Caught in the Act

If you want to enjoy the cherries on your birthday cake, I suggest that you keep a very, very close eye on a certain little someone. Or should I say a certain little someone who grabs the cherries and his sidekick, red, who helps eat the cherries? This is what Grandma Francie's birthday cake looked like by the time the second carload of birthday celebrators arrived from the restaurant 5 minutes behind us. When I purchased this cake, there were eight beautiful cherries ringing the top. It perfectly illustrates the meaning of cherry picking!

Just a Trim

For those of you who are fans of Davey's curls, don't worry--it was just a trim of those bangs that were getting in his eyes. We can't bring ourselves to cut his curls just yet. Joe says Davey is like Samson from the Bible and the curls are the source of his strength. Our nanny says the curls are part of his identity and that they gets lots of oohs and aahs in the park. They are here to stay for a while longer at least.

Binhead

The pictures speak for themselves. I am filing these away to bring out in about 15 years when he has his first significant other. Or maybe my parent entry in the senior yearbook?

One School, Two School, Red School, Blue School

Joe and I have been looking at preschools for AJ for the fall. So far we have visited one and AJ has already voted on his choice--this first one where they were serving each kid two donuts and juice for their snack. This opinion is coming from the boy who is famous for announcing repeatedly at a family gathering "I like donuts!" It was as if the school had researched AJ and was trying to personally recruit him like an NCAA athlete.

In another classroom at this school, the snack was coming out of a can of industrial foodservice-sized artifically flavored banana pudding with a side of cookies. I think they must peel these kids off the ceiling every day after the sugar high kicks in. Are my kids the only ones who go looney tunes when they are fed sugar? I did notice that immediately following snack time is music time, which appears to involve a nice young man who can't be older than 22 leading the kids in lots of jumping up and down and screaming at the top of their lungs (a.k.a. burning off the sugar rush.) This man deserves a raise.

What struck me most about preschool is that it is chaotic. I guess I was picturing more of an elementary school environment, but this preschool thing appears to be playtime and more playtime with a bit of structured time for 10 or 15 minutes here or there. I should be more aware of this since my sister is a certified early childhood educator and ran a preschool for several years. I visited her classroom and now recall that there were no desks, just stations around the room for various activities and one center rug for structured time. And this makes sense--AJ plays in short bursts of different activities, to this fits with his attention span. But for some reason, I was a bit underwhelmed by it all. That's it? I was expecting something about an educational philosophy or teachers' credentials. I know how much my sister studied for her degree and continues to learn in continuing education classes, so I was expecting something more from this school. My practical side says "And one of these schools we are supposed to visit wants $900 bucks a month per kid for supervised playtime???" (Don't worry, sis--my ideological side says $900 could be justified if that's what it takes for the teachers get a decent wage.) Joe's vote was for the first one we visited that costs half that much and served the donuts. Looks like I am outnumbered 2-1. But remember, as I have taught AJ, "mommy is the boss." Three more to visit--we'll see how it goes.

Cottontail

We had a nice Easter weekend here in Chicago. After 80 degree days on Thursday and Friday (woo hoo!) we had 70, sunny and breezy for Easter Sunday. Living in Chicago, we aren't too picky when it comes to nice days, and this is called perfect Easter weather.

My favorite parts about this Easter were getting to see my mom and brother who came to visit and telling AJ stories about Cottontail bunny. For about the last two weeks, I have been telling him bedtime stories about the bunny named Cottontail who lives in his backyard. We talked about how Cottontail gets ready for Easter and makes the eggs and likes to have picnics with AJ in the backyard. One night we decided that Cottontail would come the next morning and scratch on the backdoor and ask AJ to help him make some muffins for breakfast. Another night it was a story about how AJ built a house for Cottontail to keep him dry in the rain. I think he is trying to figure out whether Cottontail was real or pretend and has been disappointed that the stories we tell at night don't come true the next day, so he was thrilled to have his first tangible evidence that Cottontail followed through on a story by delivering the eggs to our yard as discussed.

It is a little tricky to navigate this world between pretend and real when he is at this age. I want him to enjoy pretending but also don't want to lead him on too much. The other night at dinner I wanted him to eat some sweet potato fries, so I told him that after he ate them I would pull them out of his belly button. (This is a vintage whopper along the lines of something my dad and grandpa either did tell me or would have told me!) And after he ate a few and I lifted up his shirt and "pulled" one out of his belly button from my folded up hand where I had hid one from my plate, I realized that he actually believed me. And then I thought about how all little kids inherently believe everything their parents tell them until they realized the difference between truth and fiction. I felt a little bad about the sweet potato story, but I also appreciate that this type of teasing in my family gave me a sense of humor for life and a pretty good b.s. sensor. I want AJ to be able to laugh at himself and the jokes of others and not to take things too seriously.

Despite having no photographic evidence of it, Davey did have a decent Easter. He looked very handsome in his new blue shirt that shows off his beautiful blue eyes and red curls. And he enjoyed a piece of lambie cake with his lunch. But he took a monster nap for 3.5 hours and, I am sad to report, missed the entire egg hunt as a result. I am sure he will enjoy next year's twice as much. To make up for it, Joe and I took him to the park and let him swing on the swings for a good long time, and he had a huge grin plastered on his face the entire time.

Apologies for the photo quality--I am still trying to figure out this new camera, and it often stumps me. The last photo is of the window box outside out kitchen window. The view is much improved now that my mom transplanted some of the pansies that survived this harsh Chicago winter for me this weekend. (Never mind, it looks like my photos from this new camera have too many megapixels and so I am limited to one picture per post until I figure out how to shrink them.)

Life with Two Boys

Here is a photo that captures what it is like to live with two little boys--instead of a doll in a stroller (and they each do have a baby doll complete with pacifer), they load their trucks and cars into the stroller and then run around the house with it and dump the trucks and cars out all over the floor. I have never been one who is much for the stereotypes of boys are this way and girls are that, but I do seem to see some characteristics in my boys that I think are deeply ingrained. Like pushing, hitting and throwing, to name a few. But it is impossible to separate out what is innate and what is trained, since we have treated them as boys from day one with all of the lessons that we learned throughout our lives about what little boys and little girls do.

Both of the boys are very physically aggressive with one another. We are constantly trying to teach AJ that it is not okay to push his brother down or knock him over or throw a toy at him out of frustration. And Davey, either from learning it through AJ or his own internal instincts, now pushes back, hits and is a fairly vicious biter. AJ usually has a bruise or two from where Davey breaks the skin when he bites AJ after being attacked or having his toys stolen. This means that they rarely play together alone, unsupervised at a distance of more than a foot or two, as they require refereeing and interference to prevent bodily harm. Typically it seems most successful to have them do parallel play with different toys about 4-5 feet apart, but as soon as one gets distracted from what he is doing and spies whatever it is that the other is playing with (which is instantly more desirable because his brother has it), well all bets are off. Davey will scoot over to AJ as quick as a mouse and swipe his hands wildly trying to snag a truck or two, and AJ will respond with a vengence, pushing David down to the floor, knocking him over or throwing the trucks across the room to where David can't reach them. Davey bursts into tears out of frustration (although I am starting to sense that he is also picking up on the fact that this helps his case), and AJ starts wailing at what he perceives as the unfairness of being interrupted while he was quietly playing.

The part that fascinates me is that they are both perfectly lovely playmates to any child who is not their brother. AJ willing shares with little kids at the library but will prefer to take a time out instead of giving Davey one of the six cars he is playing with. I have learned that while AJ understands a lot, he is not capable of advanced logic on figuring out things like if he just gives his brother one car, he ends up without any consequences, but refusing to share the one means that AJ goes to timeout and Davey gets free reign of all six for the two and a half minutes that timeout lasts. Figuring out a two year old's mind is both fascinating and incredibly frustrating.