Bunks

Max and Mia got bunk beds last Thursday. Max is very excited about sleeping up high and was even mostly ok with moving into the "babies" room and Wilson moving into his old room. When Mia saw them for the first time she yelled, "Look! Playground!" Notice that each bed has a little storage cubby in the headboard.

There is some rustling around and giggling at each other. But they do pretty good. Max is learning to turn on his light so he can see the ladder in the dark.

Max got a new transformers bed set, which he was almost more excited about than the bed. Tonight I went in to check on him and didn't know where he was. He was laying in the storage cubby. I don't know how he fit, but I did have to break the news to him that he couldn't do that anymore. It was all I could do not to laugh.

Mia has done very well in her big girl bed. She takes her sleep pretty seriously and I thought she would do well. She has a very cute bed set with flowers and bees that Aunt Katy gave her.

We did have one incident the other night. We hear Mia yell, "NO!" and then start hysterically screaming. I was very afraid that she had really hurt herself. Beth went back and asked what had happened and Max said that "The horse might have been too low." Max has a big Black Beauty horse puppet that Mia has HATED from the first time she saw it. Max knows that it makes her have a fit and we are pretty sure that he dangled it over the edge of the bed at her until she saw it. It was all we could do to not bust out laughing. It is such a typical big bratty brother thing to do. I can almost hear him thinking to himself, "Oh, Mia. Look up here." Heh.

C is for Cookie!

Max has been talking a lot about Cookie Monster. He brought home some art that he colored of Cookie and a big paper cut-out doll of Cookie (which he slept with for a couple of nights). The teacher sends home a folder every Friday that has important papers and communication from her. In the Friday folder we found out that Cookie had caused some mischief at school. Apparently, Ms. Young used Cookie to help the kids find important places like the gym and library. He "stole" their cookies and they hunted him from the library to the gym and ended up in the principle's office. Ms. Campbell-Sauer, the principle, had caught Cookie there and had kept the cookies for the kids. It sounded cute to me.

2022

Max started kindergarten yesterday. It's been quite the event. Since kindergarten is only half day (although that has been mandated to change in 2010 by the state!), arrangements for getting him to and from school had to be made. Fortunately, we got into the am session and the daycare can transport him.

The week before school started, the kids at the daycare practiced getting on the van, buckling their seat belts, getting off the van and walking to their classroom. This was very exciting to Max and I was given frequent updates like, " Bryce missed my school and had to go back!"

On Tuesday, I took him into the daycare and he got all sorts of tags put on him and his backpack. Then he was assigned a seat in the van next to his "big". The big is an older student who will help the younger one with their seat belt and helps them get to the school. Then the daycare takes roll-call and off to the van! I was there taking a bunch of pictures and then I hopped into my car and drove over to Ridgewood and waited to get more pictures.

When they got off of the van, Max could care less that I was there. He had practiced what to do and he was going to do it without my help. All the parents and teachers were very amused at his confidence level. It was obvious I was his parent and it was also obvious that I was not needed or even particularly wanted. He only got confused at one point when he has to make a turn to go down the kindergarten wing. Luckily, they have a teacher who is stationed there to help them remember.

He found his room with no help, marched right in, found his name, then marched right over to his assigned spot to hang his backpack, found his assigned seat and told me goodbye. I took the hint and beat it out of there before I crimped his style too much.

One of the daycare teachers asked me if I was sad or excited. I told her I was excited, which I am. He is ready to have some more challenges. It wasn't until I was walking back to my car and thinking about how on his own he was in this new stage of his life that I started to cry. I had thought that he would be coddled a little bit more. I had assumed that he would be dropped off right in front of the door like the bus kids, he isn't. I had assumed that the volunteers that get the kindergartners and walk them to their class would get him, they don't do that unless he rides the bus. He has to do it all, and he is perfectly capable of it. I'm proud that he did such a good job, especially compared to some of the other kids in his class. But it hit me suddenly that he is much bigger than I think of him and that I am running out of time with my little boy.

String Band Aids

Beth called me at work this morning sounding all like the cat who ate the canary. I asked her what was up and she informed me that our oldest had a wound on his knee and the daycare was concerned. Would I go and look at it? I told her I would and then I received a picture message from the assistant director showing me the wound. It looked ugly, but I couldn't really see it very well so decided to go in person.

