w/ Oomp and Gigi!

1st Day of Montessori!

After much deliberation about which pre-school route to take with Preston, I finally decided to enroll him in the local Montessori school this fall. So in early August, his time at OCC (where he has been since he was 3 months!) came to an end. Fortunately, several of his good buddies were also departing at the same time for kindergarten, which I think made leaving a little easier. Preston went to summer camp at the Y for several weeks and has spent the past 2 weeks with Gigi; including 1 full week so that I could get away for a Mommy-vacation to Costa Rica! Woot woot! 

For several weeks he has been acutely aware of the looming concept of a new school, but this past week it definitely became a reality. I have forgiven him a lot of short-circuiting meltdowns knowing that it is likely related to the stress of this whole process. Unfortunately, I have also lost my cool more times than I would like; needless to say, it has been challenging times in our household. But, I am holding out hope that Montessori will be the right decision in the long run. Time will tell! 

He is going through a "phase-in" process this week that involves him attending only a few hours a day, and building up slowly during the week. Thankfully Gigi is also around to help with this, as the 8:15-10am schedule is not conducive to actually working a job. 

And this marks the first year I was able to get a legit 1st-day-of-school pic, since previously OCC was year-round, so there was never an official first day of school. In order for Preston to cooperate, I had to show him Theo & Beck's 1st-day-of-school pic (posted on their Mama's blog). Since they were sitting on their front steps, Preston thought he had to sit too (I wasn't going to argue). 

A rare REAL smile!!!

...which quickly faded to cheese.

Aaannd...Momma in Costa Rica!!

Little ditties

It's no secret that I let Preston watch TV on the regular. It is for the sake of our mutual sanity. It's also no secret that TV actually isn't great for children...like, at all. To make myself feel better about this situation, I usually restrict Preston's TV viewing to programs that are labeled "educational," if there is such a thing. I guess that's probably an oxymoron. Anyhoo, with the help of the public library, I recently acquired some "Bill Nye: The Science Guy" DVD's, and Preston has been hooked on one particular episode featuring spiders. He's watched it maybe half a dozen times in the past week, while being chauffered back and forth to the cottage for Gigi Daycare. So, at dinner this week, doesn't he layer string beans width-wise over the top of his hot dog, and tell me that he's wrapped it in silk with his spinerettes. Then, as I'm standing in the kitchen, he turns around from the table, using his hands to mimic chomping spiders jaws, says that he's just injected his hot dog with digestive juices. So, thanks Bill Nye. My child is an official spider expert, and I can rest assured that he actually learned something from a TV program. Perhaps I will submit this case study for publishing in the AAP Journal. (That's really bad medical humor by the way.)

Thanks to a pre-maturely harvested pumpkin out of our backyard garden this week, there has been regular dialogue about this upcoming Halloween. During one of these conversations, it dawned on me that this is the first year I will indulge Preston his own independent choice of costume (previously costumes have been pre-selected, mostly by a process of random garage-sale finds). So, I brought this to his attention. I was hoping he would take some serious time to introspect before coming to a decision, but within moments, he exclaimed he wants to dress up as "Crainage Knowledge." Who is Crainage Knowledge, you ask? Well, he is a super-hero of Preston's spontaneous creation. So of course I asked, "Well, what exactly does Crainage Knowledge wear?" I think I was trying hard to keep a straight face, so I don't remember the details much beyond the fact that he has a shell and carries a sword (sounds eerily similar to a Ninja Turtle...). Oh, and he doesn't wear and pants or a shirt. But he's not naked. (I'm still trying to figure that one out.) And I reminded Preston that Halloween is usually cold so we will have to come up with some sort of ensemble that involves clothing, before the big day gets here. But the best part came about 15 minutes later, when Preston was in the bathroom, peeing by himself. Mid-stream, he starts yelling out:

"And he has a penis!......

And he sprays stuff out of his penis!.....

