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...