First Day at New School

Sam started a new preschool last week. They opened a new day care and school at the entrance to our neighborhood. It cuts 20 minutes off of our drive time every day, so it is very convenient. It is a Montessori school, so it's more like a preschool than a day care at Sam's age group.

We went to the open house the week before last and Sam was immediately interested. They have separate rooms for music, art, science, library, and computer lab. Sam's favorite was the computer lab of course. He started asking the next day when he could go to his new school.

When I dropped him off the first day, he went straight for the library. We told him it was time for class, but he said, "I need to read a story right now!" It was the same drill when I picked him up at the end of the day. He took me straight to the library and picked out three books for me to read. The teachers told me he didn't have any problems adjusting and that he didn't have a shy bone in his body. Since the school just opened, the teacher to student ratio is very low and Sam is getting lots of attention which he loves of course.

I haven't been able to get much info out of Sam as far as what he is doing or what things he likes. He's being really silly lately and answers questions with nonsense phrases like "tooter, scooter, booter." They have parent observation and teacher's conferences next week so hopefully we'll learn more then. They are having a parents' night at the school tomorrow night so that we can learn more about the types of things they do in the classroom.

Some other interesting things about the school include uniforms and school lunches. It will be a few weeks before the uniforms are in so Sam is just wearing his normal clothes for now. I wonder what it's going to be like when he picks out his clothes in the morning and realizes he can wear this blue shirt or that blue shirt or that blue shirt, etc. Making Sam's lunch has been fun so far. The added benefit is that I'm making lunch for Chris and me too at the same time. Ask me how much I love it a few weeks from now when the baby is here and I have sooo much free time!



Sam says ...

Sam: Mimi, I love you so hard!


Sam also says ...

Chris: Sam, what happened to your socks?
Sam: I left them at school.
Chris: Why?
Sam: Because I am three.

Chris Turns 36

I turned 36 on Saturday. As busy as we've been, the last thing I wanted was a big event.

We bought chocolate cake from Mozart Bakery in Plano. Ian and Roya turned us on to this bakery a few weeks ago when they brought a cake over. It was gone in a day, a good sign.

Thankfully the cashier didn't give me 36 candles to put on the cake. No need for a bonfire.

Of course, no 3 year old boy can resist taking part of two of the most wonderful things: playing with fire and cake.

Sam went for the trifecta and tried to use a toy whistle to help blow out the candles. I had to hold him back a bit.

Sam approved of the cake.

Costas got me a Sypderco Tenacious knife. I've been wanting a different knife recently after carrying a Swiss Army knife for the past 20 years. The knife is smaller than what it looks but it is very sharp. Excellent for opening boxes!

Melanie got me an Aerolatte. It's a little battery powered whisk used to froth milk. I was surprised at how well it whipped up a batch of milk.

Mary Lou got me a bottle of Caron 3rd Man cologne. One night I ended up stumbling on something about fragrances/perfumes while playing around with the laptop. Three books and many samples later and this is one of the men's fragrances I really liked.

Costas got me an Aeropress coffee maker. This thing is like a small french press with a filter. It make an excellent cup of coffee. I wanted it for the office because the coffee stinks there and I don't want to make a full pot of coffee. The milk in front of me was whipped up with the Aerolatte.

Sam has thrown some huge fits lately. Thankfully he's slowly growing out of these and he's started to respond to some friendly ribbing about them. Melanie set him straight before we cut the cake.

Clownfish

Sam's Nemo Book: Dory is a Blue Tang fish.

Sam: Nemo is an orange fish.

Mommy: Nemo is an orange Clownfish.

Sam: But he doesn't have a red nose!

Bye Bye Diapers

We said bye-bye to diapers a week ago! Yay!!! A four week break or so before we get to start all over again!

Sam has been potty trained for about a year now, but he's still been sleeping in pull-ups at night. We noticed about a month or two ago that he was mostly waking up with dry diapers, so three weeks ago we told him if he could make it two weeks without wetting the diaper at night he could start sleeping in underwear. He was really excited and asked every day if it was time to sleep in underwear yet.

Sam is very proud of himself, and of course we are proud of him too. He reminds us every morning that he doesn't have to pick out underwear because he's already wearing them.

We're lucky to have a bathroom connected to his bedroom. He's been getting up in the morning and using his stool to turn on the light and go the the bathroom by himself. That actually prompted the other new bathroom news ... Sam is also learning to wipe himself. That's kind of a scary proposition, but he's been doing fairly well.

We've gotten four straight days of rain. Not the thunderstorm/tornado type storms we usually get in the summer, but a nice constant rain, like the kind I remember playing in when I was growing up. We got these rainboots and umbrella for Sam for his birthday, but this is the first chance he had to play in the rain. He didn't quite get the concept and tried to get on the swing with his umbrella. Next time we'll have to find some nice big puddles he can splash in.

Here's a shot of Sam licking the beaters after helping me make an apricot nectar cake for Melanie's birthday.

Catching Up

It has turned out to be a very busy month at work, and that always translates into no pictures and no posts. We've taken a few pictures along the way, so here's what we've been up to ...

This is me two weeks ago at 30 weeks and feeling large. I don't think I've gotten any bigger and the measurements and scales agreed when we went for the 32 week appointment. The baby is moving a lot and kicking me in places that aren't very comfortable. I'm guessing that's because he's still breach, but we won't know until 36 weeks.

We took Sam to Teddy Bear Camp a few weeks ago. It was a class for 2 & 3 year olds at the hospital where we will deliver. Sam brought Doggy Bear and the instructor talked about what it would be like with a new baby in the house (how babies eat, cry, sleep, look, etc.). Then we took a tour of the labor and delivery ward. They showed us a couple of places we could take Sam to run around and play when he gets tired of being stuck in the room. They also took us past the nursery and showed all the kids what a newborn baby looks like. All the kids wanted to hold the baby.



After the tour we went back to the room for a snack and arts and crafts. Sam made a door hanger for the baby's room. They also taught him how to tell which toys are big enough and safe for the baby to play with.



Here's a picture of Lulu reading a book to Sam. This was from the week that Sam had his surgery. We had the follow up appointment with the ENT and Sam's hearing is better. The really good news is his ears aren't hurting him any more.

Sam has been taking swimming lessons all summer. He was pretty scared of the water when the summer started, but he's fearless now. I feel better when he swims with the noodle though. He likes to swim back and forth between Chris and me with no floaties and under water. It makes me very nervous because he can't exactly raise his head out of the water to take a breath. He's even jumping off the side of the pool for us to catch him.



I couldn't get any good videos of Sam swimming because it takes two of us for him to swim between, but here's a quick video of him playing in the water.



Sam LOVES puzzles. He takes the same puzzles apart and puts them back together over and over. I can't even remember the last time he played with his trains.



Sam has been throwing some horrible fits lately. It seems like most of his fits are about TV so we've been trying to limit how much he watches. Who knows what this particular fit was about, but he wore himself out doing it. We were telling Mimi about his fits the other day, and when she looked at him he just shrugged and said, "I don't know why I did that!"



Sam still likes to help us cook. He asks for pancakes most mornings, but we only make them on the weekends.



Chris and Sam were making banana bread here.



We've been going to McDonald's after practice on Saturdays. Sam is still in soccer, but Hagen is playing baseball now. They don't seem to mind so much that they are in different class as long as they get to play at McDonald's. Notice the matching buzz cuts.



The last couple of weeks have been Lego cars and that has been a big hit.



Of course the daddys have to put on all the stickers before the boys can play with the cars, but the boys love to "help".



We've discovered Paciugo Gelato and it is wonderful! Sam picked Black Raspberry for his flavor. I'm sure the store owners were regretting the white leather seats by the time we left!