Preschool! Chocolate milk!

Wow, he's at preschool now every day.

He's in the afternoon sessions, which I don't like but apparently nobody does and the new people get stuck with afternoon classes. Yesterday he took a nap after school; this morning, he conked out two hours before school. I'm not sure how this nap pattern is going to pan out.

First day, we're there early with the other early birds. The kids run around and play on the grass; the parents chit-chat about how old the kids are and how many we have. The ages in class range from three to four, with A being one of the youngest.

Time for class comes, we all sign in our kids, off they go. One or two are crying, some walk hand-in-hand with their parents, but A runs right in without a backwards glance at me.

The parents all wander in and stand around snapping pictures while the teacher calls the class to order, has them sit on the floor around her. She goes through attendance and my motherly heart swells with pride as A is one of only two kids in this class of twenty-four who knows to raise his hand and say, "Me!" when his name is called.

After roll call, the teacher says it's time for us parents to go, and as I'm wandering out, he turns and waves at me with a big smile and says, "Bye, Mommy!" Then he blows me kisses.

It was too much for my little pregnancy-hormone-drenched heart to bear. I made it to the car before I teared up.

Anyway, the first day, he did great although he had some bathroom accidents, probably because he was just too darned excited to excuse himself to use the facilities. They get free lunch (who knew?) and all he would tell me he ate was two Pooh cookies and chocolate milk. (Damn you, school district and your chocolate milk; we were keeping him away from chocolate milk's addictive pull.)

Today we got to school and he played with the early-birds again and then gave everyone big hugs. Oh my, he's sweet. When I picked him up, he was accident-free (hurray) and cried when I said it was time to go home. The teacher reassured him that he'd be right back tomorrow.

And today's lunch? A Nemo cupcake and chocolate milk. (It was someone's birthday today, hence the cupcake.) I need to get a copy of that lunch menu.

In awkward conversation news, I called his previous preschool and explained:

• We found out last minute he'd been accepted by the school district when we thought he'd been rejected,
  
• he would be receiving speech therapy through the school,
  
• and unfortunately, it was just easier to send him to the school district's preschool.
  

I did not reiterate that the school district's preschool is free, which has amazing appeal, or that since he's in at three he'll probably be in at four. No, I said that we had no qualms about the school or the teachers and everyone was wonderful and I hated to do it. And she was fine and cheerful so that's all well. So I've officially given notice and just need to go by and pick up his stuff.

The school district speech teacher and I are playing phone tag to get A set up for speech, so that should be coming along soon. Then we'll have to have tearful goodbyes with his speech therapist. Sigh.

Bye, Pooh! Bye, Tigger! Bye, Piglet! Bye, Rabbit...

When we leave the house, we have to say goodbye not only to the cats, but to Pooh and Tigger and the whole Hundred Acre Wood gang because there's a Pooh movie in the house. It makes leaving a long long process.

I'm making a half-assed attempt to clean my own bedroom that has just been derailed by the discovery of my best bra, which I had thought lost forever. Does the fact that I have discovered something that was missing because this room is so terribly cluttered and filthy inspire me towards even greater cleaning? No. It makes me want to have lunch and quit, since now I have accomplished something.

In any case, A is walking around with an apple (and has proudly discovered one of his toys which I have unearthed in the great bedroom cleaning). He just finished speech therapy for the week. His teacher says he's becoming too sophisticated for her toys. He'll play with her toys--in conjunction with his own toys. For example, she had some blocks. He used his dustpan to lift the blocks from the floor into the bed of his dump truck until he decided that was taking too long. Then he dumped the blocks from her box into his truck. He's a smart cookie. His language is getting much, much better.

I got him another haircut, this one more severe. His hair was just too long to keep brushing to the side. He looks a lot older now. I wasn't impressed with this salon either. I think he'll go to Supercuts or something like that or his dad's barber shop, because it's silly to spend so much on a quick trim. I'l ask my stylist how much her kid cuts are, but I can't imagine they are even in a spectrum I'd like to pay.

