Carwash

Nathan and Zen do a very thorough job of washing the car... and most of the other outside toys and trees.

"Why'd you move the pipes in the couch?!"

There are toys that parents enjoy playing with as much (or more) than our kids and there are toys that we wish our kids did not love. The dismantled soccer goal is one I wish Nathan were done with. We got it in the tired-of-winter days of February when we were looking for more indoor activities. It was a soccer goal for about an hour. Then it was quickly dismantled into 6 plastic poles, 6 L shaped connectors and a floppy net. It turns out that these poles have many uses: baseball bats, periscopes, sword sheaths, water sprayers, plumbing pipes, fishing poles, musical instruments, shooters and marble tracks to name a few.

What annoys me about them is that they are cracking on the ends and have sharp plastic parts despite the masking tape attempt at safety and they are often flying in the air throughout the day or poking into my ribs during bedtime stories (he usually sleeps with a few in hand).

I have been tempted to throw them out or at least "retire" the broken ones to the basement. But in the same way that I have a sixth sense about where my children are even when I'm not watching, Nathan seems to feel when one of his poles has been moved. From another room I heard a distressed voice, "Why'd you move the pipes in the couch?!" I guess I was trying to clean up. I had moved the poles from behind the pillows in the couch, but I hadn't realized he was laying pipe and I assumed he wouldn't notice right away since he couldn't see them. Silly me. When I hear the way Nathan talks about his poles and clearly loves to work with them, I have the endurance for a little more time with these broken apart, broken-down toys.

I am... I mean my son is in preschool!

I'd heard of moms crying after their kids went to school for the first time. I'd heard of parents feeling stressed about the busy schedule of school being added to the family. But I didn't expect to feel like I was the preschooler.

On the first day of school, the teachers had the class pet on the rug for circle time and Nathan barely heard me say goodbye before he was drawn to the rug with his new classmates. There were no tears; however, I was almost in tears yesterday after picking Nathan up from school at the end of his second week. I think it was because I was not expecting my own transition into a new time where other adults have a fair amount of input into my child's development and suggestions for my role as a parent.

I was left surprised and speechless when one of Nathan's teachers instructed me on 2 specific ways to interact with him at pick-up time and described several parenting skills to work on outside of school. Upon reflection, I think they were all good suggestions; I was simply not expecting that I would be the one learning new skills in preschool. While I was hearing the directions and suggestions, I had a flood of explanations and reasons and opinions swirling through my head, but my pre-schooler self just stared at the teacher, unable to find any words for my thoughts. Frozen. As I was walking out of the building, my teenage self wanted to yell and start a debate... but my mom-of-school-age-children self, that is new and fragile and still forming, managed to say, "wait."

It's my mom-of-school-age-children self that seems to know that learning new ways to be a mom at school and even discovering parenting skills will only help me. It does not mean I am a student like the other 3 year olds in the room, it just feels that way because this new self is so young and still taking shape. In some ways I am a student in this preschool class, we're all learning how to grow up just a little more.

Soundbites

• "When I get 5 and live by myself, I'll go to Dewey School" (our local elementary school). Nathan.

• "Do you want to see something AMAZING!" Nathan, multiple times a day.

• "Enough?" Heard often from Bea who likes to make sure everyone has had enough to eat, drink or snack on.

• "Doggie woofin' at me!" Bea.

• In response to a question about what they were making with play doh: "Cheese flips, ching beans, ham cones, cicada candy, and a snake named Broccoli." Nathan. "Boggie." Bea, pointing to her play doh snake named Boggie.
  

Nathan: "Do you know what nosin is?"
Mom: "No, what is it?"
Nathan: "Smushing your nose in something."

Nathan singing:
"Beatrice, Beatrice, Bea,
Beatrice in the mud!
Beatrice, Beatrice, Bea,
Why'd you go in the mud?!"