Preschool Open House

Preschool Open House, Thursday August 30, 2007: There was an open house at Alex and Chloe’s preschool today. We went in at their regular time (12:30), and they got to see their classroom, meet their teachers, and meet their classmates. We went out yesterday and bought new clothes to have something special to wear on their first day “at school”. I was a bit worried that we’d have trouble getting through lunch in time to make it to school on time so I caught myself every two minutes saying to Alex “is there food in your mouth? Are you CHEWING it?” He can spend over an hour dawdling over a meal! As we were getting ready Chloe said “Mom, you’re ruining my life!”. Is she 3 going on 13 or what? I can’t even remember what I did to earn such an exclamation, but she’s been saying a lot of things like this lately whenever she doesn’t get her way. She often says everything from “it’s not fair!” to “I wish there were no parents and I would never have to put away my toys” or “when I have children I’ll make two dinners every night so they can eat what THEY want”, or my favorite “when I have children I’ll take them to Disney every day until we run out of money and then I’ll go ask my Dad”. I’m definitely cramping her style and we’ve had to have many talks about what is and is not a respectful way to talk to her parents. Anyway, with regard to this particular statement, I asked her “where did you hear someone say ‘you’re ruining my life’?” She said Aladdin says it to the genie in the movie. She just puts everything away in that brain of hers and tries it all out later. I hope I’m helping her understand what is appropriate to say and why, but in the mean time she’s coming up with some whoppers! On the way to school Alex said “Piglet likes to go to school, they have lots of toys there”. I guess I did job of explaining that school is a place that will be fun this year. When we got there, the twins remembered which door to go in (we’ve visited the school at least 3 times before) and we found their classroom. There are 12 kids in their class, 6 boys and 6 girls, but I only counted 9 kids at the Open House. Alex and Chloe didn’t interact much with the other kids, but did jump right in and start playing with all the toys. Chloe was trying to dress a baby doll and asked me for help and I suggested that she asked her teacher which she did. She’s generally not shy about wrangling adults into playing with her. I introduced the kids to the class pets, a hedgehog and a lizard. After a while in the classroom Alex said “Mom, when are you going to leave?” I explained that I was allowed to stay for the whole open house and Alex said “but I WANT you to GO!” He thought school was always without me and he doesn’t like things to change once he’s got them figured out. At least I probably won’t have to worry about separation anxiety! All told the kids did great and I think they are going to really enjoy school this year.

week ending aug 26, 2007:

Conversations with the kids are sometimes interesting and unexpected. On Sunday while we were on our Chincoteague trip Chloe said “I wish we could stay here with Miss Sue and Mr Roger forever.” I said wouldn’t she miss living next door to Pops and Becky and living close to Grammy Carole and Grammy Barb and Natalie? She said “yeah, but they’d live in my heart”. Before I could respond, she went on to say, “Like Great PopPop does. Why’d he have to go to heaven?” I said “because he lived a long time and his time on earth was done”. She responded in that whiny-pouty voice that little girls use when they aren’t getting their way and she said “I wish there could be another Great PopPop!” I guess she believes me that we can’t have Great PopPop back, so she’s trying another tactic by wishing for another Great PopPop.

Earlier in the week we had a surprising conversation with Alex also. The kids typically say “Mom I wish…” and they come up with the craziest stuff. For instance one time Chloe said “Mom, I wish you had 6 hands”. My typical response is “what would it be like if… ?”, in this case “what would it be like if I had 6 hands?” figuring she had some selfish motivation like if I had 6 hands I could help her get her baby doll dressed at the same time that I made her a sandwich. But, her actual response was “If you had 6 hands, you’d have to have a lot of gloves”. The conversation with Alex this week started when Casey asked him what he was doing. Alex said “I’m praying to God for more family”. So I came back with “what would you do with more family?” and he said “I would hug them and show them my bouncy ball”. We never did get to the bottom of why he wanted more family, whether he was lonely or if it was just one of those crazy things that popped into his head like Mommy having 6 hands, but it surprised me to find him praying to God on his own.

We’re making the most of the end of our summer time. We took the kids to the carnival (between rain storms), and I took the kids to the Science Center. At the carnival Chloe loved the parachute ride (that went so fast I wanted to get OFF), and Alex loved the helicopters. At the Science Center they both got brave this time and tried lying on the bed of nails instead of just watching other kids do it. It was all they could talk about for a couple days. The picture this week is off the mess the kids made when I told them they could play with the packing peanuts that came with a part for Daddy’s boat. I was making dinner at the time, so I didn’t realize exactly how much of a mess they were making, all I knew was that they were blissfully entertained for quite a while. After dinner (and before the carnival) they cleaned the whole mess up, so I guess it was a learning experience. If you make a big mess you’ve got to spend a long time cleaning it up!