Not much else to report. I bought plane tickets for our vacation getaway to Oregon for Memorial Day, so now that trip's all set as far as I am concerned. This is the last unplanned weekend we have before two weekends chock-full of activities, so I'm hoping to just relax and mostly enjoy it. And I desperately want my son to have a nap today, because he didn't get one yesterday, and only the fact that he went to preschool so I could have some run-around-and-do-errand time in the morning saved us from complete insanity.

Good? I'll show you good...

I got sick. A's doing better. I'm doing better. We're crazy busy for the holidays, as I'm sure you all are.

It's pouring rain here. Yesterday, C and I attempted to mail off the Christmas goodness and found a self-service postal office kiosk--with no place to put the packages. So we bought all the postage and slapped labels on things and left them all in the car for shipping on Monday.

This morning, C's late. Our local post office isn't open when we swing by and they don't have a nifty package drop either. A falls asleep on the way home from dropping off C, and I'm thrilled because I've got a list. Bake a quick-bread for his speech therapist, who is coming at 1pm. Wrap presents. Sew stockings. Whip up a gingerbread house dough. Identify any last-minute giftees and figure out last-minute presents. Put together a grocery store list for Xmas. I'm thrilled in the way only mothers of toddlers can be when their sweet cherubs are conked out.

We pull into the garage, and A wakes up.

I snuggle and cuddle and coax and A won't go back to sleep.

Fine. Now I'm mad and snarly mommy. I'm sick. I'd like to sleep. I'd like to be anything other than in charge of a Christmas cornucopia of errands in the pouring rain with a sick toddler, but here I am. Back in the car, off to the post office. We get a spot next to the door, but I am in a bad enough mood that I do not care. A doesn't want to put on his raincoat but no, he has no choice and he is standing beside the boxes on the sidewalk as I run from the trunk to the car in the rain.

It takes me three trips to unload all the boxes. A is screaming and having a tantrum. I have to wait in line because one of the boxes is too big, even though we've already paid for postage. The other people in line look at my snotty, screaming toddler and my red nose and treat us like we have the plague, which I guess we do.

Back in the car. We've got a little under two hours, so we'll go to the grocery store, get our supplies for Christmas, and be able to get a gift for the speech therapist in one swoop.

Now, unless I have driven in a car with you, which is pretty a limited number of people because I really hate to drive, you may not be aware that I turn into Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver when I drive. There's a constant stream-of-consciousness incoherent, delusional rambling commentary every time I get behind the wheel. My most flagrant, eyebrow-lifting obscenity happens when I'm driving. I try to rein it in, of course, since the boy, but when that baby lets something obscene fly there will be no question at all where he learned it.

The underground parking garage is full, with vultures circling. I go up to the uncovered parking lot, since I'm not made of sugar (definitely not today), and I start listening to myself as I pass by parking space. I'm in so much of a snit that I'm saying things like, "Oh, yeah, great space there, should be a handicapped but it's not, and I drove right past it. And by the time I come back, there'll be some idiot there. And there's a great space, parallel that I could get into easy, but no, I'm driving right by it. Oh, that space I saw before, yes, that's full now too."

And I listen to myself, really listen, and I then I start laughing. I am being presented with numerous opportunities to be helped and I am passing by each one with my delusional ranting. I have already benefited from the largess of the universe by getting a spot near the door at the post office and three people who held the door open for me each time.

I apologize to A, and tell him I'm going to be a more cheerful mommy, and turn into the back parking lot and get a space right by the door. Not ten feet from that, under the awnings, is the only Trader Joe's cart that is dry. Bone-dry. And I say thank you to the universe, thank you for being kind to me and giving me two good parking spots in Hillcrest in one hour, a dry place to put my child's bottom, and an appreciation that, even with the Christmas cornucopia and colds and lack of naps, my life's pretty darn good.

I got the speech therapist a big box of Rocher, and I am glad I did, because she brought A a book. And now I am going to go sit with some chai and sew a stocking by the lights of our Christmas tree.

