Photo sharing time

The little guy turned four a few weeks ago. We took him to kid paradise for his party. As you can see, the event was a big hit!










Better late than never! Here are a couple of pics from last spring. He's changed so much since these photos were taken!










Better late than never! Here are a couple of pics from last spring. A couple of ducks just flew down into our friend's yard to hang out. So we pulled out some bird seed and fed them a snack.

Boys will be boys

What do you get when you mix two 4-year olds and a 2-year old? A whole lot of mischief!

While the adults were all socializing on the main floor last weekend, the three little rugrats went upstairs to our newly renovated play room. Not five minutes later, the little guy yelled down the stairs, "Mom, we fed the fish."

Poor Goldie. The entire surface of his fish bowl was covered in fish food (normally he gets 4 pellets of carefully measured out fish food per day). While I was scooping the extra food out of the bowl with a net, the boys played quietly behind me. Too quietly.

When I turned around I discovered them tearing apart the little guy's special Playmobile advent calendar. The advent calendar that I had spent over an hour putting together (and wasn't nearly finished)! This calendar had 25 individual boxes that I had taken great pains to fold together. Into each box I had carefully sorted and matched miniature sized toys. Just as I was getting ready to assemble the calendar with the boxes, Hubby asked me to run to the store to pick up a missing dinner ingredient. I put the calendar pieces on top of the dresser (but obviously not out of reach) and promised the little guy that I would put the finishing pieces on his surprise together after the dinner party.

So much for the advent calendar. Better luck next year I guess!

Show and tell

I'd like to remind everyone that the little guy is still 3-years old. His birthday is fast approaching, but he is still pretty young to be in Kindergarten.

Today was his turn for Show and Tell. The topic was "What do I want to be when I grow up." We had to prepare him to talk about his dream job, why that job is important, the tools he would need to do the job, and what he would need to learn before he could do the job. The teacher requested that the kids bring props to assist them with their presentations. Getting him ready for Show and Tell was no easy task, let me tell you. It was actually pretty stressful (for me, at least).

First he had to decide what job he wanted to talk about. Normally he wavers between firefighter and astronaut. But out of the blue he decided that what he'd really like to be is a train engineer. Doh! We have tons of props for firefighter and astronaut but zip for train engineer (except Thomas, and we didn't want his presentation to turn into a discussion about fictional trains).

So we went on the internet and found some cool pictures of different kinds of trains (the royal "we" that is). Then we talked about how driving a train is important because the engineer carries "coal and toys and people" to where they need to go. Afterwards we made a list of the tools he would need for the the job. His list included:
- A train
- An engineers hat (very important!)
- A whistle
- people and seats
- controls and a radio (this got added to his list with some prompting)

He decided that he would need to learn how to drive a train in order to do the job, which I thought was a very good answer to the last question.

So....after a couple of hours of preparation (mostly me doing the preparing) we rehearsed his presentation. From my perspective, It didn't go so well. From his perspective, it was brilliant. What do you think?

Me: What do you want to be when you grow up?

Little guy: A train Engineer

Me: Why is that an important job?

Little guy: Because I want to drive a train.

Me: But why is it important that someone drives the train?

Little guy: Because it's fun.

Me: Is it important because you need to carry people and things to where they need to go?

Little guy: Yah. But it's important because I like to have fun.

Me: What tools would you need to drive the train?

Little guy: A train, an engineers hat, people and seats.

Me: What else?

Little guy: Remote controls

Me: And what do you need to learn before you drive a train?

Little guy: (totally distracted, playing with his cars)

Me: What do you need to learn before you can drive a train?

Little guy: Mom, can I watch Franklin?

Sweet tooth

The little guy has inherited my sweet tooth. I'm constantly telling him that sugary treats are bad for his teeth.

After finishing a lollypop from his Halloween bag he ran into the bathroom.

"Mom!" he yelled.

"Yes," I replied.

"All my teeth are still here. I checked!"

Remembrance Day

The little guy came home from school this morning wearing a poppy and told me "I'm wearing a flower because some people died."

"At school did they talk about who died?" I asked.

"I'm not sure....But I think maybe it was students at my school."

"I think the people who died were soldiers who died in a war."

"Maybe they will feel better now."

I tried to explain, but he doesn't quite get it yet. But it's good to at least start the conversation.

Halloween & Catching up

Boy have a been lazy about updating my blog lately. Blame it on Facebook (I now have a cafe, 2 farms and an aquarium to look after every day). That and life has generally been busy between renovations, birthday parties (3 in the last 3 weeks), my volunteer work etc....