Water! He sprays water out of his penis!!...

And he uses it to put out fires!"

Reverse Chronological

It occurred to me recently what a piss-poor job I've been doing about keeping this blog up to date. So I will attempt to plow through some of the pictures and events that have occurred in the recent past. Also, because it is relatively late, I'm not going to get too far, but with any luck I will continue these efforts sooner than later. 

STATE FAIR!

Historically, I have not been a huge fan of the NYS Fair. However, now that I am with child, it has become a decent choice for end-of-the-summer-reasonably-priced entertainment. And we even got Gigi to come this year! (not pictured). There are actually lots of kid-friendly activities and exhibits at the fair, unfortunately, Preston is only ever interested in the rides. There were a few cool things that kept his attention, like the butterfly garden (see below), a sea lion show, and some robotics demos in the 4H building. We also went through the horse tent, where he got to pet a horse, and also watch one take a giant dump. He enjoyed commentating about the poop throughout the duration of the pooping. Sometimes its hard not to laugh at these things. We also walked through the building that housed the sheep, where again, he mostly enjoyed pointing out all the poop that was in the pens and walkways. Mostly, we were in the kiddy-ride section, where Preston enjoyed running from one ride to the next, and doing some of the rides repeatedly until I forced him to move along. He rode the ride I will from now on refer to as "The Brain Scrambler," which I had permitted him to ride last year, not knowing how turbulent and potentially hazardous it would be. I was quite confident that he had likely sustained some degree of diffuse axonal injury at that time, and there was only a modest improvement this year, probably the rough equivalent of whiplash. Although this year the smiles outweighed the looks of sheer terror. Last year it was more like a 1:4 smile to terror ratio. 

Coincidentally, we also ran into Theo and Beck at the fair, so we sat for a few moments and shared in some fried dough consumption.

Incidentally, I learned the hard way that adventuring across acres of fairgrounds is completely exhausting for both pre-schoolers and adults, and that I probably should not have sworn off strollers entirely. There's nothing quite as miserable as carrying your cranky, hungry, tired, 60(?)lb child for (what seemed like) miles, in 85 degree August weather, searching for food or drink, or just plain absolution. 

Notice the ghostly monarch on Preston's head! 

To be cont'd...

Nap time is OVER.

Roughly one month ago, Preston started giving me a really hard time about going to sleep. I can complain about this, because I have been completely spoiled since he was probably one year old. Since the beginning of toddler-hood, bedtime has been smooth sailing. We read a few books, I say goodnight, and then out I go, shutting the door behind me in sweet triumph, rarely to be called back. In the past 6 months, he's started occasionally wandering out of his room after we've said our goodnights, but has been easily persuadable to return to bed. Over the past 2+ years, I can count on one hand the number of times Preston has woken up during the night and required my assistance. Now, out of nowhere, he's decided that he no longer wants to sleep alone, that he doesn't like his bedroom, doesn't like his bed, his bed is boring, his room is boring...the list goes on and on.
The first night this happened, I basically laughed it off: "Well isn't this a silly fluke," I scoffed to myself. Then it happened the following night.
So much for nipping it in the bud.
Here we are, a month later, and the conversation is still essentially the same. Every. Night. Except at some point, it started going later and later, until there were several times Preston was still awake at 11pm. It was almost as if he decided to start boycotting sleep once he gave up the 2-hour nightly fight about sleeping alone.
So, it was with much difficulty that I decided we had no other choice but to give up the afternoon nap.
Now, for those of you who may not know; the afternoon nap is basically the one thing that keeps me sane. Preston has been pushing the time back later and later, but if he goes without, by 5pm, he is usually short-circuiting and becomes partially possessed by Satan. Also, if there is no nap, by 5pm, I too, am skirting the fine line of completely losing my sh*t. Nap time is like my union-negotiated Mommy break. It's in my contract, dammit! Giving this up...was not easy.  
The one potentially-sanity-saving silver lining was, the promise that bedtime would come much earlier.
It has not.
Now, every night, it is still 8 o'clock and Preston has somehow managed to derail all of my efforts to get him to bed early. I sometimes have to really hold myself back from yelling, "I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!!! OH MY GOODDDD....GO. TO. BEEEDDDD!!!" Which, in my head, is often accompanied by sobbing tears of frustration.
So, what I thought would be at least 2-3 glorious hours of time to myself every night, has in fact remained the same painful one-hour-or-less of completely brain-drained, sit on the sofa with a carton of ice cream, helplessly scrolling facebook, "me"-time. Blaahhh.
And trying to wake Preston up for school in the morning is like trying to wake a hibernating bear.