Preschool #1

A just finished his speech therapy, during which he said absolutely nothing, but he picked up a fire engine for a week and his play is "fabulous." (I think the fire engine will have batteries before the weekend gets very long.)

I never realized until we started going through all this that play could be graded and assessed.

This morning A and I headed to a preschool for a test-run. I was concerned because he didn't sleep well and I think the cold has boomeranged back on him. He started motioning and pointing the minute we saw the playground, and then he didn't hesitate to run right into the room and start playing with a toy garage once we got there.

This is a regular preschool that has some developmentally disabled kids mainstreamed in the classroom. The DD kids have two teachers who specifically watch and guide them among the other two teachers for the regular kids in the room. It would be for two hours, twice a week.

The preschool itself seemed to be pretty loosely structured: free play time, snack, music/dance time, and then a special visit from the speech therapist (not ours). The time they would have spent on the playground today was spent with the speech therapist. He had a grand old time. I was concerned because all the art on the walls seemed to be from the regular kids, but I asked and was told that the DD kids always have the option to put their art up but most parents just take it home with them.

What else? The teacher asked me if I'd like the speech therapist to do an evaluation of A, and I said, no, not really, he's been evaluated a lot. The speech therapist took a minute at the end to ask me if I really had no concerns because she thought he certainly should see someone for his speech. I explained that no, he's been evaluated about six times by now, he's tracking here for expressive and there for receptive, and we've been prompting two- and three-syllables from him, pressing on two and celebrating three.

A had to be dragged to the car, crying. I think this preschool's certainly a contender, but there's still one other one I'd like to see.

He's sick. We did Costco and IKEA (his idea; he kept frantically pointing at IKEA and would not let up, so we went, jeez) and he fell asleep by the time we pulled into the garage; unfortunately, he wouldn't sleep for longer than half an hour before he'd wake up, crying and sniffling. He took a two-hour nap in half-hour increments with me rubbing his back. He may be sleeping in the car seat tonight.

And tomorrow's Thanksgiving, and we're having raclette and sweet potato pie, which just made me remember the sweet potatoes steaming on the stove. Yikes.

You can't push a string.

A had speech therapy for the first time this week. These are in-house visits, where the speech therapist comes to our house (which requires a certain amount of cleaning, of course) for an hour or so. (Of course, A turned over a glass of water on the couch, which required the couch being disassembled for the course of her visit.)

So she showed up, said, "Hi, I'm Janis," and in she came with a bag of toys, sat on the floor with A, and played with all the toys.

I sat nearby and watched and tried to stay out of the way. She played with him and talked to him in short, one or two word sentences about what they were doing. He was interested in the toys and didn't say much at all, like he normally is with new people.

I had to restrain myself from not translating when he did speak. He was funny. He would decide a toy was boring and sing a little bit of the clean-up song and put the toy away so he could move on to the next toy--what a fabulous little guy.

Janis desperately wanted A to play with a fishing set. This had: various small felt fishes, two fishing poles with strings that had a Velcro piece on the end.

A has a fishing set, a pole tipped in Velcro (no string) and some fish, so I guessed he would be pretty bored with her fishing set, and he was. She was firm in trying to redirect him to play with the fish, finally showing him how she fished. She put the string over a fish, pressed the Velcro piece into the fish, and picked it up by the pole. "Look, fish! Fish up!"

With a look I can only characterize as bemusement, he took the other fishing pole, pressed the Velcro to the fish with his hand, picked up the pole, and dumped it into her bag. Yes, this is how it works and this is the most efficient way to play with it instead of messing around with that string; next toy please.

So at the end of the session, I asked what I should be doing or if this was representative of how their sessions would go. She said she's using short sentences to urge him to imitate her and eventually she'll encourage me to use short sentences for periods of playtime throughout the day (though not obviously the whole day, since we can't live our lives in caveman-like grunts).

She said his receptive language is extremely high and she was surprised by his focus, because the report she read said he could be somewhat distracted.

He's two. Distracted is the name of the game. But A is a pretty focused kid.

So I'm not sure how it went, but I think he had fun and she left a toy here for him to play with, so it's all good.