Learning to write

While we were at Target shopping for goggles I saw some workbooks about learning to write. There was one called "Tracing" and the other called "Letters". The tracing book has really cute pictures and the kids don't even realize that they are doing work. The system allows the kids to use a pencil to draw line through gradually narrower and narrower paths, and gets them to practice first straight up and down lines, then across, then diagonal, then curved, then more complicated curves. I let the kids alternate pages (one for Chloe, one for Alex) and Chloe did her half of the book in 2 days. She might have done the whole thing in one day, but my patience ran out before hers did. I could see her writing getting better. I’d tried to create worksheets on my own, but having them all together, in order, with gradually increasing difficulty was very helpful. Alex has done about half of the first book. He’s just not as interested. On the second day of using the book, he decided to put his pencil in his left hand for the first couple of pages. I didn’t comment on it and let him do the deciding, but he was clearly better at using his right hand and after a while he switched back on his own.

week ending Aug 19.2007

This week the kids got brave in the pool. Early this summer they saw a kid with goggles and they asked me to get some for them. I said that goggles were for kids who put their faces in the water and that once they learned to put their faces in the water they could have goggles. This week they both got brave and decided to try it so I took them to Target and bought goggles. The set with kids sized mask, fins, and snorkel wasn't appreciably more expensive so I got one for each of them. Alex wore his mask and snorkel above the water for a quite a while and then gradually he'd dip his chin in the water and then a little of his mask. He was so proud of himself! Chloe won't even put the mask on and I originally thought it was because we were having trouble getting the proper tension on it and it was getting caught in her hair as she pulled it on and off between me adjusting it, but today she told me she was scared because she couldn't breath out of her nose with the mask on. At least now I know what we are facing. She did get brave about swimming with her life vest on. Both kids would kick around the pool while in an inflatable doughnut, but this summer they decided to try swimming with life vests on. At first they were scared because the vests didn't hold them as high out of the water as the doughnuts did, so they'd hold onto a couple of pool noodles, but then Chloe got used to it and let go of the noodles. Their vests have a buoyant flap behind their heads and today Chloe decided to try to float on her back with the flap holding her head up. After Alex saw her do it, he tried it too (they'd both previously refused to try it). We are down in Chincoteague today and there are no pool noodles, so Chloe was kicking around the pool in just her life vest and Alex decided to get brave and he did it too. I think the mask and snorkel experience earlier this week helped because he was used to the feeling of the water on his chin where earlier this summer he'd panic when the water got up as high as his shoulders. We were going to go to the beach today, but the kids remembered the park with the pirate ship and wanted to go there. Chloe made instant friends with several kids and the twins wore themselves out and never asked to go to the beach. Earlier in the week I took the kids to Daddy's new office building for lunch and to see the Capitol building. The kids said they wanted to go inside and Daddy told them it was for grown-ups, but I wanted to see the inside too, so we signed up for a free tour. In the 40 minutes that the kids lasted in the tour we only saw 3 rooms, so it was too slow for them and we ducked out early. I don't suppose there is much value in their seeing it at this age, but I think that even after 25 years in the area I'd never seen the inside, so it was good for me! Another milestone for the trip was that I didn't bring the stroller with us. Previously I liked having the stroller with us so it is easier to keep both kids contained, but as they're getting more mature they are better and better about sticking with me.

week ending Aug 12, 2007:

Week ending August 12, 2007: This week I took the kids to Ocean City with their cousin Natalie and Aunt Danielle. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year, over 100F, but I guess that is what the ocean is good for. In the evening we went to Trimpers Rides and let the kids get on about a half dozen rides. Natalie is a bit of a dare-devil and will get on anything, and I think having her along helped Alex get a little brave and try some new rides. All the kids had a great time on the rides, but Alex seemed to be particularly joyful. He is normally pretty reserved, but at Trimpers he giggled and shrieked and grinned from ear-to-ear. That kind of joy is contagious and even though I didn’t get on any rides, I had a great time just watching them. The kids would get off one ride and hop up and down because they were too excited to just walk and then they’d take turns deciding which ride they’d try next. The “race cars” were a real hit with everyone. The cars are on an oval track and along the straight sides they are very tame, but at the rounded ends of the track the cars whip around so fast that the passengers can’t help but slide to the outside of the seat. It looked pretty fast and scary to me so I tried to talk Alex out of going on it, but he said he wanted to, so I said ‘ok’. It turned out to be the ride on which Alex laughed the most. He and Chloe rode together and got squished into one side of the car on every turn and neither of them complained “he/she’s on my side” because they were too busy laughing. The next morning we took the kids to the beach and again Natalie’s unbridled enthusiasm seemed to help Alex come out of his shell. There was a great tide pool behind a low sand bar such that the waves would break long before they’d get to us and wouldn’t knock the kids over. This allowed the kids to run in and out of the water without holding anyone’s hand. Every time a wave would come Natalie would shriek and laugh and run out of the ocean, then she’d run right back in as soon as the wave was gone. Alex caught onto this game right away and the two of them had a blast. Chloe got focused on finding seashells and putting them into her bucket. By the end of the day she had quite a few to bring home. Her lashing-out behavior of last week is getting better all the time. The pictures from OC are at: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/OceanCityAug2007
On Sunday we visited with Grammy Carole who just got back from a vacation in Ireland. Her pictures are at http://picasaweb.google.com/steveandcarolesmith/Ireland2007