Remembering Gross-poppy

On the morning of June 27th, Preston's great-grandfather (affectionately known as Gross-poppy, an homage to our German heritage) passed away peacefully, with the comfort and love of his only daughter, Gigi, at his bedside.

Sadly, Preston will only remember my grandfather as he was in his final years, a mere shell of the robust man he once was, and a rather obstinate and reclusive grumpy old man. But it did make me laugh to hear my grandfather mutter, "Come here, you little shit" under his breath, every time he wanted to get Preston's attention. Contrary to how it might sound however, he loved Preston to the fullest extent possible. Preston was special to him for a variety of reasons, namely because he was his one and only great-grandchild. But also because he came to know and love Preston's father during the time we lived with him in Hawaii. 

My grandfather suffered through a long, slow, and painful decline, mentally and physically, over the past several years. It was the complete opposite of what he wanted, which was to live independently in his beautiful little Hawaiian condo until the bitter end, venturing down to the beach every day for a swim, followed by some tanning with a beer and a book in hand, followed by nightly Pupu-parties with his dearest friends. Unfortunately, his body had other plans. We had an incredibly strong bond, forged over years of Hawaiian kinship and countless dinners with just the two of us. Not to mention a few near-death experiences of his that I was at his side for. I look forward to telling Preston all about how his great-grandfather could complete any Sunday crossword, answer just about every question on Jeopardy (which he watched nightly for probably 20 years,) and who read enough books to fill a library. Not bad for a man who spent most of his life self-employed running his own cafeteria, followed by years as a fishing boat captain off the coast of Long Island. He had an absolute love of the ocean, which he passed down to Gigi, and also to me. Whenever I am at any beach, any where, I always think of him, and I expect I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. Except now I will look out at the ocean and picture him there, strong and healthy again, deep-sea fishing off the back of his boat. I will miss you, Grandpa.

So I'm making a rap video...

Preston is a big fan of making videos using the iphone or ipad, particularly with the screen reversed, so he can see himself in action.
We made the following video as an announcement of some pretty big Eckrich news, initially for Oompa and Gigi, and now for all of you:
(Kindly disregard my complete lack of musical/creative artistic talent.)
Also, it was Preston's idea to hold the maracas up to our ears as we sang. He kind of left me hanging.

Summer Camp with T&B

This week Preston started his first ever "Summer camp," which is really just an excuse for me to get 2 glorious hours to myself on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. His good buddies Theo and Beckett are also attending, so it gives the 3 of them time to burn off some of that pre-schooler energy, and be away from their Mama's for a little bit. It will be interesting to see how they function as a part of a larger group. The 3 of them have known each other since before they can remember, and have gone through all the wonderful stages of infancy and toddlerhood with regular interaction. They have definitely become best of friends. Whenever I get the opportunity to say "Theo and Beckett will be there," my job of getting Preston out the door becomes drastically easier. The dynamics of the trio has been ever-evolving and increasingly complex, but in general they have always played and worked well with one-another. Being the odd-man-out has proven to be favorable for Preston, as I think Theo and Beck enjoy the occasional break from each other, and often compete for his attention. (T & B are twin brothers, for anyone new to this blog...) Usually, Preston is content to just play with all their toys. But as they have come to recognize each other as individuals with increasingly distinct personas, it has been more challenging to minimize and resolve conflict. There are definitely times when 3 is a crowd. Because Preston is the cherished outsider, it gives him the option to (at times) favor one brother over the other, which, as you can imagine, is problematic. (Not to mention, I usually have to refrain myself from saying, "Hey, stop being an asshole!) I suppose it is all one big lesson in human relations and conflict management, hopefully of which they will all reap the benefits of mastering. But it would be tremendously easier on the Mama's if they could just be courteous, considerate, and supportive of one another, 100% of the time. Is that too much to ask? Anyhoo, here are a few shots of the troublesome trio. (Just kidding, they are not actually very troublesome. Yet.)