So to catch you up on the wild and crazy adventures of the little guy, I'll start with Halloween. Costumes are very much on our minds lately because he has been to not one, but two costume birthday parties in October. He's had to settle for wearing last year's little dragon costume (which is pretty darned cute!) instead of this year's costume, which we still haven't made. Unlike the other kids who will be wearing off the rack super hero, pirate, and firefighter costumes, the little guy has decided he wants to be a blue heron.

Yep. A blue heron. Nothing else will do. He's told us a million times.

**********************

Speaking of Blue Herons, the little guy brought the Birds of North America field guide to show and tell. He made a special point of showing his classmates pictures of his favourite birds, most notably the blue herons, ocean seagulls and mergansers.

**********************

We think that he may have had H1N1 last week. He had all of the symptoms (sudden onset of fever and cough, chills, muscle aches, runny nose) and was away from school for the majority of the week. Several other kids in his class were off too with exactly the same illness. Luckily he had a very mild case. It sucks that I can't verify if it was in fact H1N1. Now that the vaccine is available it would be nice to know if he actually needed it or not.

I'm very thankful that neither Hubby or I caught it. It's a miracle actually, considering the number of times we were coughed on or had to wipe a wet, drippy nose. The little guy even fell asleep on our bed and drooled all over my pillow!!!! Yuck. No amount of hand sanitizer or disinfectant could have warded off all of those germs. We must have built up some sort of immunity. All the same, I think I may get the vaccination in a few weeks once the line-ups die down.

That's it for now. I've got lots more to tell but it will have to wait for another day.

Life's little details are killing me

For those of you who know me, I am not a "detail" person. I'll remind you that I once forgot to order chairs for an event I was planning (oops!). I've never lived that one down.

Junior Kindergarten is all about remembering details. Just this week I had to:
- Order name labels
- Label all of his stuff
- Make snacks every morning
- Prepare for picture day
- Buy new "backup" clothes to account for all of the stuff that goes missing
- Track down three missing items
- Pack extra rain gear
- Pack and unpack the backpack countless times
- Send back the scholastic order
- Make pancakes for the family breakfast
- Send three notes to his teacher
- Sign several forms and return them to the school
- Go to the school program night
- Make sure he returned his library book (which I'll have to remember every single Friday)
- Read several memos from the school
- Coordinate field trip volunteer days
- Transfer important dates into calendar (i.e. show and tell schedule)

I'm sure that I've missed several others. Did I mention that it's killing me?

The marshmallow experiment

I had never heard of this experiment until my colleague sent me a link to this hilarious video. It's an experiment that you can conduct on 4-year old to find out about their ability to delay gratification. Even though he's not quite four yet, we decided to try it out on the little guy. We sat him down at the dining room table and gave him one marshmallow and told that he could eat it right away of, if he could wait for a little while, he would get two marshmallows.

"I want two!," he cried excitedly.

"Okay, but you can't eat that marshmallow until we come back in the room. We are going to leave for a little while so remember, you'll only get a second marshmallow if you wait."

We then left him alone in the room for approximately five minutes. Of course I was spying on him the whole time to see what he would do. He did everything short of eating the marshmallow. He sniffed the marshmallow. Threw it. Mashed it with his hands. Licked it. But he never actually tried to eat it. After five minutes of him yelling, "can I have my other marshmallow now?" we finally gave it to him. The fact that he was able to wait bodes well for his future. Of course in the real experiment the kids had to wait for 15 minutes, so I'm not sure if the results are very accurate. Also, licking the marshmallow could be seen as cheating. Plus, when he demanded that we repeat the experiment again the next day, he ate the marshmallow after waiting only a few minutes and didn't seem to care in the least if he got a second one.

When this experiment was originally conducted 40+ years ago, they did a follow up study with the same kids 15 years later. The children who ate the marshmallow right away (2/3 of them) scored an average of 250 points lower on SAT tests than those who waited. Also, those who were able to delay gratification went on to be higher achievers, were more successful and happier in general.

I'm thinking that once he's four we'll do the experiment again with M&M peanuts, a treat he likes much more than marshmallows!

Fortune cookies don't lie

The little guy just opened up a fortune cookie and pulled out the the little sheet of paper. Daddy asked him what it said.

"13 means giving a hug to love mom."

:-)

I know I said I wouldn't talk about toilet training anymore but...

The little guy won't pee at school or at nursery school! This means he's holding it for roughly 5 hours every morning. No big surprise that he's been wetting his pants pretty much every day when his caregiver comes to pick him up.

I've asked his teachers to encourage him to use the toilet. But it's like the saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can't force him to drink (or in this case, pee).

We've promised him a Franklin DVD if he starts doing pees at school. He really wants a Franklin DVD. Really, really wants one. But like everything we've gone through with toilet training, promises of gifts don't work. Nothing will work until he makes up his own mind.

Picture day is next week. I'll remind you that it took at least six tries to get him to sit for a passport photo. Oh, and did I mention that he refused to have his nursery school picture taken last year? I've already started strategizing with his teacher on ways to encourage him to cooperate....I'll let you know how it goes.

Trying to fill in the blanks

Getting information out of an almost 4-year old is like pulling teeth. I never quite get the full story.

We've been drilling him with questions about his first week at school. So far he's told me about snack time (he talks about that a lot!) and that they have a French teacher. He played baseball one day. The bus drivers are nice. And he told me that they have a library inside the school (which, of course, I already knew).

The details we get are sporadic and sometimes don't make a whole lot of sense. A good example of this is when he told Hubby that he sometimes has to help the kids that are "sad and mopey." Presumably these are kids that are having a difficult time adjusting to Junior Kindergarten. When Hubby asked him what he did to help he said, "I did them around." When he asked him to elaborate he said, "I gave them band-aids and poured gasoline on them." I'm sure that cheered them up!

And then there is all the stuff that has gone missing from his backpack. Two days in a row he came home without a jacket. On the second day I got pretty concerned because 1) it was bloody cold outside and he came home wearing a t-shirt and 2) we don't have a lot of spare jackets on hand. The little guy, of course, had no idea where his jackets has disappeared to. I sent a note to the teacher, and one of the jackets made its way home the next day. The other one (his MEC fleecy jacket) is still missing in action. Which sucks, because it is his favourite jacket.

I always pack a change of clothes in his bag in case he has an accident. His spare clothes have also gone missing. I'm beginning to think that by the end of the first month I'll have to buy him a whole new wardrobe! The teacher suggested I call the bus company to see if he's been leaving things on the bus. But why would he take his clothes out of his bag? It doesn't make sense. My guess is they've probably been sucked into a black hole never to be seen again.

Between the missing pieces of information and the missing clothing, I'm definitely not getting the full story about his school day.

His passport

Sigh....Last year we tried six times to get his passport photo taken. Then we gave up. He refused to sit on the stool or look at the camera. He just cried bloody murder. Even with promises of post-passport photo ice-cream treats, there was no way he was going to allow his photo to be taken.

Fast forward to this week. We are planning to go to Seattle at the end of October so we decided that it was time to try again. It took quite a bit of convincing (in the form of Smarties) but we finally succeeded! Whoohoo!

This morning (while we were in a rush, of course) we had to weigh him and measure him for his passport application. No big deal, right? Wrong! At the mere mention of stepping on the scale he started screaming, "No! I don't want to." When I told him that he needed to in order to ride the airplane to visit Amma, he pouted "I don't want to take the airplane!" (Liar, liar pants on fire). After about a 15-minute struggle he finally agreed to be weighed. In retrospect I should have just wrestled him into my arms and stepped on the scale with him....

Measuring his height against the wall. Pretty easy, right? Once again, wrong! Another drawn out scene ensured where we tried to get him to cooperate to measure him against the wall.

The little guy is honestly the most pig-headed kid on the face of the earth. Getting a passport isn't supposed to be this hard.

Quote of the day

When I asked him how French class went today he said, "Mom, it's a waste of my tongue!"

First day of kindergarten

It went pretty well, all things considered.

On Friday morning he cried and cried for a good 45 minutes straight, repeating over and over again that he didn't want to go to kindergarten. As he cried all I could think was, "How on earth are we going to get him on the school bus?"

After he ate some breakfast he settled down. He even helped me pack a snack to bring to school. When I gave him the 5-minute warning about leaving to catch the bus he had a mini-meltdown. But as soon as his shoes were on his attitude changed. It's like he had accepted his fate and figured he might as well embrace it. We arrived at the bus stop well ahead of time (video to follow). And waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. The bus didn't show so we rushed him to school in our car. What a let down!

We hung out with him on the playground for a good 20 minutes to help him acclimatize. He was too nervous to interact with the other children and, although he was intrigued by all of the cool playground equipment, he just stayed on the sidelines. Finally we were able to settle him into the sand box with two other little boys. There was a pretty cool steamroller there that he simply couldn't resist. Once he was playing comfortably, we decided it was time to go. This idea wasn't so cool with the little guy. He clung to my leg and begged for us to stay. The teacher (bless her heart) came over to give us a hand. She said, "It's time to say goodbye to mommy and daddy. You will be together at the end of the day, just like every other day."

After a quick goodbye hug and kiss we walk out the gate. The look on his face just about killed me. He looked so frightened. So abandoned. So lonely. Did I mention he is still only 3 years old?

When we rounded the corner I burst into tears. And I burst into tears again when we drove by the school yard and I saw him standing alone against a wall looking all sad and scared.

Hubby dropped me at work and then drove back to the school later to spy on the little guy boarding the bus for nursery school. One glance at the little guy told him that things had gone just fine. He boarded the bus with a big smile on his face and then made his way to the very back of the bus. Hubby followed the bus and observed him standing up from time to time to peer out the back window. When he arrived at nursery school he hopped off the bus and ran excitedly into the playground to play with his friends.

The teacher called me at work that afternoon and gave me a recap of his day. He did very well, except for one small incident. When the French teacher (a new stranger) came in to give a lesson, he got up and left the group. The teacher lost sight of him momentarily and then quickly set off to find him. He was sitting in front of his cubby hole, holding his special blanket (tee-tee). "Do you need a little self time?" she asked and he nodded yes. After a minute he put his blanket back in the bag and rejoined the group.

When I asked him about his day, he was absolutely glowing. He did a craft, sang some songs, played with a castle. I asked him what the best part of the morning was and he said, "I liked having snack time." (No big surprise there!). When I asked him what he thought of his teacher he said, "She's really nice Mom!"

So far so good. Let's just hope the bus shows up tomorrow!

Easing into Kindergarten

So Friday is the big day. The little guy has expressed to us that he is very worried about taking the bus by himself. He's also worried that he won't know any of the other kids. We've been reassuring him that all kids starting school feel nervous, just like him. I really hope that he doesn't cling to me and freak out on the first morning....

Tomorrow we are going to do a dry run. We're going to get up earlier than usual, and get dressed before breakfast instead of after. I want to time it out to see how much time we really need to give ourselves to make it to the bus. My suspicion is that I'm going to have to change my routine a lot in order to get out the door by 7:23. I'm going to have to shower, iron my clothes, and make lunches in the evening.

Life was so much less complicated before Kindergarten!

************************

We had a great visit with my brother and family over the long weekend. The little guy was so excited to see his cousins! On Saturday we went to the country fair and all three of the kids went on the rides for the first time. As you can tell from the pictures, they were all smiling from ear to ear.






The weather was beautiful so we spent most of the weekend outside wandering through the Market, at the beach, eating ice-cream, playing at the park etc... The cousins had such a blast running around and playing together. Of course, the adults also had their fair share of fun too!

The nudist

He's a nudist. What can I say?

Today at the park he stripped all of his clothes off and proceeded to stride about doing his very best blue heron imitation.

"It's time to put your bathing suit on," I told him.

"But blue herons don't where bathing suits," he replied.

"Yes, but they have feathers to hide their private parts."

He couldn't argue that point so on went the bathing suit!

************************

So the little guy is terrified of dogs. Even the tiny rodent-like foofoo dogs. If he sees a dog - even in the distance - he starts trembling uncontrollably. The other day he actually ran into the road to avoid a pug dog. When I got upset at him for running into the street he said, "But mom, there was a dog!" as though his actions were justifiable under the circumstances.

Today I tried to talk to him about his irrational fear of dogs, but he would have none of it. Here's what he told me:

"Dogs should always stay in their cages. Cats can go outside but not dogs."

Then he said, "I'm a cat person and daddy's a cat person, and you're a dog person."

He said this as though I was the scum of the earth or something. How could he have developed such a loathing for dogs when I'm the biggest dog lover in the world? It doesn't make sense! I think we might need to get a dog if he keeps this up much longer. I think it's the only way to cure him.

Hmmmph! Cat people. What's with them anyway?

Pump up the volume

Okay, so you know what's been bugging me lately? The volume. It's unbearable! I have to tell the little guy at least a hundred or more times a day to keep his voice down. Jeez, he reminds me of my Uncle Harry!

And he can't stand it when I try to talk to other people. The second I start a conversation he talks over my voice and tries to get my attention.

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with this?

Kindergarten Prep

We have been doing our very best to prepare the little guy for JK. His official start date is September 11 (although we do a visit with his teacher this coming Friday). I'm not sure who is more nervous - the little guy or me. Probably me.

I keep reading and rereading the package of information that the school gave me back in the Spring. Things like, "your child should be able to put on their own shoes" keep jumping out at me. Sure, he's a pro at putting on crocs and rubber boots, but he sometimes need some help with his runners. After all, he's still only 3 years old. Being a late November baby he's going to be almost a year younger than some of the kids in his class. I really hope that they'll take pity on him when it comes to doing up shoes and things like that.

He's going to have to take the bus to school -- all by himself! At the suggestion of his elementary school we went to a school bus orientation session last weekend. I'm really glad we did because it provided the little guy with a "dry run" of what it would be like. We actually rode the bus and went through all of the safety rules. He's pretty nervous about getting on the bus without mommy and daddy but we've been working really hard to calm his nerves. On day 1 we are planning to follow the bus to school, so that we make sure he gets settled into his classroom. Hubby is going to take the day off so that he can also follow his bus to nursery school too, again, to help him with the transition.

The countdown begins!

Muffin tops are in

Which is good news for me I guess as I struggle to lose a few pounds. I've been working out several times a week and I've cut down my calories but my damn stomach still looks fat.

People always tell me how tiny I am (well, maybe not as much lately). But the definition of "tiny" seems to have changed a lot since I was in high school. I remember there were only a handful of overweight students in my school. Now overweight seems to be the new norm. And obese seems to be fairly normal too. If you ask me, it's an epidemic that we're all going to pay for in the not so distant future. More hypertension leading to more diabetes, heart disease and who knows what else. Our healthcare system is going to pay the price.

You know what has also changed since I was in high school? Clothing sizes. Stores like to lead consumers to believe that they are skinnier than they really are. This is wrong in so many ways. I often fit into a size 2 at The Gap. How exactly is that possible? There is no way in hell I am a size 2. What does that tell the kid who fits into a size 8 who actually has a weight problem?

Before baby boy was in the picture I decided to stop eating processed food. In a couple of months I dropped 10 pounds. Tells you something, doesn't it? Processed food is just plain evil. And it's everywhere. I'm always amazed at the crap people have in their grocery carts. It all comes out of a box or a can. It's full of sodium and sugar. The "lunchable," devoid of any nutritional value, has replaced the apple and carrot sticks that kids bring for lunch. Match those with a granola bar (they aren't healthy people!) and a juice box (packed full of sugar) and suddenly it makes sense why teenagers are now sporting those trendy muffin tops. Not to mention that many of them don't get enough exercise....

So why am I telling you all this? Because tonight I saw hundreds of overweight teens shoveling crap into their mouths at "The Ex". It kind of freaked me out and made me think about my own eating habits. I'm just as guilty of eating processed food as anyone else. I think my weight issues have a lot to do with my food choices which are not always the best.

I think I'm going to cut processed foods out of my diet again (except occasionally on weekends) and see what happens. Wish me luck!

Quote of the week and other fun stuff

The little guy continues to think spitting is funny. When I got a little stern with him about it this weekend he said,

"It's against the rules for adults to be mad at children."

I reminded him that it was also against the rules for children to spit.

****************************

Things the little guy is into these days:
- Spiderman (even though he's never even seen a Spiderman cartoon)
-Talking really really loudly, like he thinks I'm deaf or something
- Eating "corn on the bob"
- Reading children's encyclopedias. He wants to know everything there is to know about everything (especially about the ocean and outer space)
- Saying, "Yuck I don't like that." Doesn't he know we are a family of foodies?
- Couch wrecking (note to Hubby: I am no longer the only couch wrecker in the house)
- Wrapping up toys and giving them to us as presents. Gee honey, I loved the really realistic rubber snake you gave me this morning :-) Heaven knows how much I love snakes.
- Playing Farmville and Happy Farm on Facebook (he gets to pick the seeds we grow)
- Hiking and biking (he'll hike up to 5 km!)
- Frog and fish catching (we bought him a pond pail and net)
- Helping himself to stuff out of the fridge
- Putting on his clothes by himself (mostly backwards)
- Bragging about what a pro he is at using the toilet
- Telling jokes. The other day I asked him where my purse was and he told me that he ate it.
- Photocopying pictures, colouring them, cutting them out and laminating them with tape (he could do this all day long!)
- Making "lunches" for himself and packing up his backpack
- Going out for real lunches (his lunch of choice: burgers and fries, avocado rolls and edamame, or pho)
- Constantly trying to sucker hubby and I into buying him toys or treats
- Bird watching (every day his caregiver takes him to the "duck park" and we get a full report about all of the birds he saw. More often than not his bird tales end with the line, "but I didn't see the Blue Heron today."
- Playing games on daddy's iPhone (great for long, boring car rides)
- Motorcycle helmets and goggles (when we go out he sometimes insists on wearing his skating helmet and ski goggles. A nice look for summer).
-Emergency vehicles (those never get old, do they?)
- Carrying stolen change in his pockets. (Our poor washer and dryer)
- And, of course, farting on me and then running away laughing (He gets that from my side of the family. His uncles are very proud!)