Week ending Aug 5, 2007:

Week ending August 5, 2007: This week the kids spent a lot of time exploring the magic of dirt. Dirt really is great stuff; you can dig holes, build mountains, burry things and make things grow. In this drought our sandy soil is as light as powder and will float on the wind when distributed. The same light soil becomes heavy when you fill a bucket with it. The powdery fineness turns to slippery sliminess when the kids add some water from the wading pool and then they can squish it through their fingers and toes and use it like paint. Dirt sticks to everything. It coats their toys and their skin, they can use a wet finger to draw patterns in the dust on their arms and legs, and it makes a colorful ring in the bathtub. All things come from dirt and to dirt all things return. I’m digging up some stumps in the back yard and have created a nice dirt pit for them to play in. Every day this week they say “can we go play in the dirt now?” The pictures this week are ones Alex has taken. We give him free run of our “old” digital camera and he takes a lot of pictures. He knows how to turn it on, set the mode to take pictures, and change the mode to look at what he’s taken. The picture of me isn’t particularly flattering, but it is interesting to note exactly what a person my size looks like towering over a 3ft tall child. The other picture Alex took is of Chloe practicing her “hand stand”. Chloe’s foul temper of last week has continued into this week. She’s taken to trying to hurt Alex while attempting to get her way. She’s been pinching, hitting, kicking, and scratching. One day she did it 8 times. I ran out ways to explain that “hurting people doesn’t get you what you want” and I ran out of toys and privileges to take away from her. I spent all evening trying to figure out another tactic. The next day I watched the kids more closely and intervened earlier when they had conflict, and still she lashed out at him 3 times. Her temper is the shortest when she’s hungry (much like her mother), so when she started to get grumpy I’d sit her down and tell her not to get up until she ate a snack. She’d usually rage for a while about not being hungry then eat everything I gave her and ask for more. She doesn’t seem to know when she’s hungry, or maybe she just doesn’t want to stop playing long enough to feed herself. Maybe it is because I still treat her like a 3.5 lb preemie who is going to starve to death if she skips a meal, so I’m always chasing her around with food and she never has to tell me she’s hungry.

Week ending July 29, 2007:

Week ending July 29, 2007: This week both the kids were feeling better except that Chloe was very tired and hungry from 4 days of throwing up last week. While she was ill she was an angel. In the middle of the night she was really thirsty and the inside of her mouth was dry so she was uncomfortable and she couldn’t sleep and she just asked me very politely for water. I could only let her have sips since any significant volume going in came right back up, and she just politely bargained for more. Once she was over it and her energy started coming back is when she got to be a real bear, throwing kicking and screaming fits before every meal and constantly getting in trouble and breaking the rules and talking back. That always seems to be the pattern. The kids are sweet while they are ill and they get really grumpy as they start to feel better. Also this week we dropped off the kids’ health forms at their school which led to many discussions about what school might be like in the fall. It was only this week that I realized the kids had no idea that they would have the same classroom, same teacher and same classmates for the whole year. Everything else we’ve done has been classes through the library or church where everything changes each time we go. How can they be almost 4 already? Life is just zooming by. Ever since my pregnancy I have had this recurring dream that I am in a car zooming down the highway when I realize that no one is in the driver’s seat. In the dream I then have to get through some obstacle at highway speed in order to climb into the driver’s seat. I can’t help but think the dream is a metaphor for my feeling that life speeding away under too little of my control (I know, control is only an illusion, but I’m an engineer, trying to control all the variables is in my nature). One time I had a variation of the dream in which instead of no one driving the car, I realized that the kids were driving the car. I guess at that point I was feeling like they were running the show around here! Anyway, sending them off to school seems like one more instance of relinquishing control. No longer will I know what they do every second of every day. Next thing I know I’ll be watching them drive away in my car without me. The picture this week is of Casey starting to put a skim coat on the walls in the bathroom and the kids as the audience. Chloe sat on the stool and Alex went and got his own little chair so they could sit and watch.