The state of our household

 

There's our boy. Not the best facial expression but he's looking sharp.

Just thought I'd catch everyone up on how we're doing with 2 weeks til my due date. We've been busy trying to get all of the baby stuff out of storage, washed, and put away. Of course, putting it away meant finding space in Jack's room for all these tiny onesies and size 1 diapers. And making room in the family room for playmats and bouncy seats. Room we don't really have. But that's okay. I've resigned myself to the fact that the house will just be a bit cluttered for the next year or so. Oh well. At least we got all the baby stuff settled!

 

Staging area of sorts in the garage

Washed and clean size 3-month clothes hanging neatly in the closet

We talk to Jack a lot about baby brother and his upcoming arrival. He seems to understand what is going on and likes to say hi to brother in the morning. Maybe he's partial to him because he knows the baby is the reason we have new double stroller sitting in the living room. Not a major side-by-side double stroller, but a little sit n' stand deal that I can snap the infant car seat in and Jack can sit or stand on the back. He LOVES it. He straps in his favorite stuffed animal dog, jumps on, and insists Daddy push him around the room. So cute.

   

 Jack is still obsessed with his daddy and loves spending time with him. In the morning he says goodbye then rushes to the window to watch him drive away.

   

 This weekend when John tried to get some yard work done and clean the gutters (exciting stuff!), Jack insisted upon helping.

   

 All that manual labor seriously tired him out though.

   

 I'm trying to cross everything off my to-do list. Running errands, making appointments, etc. Today Jack got a hair cut so he could look sharp for baby brother. I was so proud of him. Sat in the little taxi cab all by himself and didn't make a peep. My big guy.

 

 

 He really is getting so much bigger and older though. Preschool has been a great experience. At this point there's no crying whatsoever and he seems to be enjoying it. He'll never be the kid who runs into the classroom and gives his teacher a giant HELLO and high five. But he walks into the classroom, finds his number puzzle (definitely his comfort item), and sits at the little table to play with it. He'll give me a hug and remind me that "mommy always picks you up at the end" and say goodbye. We've noticed that since preschool has started, he's definitely gotten better at playing WITH his friends. He'll engage them and actually play with them, rather than beside them. It's pretty cute.

   

 So Jack seems totally ready to be a big brother EXCEPT for his current sleep patterns. After sleeping through the night for so long, for some reason he's back to waking up like 2 or 3 times during the night. And this doesn't include his early morning wake-up time (thanks daylight savings!). I've read that it's just the age and development and he'll grow out of it (obviously) but it still stinks having him wake up twice a night every night. Luckily John's been dealing with him because no one wants to wait for me to roll out of bed like a whale. :) One thing about bedtime that is cute though is that he's started wanting to read by himself. So I'll leave him in there for 15 or 20 minutes and he'll just read his books by himself. A boy after my own heart.

 

So yes, in summary, Jack is pretty cool right now.  And tall and strong.

 

P.S., he still loves watermelon.

 

First Day of Preschool

Well, the time has come...Jack is a preschooler!  Look at that big kid.  He refused to actually wear his backpack so that's the best I could do.  

Jack was very familiar with his preschool.  We had been doing mommy and me classes there for about 8 months.  It only took 6 months for him to actually warm up to the place and start running into the classroom and spending time away from me.  But, nonetheless, it happened and that's why I had high hopes for the start of preschool.  The week before, we talked about it a lot at home and he was so rational and seemed to know exactly what was going on.  And then there was the reality...

The first day when I made the move to leave he flipped out.  Starting crying and sobbing and gave me the tightest hug and wouldn't let go.  The teacher took him in her arms but I could hear him crying "mommy" all the way to my car.  That was hard.  But at least he didn't cry the whole time, according to his teachers.  Of course, that first day, one of the other moms arrived to pick-up before me (even though I was early!) and Jack saw her and started to cry.  But that's apparently normal and other kids did that too.

As of now, Jack has completed a total of 3 whole days of preschool.  (He's only going two mornings a week.)  Today he cried again at drop-off but the teachers, sort of learning his personality, had a solution.  The kids start outside on the playground and Jack was begging to go in the classroom.  So one of the teachers took him in the classroom and got out his FAVORITE number puzzle.  Then, amazingly, he stopped crying.  It was so nice to leave and not hear crying.  All because of a puzzle with numbers 0 to 9.  Just like we have at home.  It seems that numbers are his happy place.  

And he's doing pretty well during the day according to his teachers.  Today they had gymnastics and I guess Jack chose to sit and watch.  Shocker.  Though I don't blame him for not jumping into a big gymnastics class.  But the teachers said he was watching very intently and smiling and enjoying observing everything.  When I got there they were having story time.  All 16 kids (sans Jack) were sitting on the floor in a semi-circle around the teacher who was reading a book.  Where was Jack?  He was sitting up in front next to the teacher in his own chair.  That's my boy.  :)

And here are two pics from school....

I think he'll probably cry at drop-off for a while longer.  And it'll be an even longer time still until he's "playing" with the other kids and joining in activities.  But that's okay.  He'll get there!

I can't believe I'm this person

So yesterday I took a tour of a preschool. Yeah, you heard me, a preschool. You may remember from earlier posts (like all of them) that my son is only 6 months old. And therefore has years to go before he will enter such a school. How in the world did this happen? I feel like I'm in a bad reality show about snobby families in Manhattan.

What happened was that I had heard about this particular preschool in our neighborhood. I'm on a local mom's message board and some of the moms were asking for recommendations for preschools and everyone said this one school was the best but that it had a two year wait list. And to quote one mom "I should have got on the waiting list when my son was in utero." Therefore, I become one of those insane parents who is talking about preschool years in advance. Ugh. I really never thought that would happen but I guess in a town like Los Angeles I shouldn't be surprised.

So I took the tour. I really didn't know what to look for as I didn't know what kind of school would be best for Jack when he's three because, well, he's barely a person right now. So I just looked at all the classrooms, pitied the poor teachers trying to wrangle 20 insane 3 year olds, and enjoyed Jack cooing and kicking in his Baby Bjorn as he delighted in all the toddlers and little kids. The things I do for this kid....