Enjoying some cartoons after a delicious lunch at Moe's (and bouncy house excursion before that.)

Post-prandial sleepiness setting in.

Nap time drawing nearer. (And I love how oblivious they were to me sitting down across from them and taking pictures. I don't think they looked away from the TV once.)

1st day of summer camp complete! Apparently stepping out into the overcast outdoors was too much for their eyes. 

Me: "C'mon guys, smile and open your eyes for the camera!"

Preston checking to see if Beck was opening his eyes. Clearly Theo put forth a valiant effort.

Strawberries!

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you...the most un-helpful strawberry picker of all time. (But clearly an incredibly cool kid, regardless.)

(And yes, I realize I destroyed an otherwise-perfect series of photos with the presence of my finger.)

Preston's contribution to our yield for the day: ~negative 20. 

I think he literally picked TWO strawberries by himself, the entire time. Mostly, he just ran up and down the rows, asking repeatedly if I was done yet, and several times tried begging me to pick him up and carry him. I mean, really...

This from the kid who was super excited to go strawberry picking. 

The good news was, despite the looming storm clouds, it didn't rain on us. It was about 78 degrees, breezy, with an occasional hint of sun...pretty much the most glorious strawberry-picking weather EVER. And the strawberries were/are delicious. Proving once again, why NY is awesome. 

We leave for NC/SC next week, where we are eagerly anticipating daily episodes of heat stroke. And no delicious local produce...

Homerun!

A few weeks ago we attended our first Chief's game of the season. (Upstate had sponsored the game so admission was significantly reduced. Also, there was a public health promotion for child safety, so Preston got a free bike helmet. Score!) This was all fine and dandy, since Preston's attention span for the actual game was about 2 minutes. I couldn't get him interested in what any of the players were doing, or really anything for that matter. Luckily, the business-savvy folks who run the stadium have figured out that entertaining the kids is requisite to maintaining any level of attendance, so they also have set up a bouncy house section behind the outfield. This kept us occupied til about the 7th inning (did I mention we didn't get there til the bottom of the 4th?) The remaining 2 innings were pure, unadulterated, tantrum-filled torture. The kind that makes you question why you ever thought to bring your child out in public, especially during what is usually nap time, and to what extent you have any effective parenting skills whatsoever. And to what end? For 30 seconds of glory: (watch the kid with a gray shirt, blue pants, and extraordinary speed.)

Now, considering Preston has never actually watched a real baseball game, or been taught much of anything about baseball, (besides how to swing a bat), I was very happy that he went with the flow, and didn't start running haphazardly all over the baseball field. (Which was a possibility I was completely prepared for.) Notice he did take a moment to observe the kids ahead of him before he finally took off, but I think this gave him the unanticipated thrill of feeling like he was in the lead of the group that went behind him. I would like to say this made the whole trip worth it, but considering I also got pulled over by state troopers and ticketed for an expired inspection on the way there, I would say it was a wash.

Happy Mother's Day!

There are a few things in life that didn't turn out quite like I had hoped, but hearing this beautiful child call me "Mom" is the single most wonderful thing I could ever imagine.

And I get to enjoy things like this: