School Days

AJ started preschool last week for the fall term. As I wrote about previously, we did a summer preschool program at a local Montessori school that was great. AJ loved it and talked frequently about "my two first best friends", Andy and Jacob. He only went three days a week, so in the mornings when he woke up, he would ask what day it was and get excited to see his friends if it was a Montessori day.

But after a summer of paying the tuition that is ten times higher than other local preschool tuitions, Joe and I sat down and had a serious talk about whether we could justify that the Montessori school was teaching AJ ten times as much as he would learn at the other local schools. After mulling it over and concluding that much of preschool in the 3 year old year is for socializing, we decided to try two days a week at one religious preschool and two days a week at a local public preschool to see what we thought of those options. I felt bad about taking AJ away from his friends at Montessori, but ultimately financial sensibility took over, as it often does after a conversation with Joe.

The picture above is of AJ and his teacher on the first day of school. His teacher said this was the first apple she had received in 10 years of teaching, which surprised me. I guess apples are out of date now. Note to self: get with it, mom!

Davey Bear Talk

Davey has started to talk more and more these days. It is easiest to divide his words into separate Spanish and English lists. Some of his latest words in Spanish are agua, bobo (pacifer), besos (kisses), hola, leche and Mia (for Maria, our nanny's friend). In English, he has said down, done, daddy, mama, A.J., no (he says this one often), hi, bye, Bob (for Bob the Builder), Elmo, ball, oh noooo, boo! and a new one this weekend...home run. Joe and his parents took the boys to a White Sox game, so AJ was happily telling me about cracker jacks and Papa said he heard Davey say "home run!"

My favorite word that he says is "boo!" When we ask him "can you scare me, Davey?" he will enthusiastically say "BOO!!!" and then giggle histerically at the reaction he gets. We are a little early on this one for Halloween, so I am hoping the novelty doesn't wear off between now and then.

This picture shows Davey in one of his favorite places as of late--laying on the floor underneath a chair at the kitchen table playing with his trains. He seems to like crawling into and under things.

Biker Dude

AJ is the proud owner of a brand new green Tony Hawk two-wheel bike with training wheels that his nanny, L, very generously gave him for his birthday. Joe went to Sportmart and fixed AJ up with a helmet and a horn for the bike that toots loudly, a little too loudly, like one of those over-the-top horns that clowns had at the circus. Davey was not all that interested in the bike until the addition of the horn, but he now covets the bike and toots the horn every time he passes it in the garage. AJ is more obsessed with the helmet, which is funny because he hates hats and generally does not tolerate anything on his head. But he has an interest in firefighters lately and knows that they wear helmets, so this seems to be able to up his tolerance to the idea of having a helmet on his head. It helped that Joe found one with flames on it. As you can see from the pictures, AJ even tried on both his helmet and Davey's Spiderman helmet the other night and tried running around the house like this. Now we just have to focus on learning how to ride the bike.

Kickin' It

We signed AJ up for a summer soccer class for 3 and 4 year olds. It is at 8:15 on Saturday mornings, which is about 2.5 hours too early for me on a weekend. It has not been enjoyable to get the boys out of bed and rush rush rush them through breakfast to get out the door in time for class. I am trying not to be too grouchy so that AJ still thinks soccer is FUN.

In terms of the class, it has been a process to get into soccer mode. The coaches spent the entire first week getting the kids to understand that they have to listen when the coach tells them to do something. (We were taking notes to see if we could pick up any pointers for home!) They started by getting the kids to sit on their soccer balls on command--see photos below. It took a few more lessons to get to kicking the ball and stopping the ball.

The secondary issue to address was gear and getting AJ to wear it. The first week Joe took AJ wearing his normal clothes and buster brown shoes with a pair of hard plastic shin guards. AJ wanted nothing to do with these shin guards on his legs and no amount of cajoling or encouragement could change his mind. The other kids were wearing soccer clothes--athletic shorts, real soccer socks pulled up to their knees over their shin guards and real tennis shoes, or, as they call them in Chicago, gym shoes. So we needed a trip to Sportmart with mom to get the right gear. And then another three weeks of class to convince AJ to wear the lace up sneakers. We still have not been able to convince him to wear the shin guards.

The other interesting item about soccer class is that there is a huge difference in the interest in sports and physical ability of the kids. I thought all of the kids would be at the same general level at this age, but you can see real differences in gross motor skills, especially between the 3 and 4 year olds. AJ turned three just two days before the class started, so he is probably the youngest. There are two boys who appear to be destined for the varsity soccer team in high school someday. At last week's practice, while most of the kids ran in a ragged clump near the ball but didn't try to actually touch it, these two boys were in the front of the pack and would actually kick the ball and try to steal it from each other. Their dads stood by each other on the sideline looking very proud and shouting encouragement at their little all stars. I will be curious to see if they end up being good at sports 10 years from now and whether excelling at gross motor skills at 3 is predictive of athletic ability later in life.

And Then There Were...

Three! Yes, it is official, we are expecting baby #3 in late October. It has been fun to see how much more involved and aware AJ is this time around at three compared to his experience with Davey (which is basically Davey's same experience now at about the same age). When AJ was 18 months old and I was close to delivering Davey, AJ was oblivious to the situation. He didn't get the idea of a baby in mama's tummy or what was about to change in his world. Now he has such a better grasp of language that he is both able to understand the idea and to anticipate the future event. He talks to the baby already and asks lots of questions about whether it is hungry, how it eats now, whether it is sleeping now and when it will make its debut. When I mentioned that the baby will come around Halloween, he wanted to know if the baby would dress up in a costume.

AJ was also convinced from the get go that this will be a baby sister. Not an idea I was pushing, but one he picked up from the Berenstain Bear's New Baby book where the new arrival is a baby sister. Despite thinking that it is a girl, though, his suggestions for names so far are all very male-dominated. Some of our favorites are Baby AJ, Baby Johnny (after his boy cousin), Baby Uncle John, Baby Uncle Will and Baby DaDa. There was one girl name offered, which was Baby Larla (his version of my name). Don't worry, we are not crazy enough to let him name the baby.

In part because I wanted to set AJ straight well in advance of the baby's arrival if it was going to be a boy (and let's be honest, because I am curious!), I convinced Joe this time around to find out the baby's sex in advance, and it is a little girl. The first in three generations in Joe's father's family. So after we confirmed that this was a baby girl and explained to AJ that we were not going to name it his preferred name, Baby Uncle John, AJ decided that he also has a baby in his tummy, also a little girl, and HIS baby's name is Baby Uncle John. Kinda like a Boy Named Sue from the Johnny Cash song. So AJ has been telling anyone who will listen that he has a baby in his tummy and lifts up his shirt while puffing out his belly to prove it, including at the pediatrician's office at his three year check up. I let this go on for a while and then tried to clarify one evening that mommy has a real baby in her tummy and AJ has a pretend baby, but he was very put out at this suggestion and insisted that his baby is a real baby as well. So I am wondering what will happen when Baby Girl arrives for real and AJ is stumped as to the appearance of his baby. I am considering buying him a little girl baby doll to give him when he comes to visit his new sister in the hospital for the first time and telling him it is his Baby Uncle John. I am not sure how much Joe's brother, the real Uncle John, would appreciate seeing a little baby girl doll called Baby Uncle John when he comes to visit at the holidays, though.