Max had been trying to get on one of the new 3-wheelers at school, lost his balance and fell on the edge of the concrete patio. When I got there I wasn't sure how bad it really was. It wouldn't stop bleeding and seemed to do more when he walked around. I called the doctor's office and they said that the fact that it was bleeding more when he walked meant that he would probably need at least one stitch. Problem was, the doctor's office didn't do any suturing, and the children's close to home centers didn't open until 3p. I could go to the ER but I really didn't want to sit around for hours. The nurse told me that it would be ok to wait for the close to home to open since it would be only 5 hours after the injury occurred. Apparently, they don't like to suture wounds after 7-8 hours.

So, I went back to work for awhile, leaving at 2pm to go and get him. When he figured out where we were going he announced that his knee felt all better now, really it does.....

The nurse who first looked at it thought it was just superficial. Then the doctor came and and looked at it better (and more painfully). She felt that it was deeper than it looked at first glance because it was swollen. She wanted to talk to the suture expert. Max heard the word stitches and got very concerned. He didn't like it too much when the suture person came in. She told him that he would need a couple of string band aids and that it was no big deal.

A few minutes later Max was laying on the gurney with me holding down the top part, another nurse laying on his legs while the other one injected his cut. He screamed something horrible and I felt just awful. I can't imagine that doing the sutures without the lidocaine would have hurt as much as getting the shots did. He has 4 sutures and a HUGE bandage. The location on his knee makes it a bit harder to keep safe and they want him wearing the ace bandage until the sutures are removed in 14 days.

After the shots and he had calmed down a little bit, Max sobbed at me, "Momma, I love you." It just about broke my heart.

No clever Title This Time

Max got his glasses and thinks he is pretty cool. He was super difficult at the eyeglass place and they couldn't really adjust them correctly. I noticed that they are a little crooked and when he took them off today one of his ears was pretty red. So, we'll need to go back and try to work on that. He is very concerned about breaking them. He was afraid to move his head too much for fear they would fall off and break. When I picked him up from school he ran up to me and announced that he did not break his glasses today! In the car I had the windows down and looked back at Max. He was holding onto his glasses for dear life. When I asked him why it was because the windows were down and would blow off his glasses. I did have a five minute talk with him before he got his glasses about how they cost money and he needed to be careful and not break them. Apparently it made an impression. I wish I knew what exactly made him listen to me so carefully, because it's never happened before!

He started going to the "babies school" this week and it has been a bit of an adjustment for him. It is a very long day 7-5:50ish and he is a wreck when he gets home. He was use to me picking him up from his old school around 4:30 but we only have one vehicle that can haul around all the kids, and Beth uses it to get everyone to school and then work. She has this plan of leaving a car at the daycare the night before, driving the van to daycare and then transferring to the car so I can bring my car there after work and pick up the kids in the van. We have not tried this plan out because I get tired thinking about it. I have all my work stuff in my car and will have to transfer it back and forth, blah. But we cannot afford another vehicle that will hold them all.

Anyway, in three days the teachers at the new school taught Max how to swing like a big boy. He is really very good at it now. They said that he is doing well.

In other news, we have fence posts in. It's been a joy getting this project started, so who knows when we will actually have a fence instead of just posts. But at least it looks like progress.

Biscuit and Eyes

This morning I was getting ready to head out the door and had put Daisy in her hall. I was getting a few things together and heard Wilson making a noise. Based on the noise, I knew he had something in his mouth and most likely it wasn't something that I approved of being in his mouth. He came around the corner making sucking noises and he had one of Daisy's basted dog biscuits in his mouth. He finally decided it wasn't worth the effort and handed it over to me. He must have worked for a long time to get that through the baby gate and poor Daisy had to watch him do it!

Max is very left side oriented. He might as well not have a right hand and will always kick a ball with his left foot. He found one more thing on the right side that he has no use for, his eye. His right eye has been crossing for a few weeks and we had to take him to the specialist this morning. He was a trooper through it all, even though he didn't enjoy having his eyes dilated. He has to wear glasses to try and correct the issue. He got to go pick out his first pair of glasses and was pretty insistent on which pair he wanted. He was pretty upset that he didn't get to take them home with him today, but we will get them soon. I'm not sure how it's going to go teaching him to leave them on, it should be an adventure!