First Tooth! :)

The boys ran out of the parent pickup line yesterday and as Simon was talking, I noticed he was missing a bottom tooth!   I knew it was loose, but didn't think it was THAT loose.

"You lost your tooth!" 

"Oh! Yeah... I lost it at lunch. I couldn't find it!" Oh my... he was so casual about the whole thing. I guess I'm still traumatized about Ben's reaction to losing his first few teeth because I was bracing myself for craziness.  

So he actually LOST the tooth. Boo! 

He says it just fell out of his mouth onto the floor and went missing. SImon was very nonchalant about it all.  He came home and wrote a quick explanation to the tooth fairy that said, "I lost my tooth at lunch." 

The tooth fairy was NOT quite ready for that tooth to come out, but she was able to scrounge together some quarters! ;)

She better stock up though because the other bottom one is, apparently, also an "any day now" situation and he says the top ones are loose now too. OMG! WHen it rains, it pours with the loose teeth around here! 

This Just In!

Simon has a loose tooth! :) He's pretty psyched about this! :)

It's funny... I found out the same way I did with Ben. Randomly, Simon just said, "My tooth feels weird." I knew exactly what it was!!!! So excited for him. Most of his little friends have already lost teeth.

That Moment....

...when your five-year-old realizes he has enough sight words/sound-out skills to read part of one of his very own books.  Oh and yes, it's painfully slow and tedious and he quickly tires of the huge mental effort of the whole thing.  But there is no mistaking the proud look on his face. :)

This moment brought to you by the cover and first three pages of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  :)

I think this is one of my all-time favorite milestones.

First Half Day....

Simon had a fantastic first mommy-free day yesterday! He came bounding out of the back entrance of the classroom, sticker-clad and smiling.

"What was your favorite thing today?" I asked him on the way to the parking lot.

His answer? "EVERYTHING!!!"

He loved every minute of it, it seems and, later, at dinner, gave us the play-by-play.

The highlights, according to Simon:

* We had a fire drill
* We sat on the rug and mine is the orange square right behind Quinn
* There is a girl named Piper
* I got to eat lunch in the cafeteria and I ate everything!
* I had library and that was so fun!
* We read a book about fire safety and it wasn't funny, just a learning book
* I made a new friend named Ashton!


All in all, a great day and now I am feeling good about the year. I got an update from Mrs. Terry (our librarian friend) a few hours into the school day. Simon had just left her class. She said they were all good and that it's a really cute little class.  Love having insiders to spy on my kids!! ;)

Can't wait for tomorrow... half day, whole class! Wahoo! He wants to be dropped off in the car loop too! :)

ETA: This just in. Mrs. Terry let it slip today that Simon was um... shall we say... a little chatty in library class. LOL!  Not really surprised. He'll figure out the rules eventually though! ;)

School Open House...

The boys were pretty excited about their school open house yesterday... or rather, Ben was. Simon kinda forgot where we were going and I had to remind him three times on the way out the door.

They were all smiles on the ride though. I was laden with everyone's various school supplies and classroom donations, but thankfully, no Jonathan, thanks to my mom who stayed back at the house with him.

We had to wait outside the school for awhile until the principal opened the doors, then it was a mad rush for the classrooms.

We started with Ben's class, figuring it would be best to be able to hang out in Simon's room a little longer. I hadn't brought the paper with the room number and had no idea what the teacher looked like, so we just wandered down the hall peeking in all the third grade rooms until a teacher asked if we were looking for her and in we went.

Ben's desk is in the very back corner by the classroom door. I didn't say anything, but I can promise that won't last long. He always ends up front and center by the second week of school... every. single. year. He's chatty and also focusing is not his strong suit. He does his best work when he's sitting up front and the teachers always figure that out quickly. ;)

Speaking of teachers, his teacher this year, Mrs. C, is absolutely lovely. She's about my age, I think. Very friendly and casual.... I instantly liked her a lot. I also liked that she mentioned she has Ben almost all day. The only time he leaves her class is for reading (and specials, obviously) Third grade is when they start having different teachers for every class and there was the potential for four different switches throughout the day, meaning four different classrooms, four different desks, and four different teachers to remember to turn in homework to. Gah. I was relieved to hear he only had one switch. He'll do great with the stability. :)

We snapped a pic at his desk, checked out who else is in his class... turned out most of his favorite friends from last year are with him. YAY! And then off we went to Kindergarten....

Simon skipped down the kindergarten hallway. We chanted "kindergarten here we come! kindergarten here we come" all the way there. He was smiling and excited. THEN we walked into the classroom and his teacher greeted him and he SHUT DOWN.

I haven't seen surly Simon in months and months. He has been polite and friendly and sweet all summer long and had definitely turned a corner the last couple months of preschool. But, surly Simon came back in full force yesterday.... he scowled at the teacher and hid behind me.  (now, just for the record, his teacher is WONDERFUL... she is not in the least bit scary, mean, or unfriendly...)

I peeled him off of my leg, so I could move forward and grab the parent handout sitting on the table. The student teacher/aide greeted him. He scowled some more.

We moved on to check out the classroom. He saw a Lego table and that made him happy. He also saw some magnifying glasses and seashells that he thought were really cool. He was back to normal for a good long while...

I decided we should probably head out and say our goodbyes. The teacher cheerily handed him a copy of a worksheet that had been set out on the tables for the kids to do. "He can do this at home if he'd rather...and bring it back in Monday." 

He flipped his lid.

"That's HOMEWORK! I don't want to do homework!!! I'm NOT doing HOMEWORK." Growl growl.

I wanted to crawl into a hole.  Incidentally, I blame Ben for this and his three years of whining about homework....

I got down on eye level and talked to him. He eventually noticed that his friend Quinn was sitting at the table working on his worksheet and decided he wanted to do it there.  I thought we were making progress....

"Okay, first it says to write your name." I said, handing him a blue crayon.

"I don't know HOW to write my name."

Lies. He does.

He drew a picture of himself instead and then insisted he now had no room to write his name.

Eventually, I convinced him to write a reasonable version of "SIMON" around the picture he had drawn.

Then we had to fill out and draw his favorite things to do around the flower petals on the sheet.  It was like pulling teeth, but eventually, I got, "Wii, DS, Swimming, Riding my Bike, and Ninjago."

Whew.

I sent him up to turn it in to the teacher and then it hit me. This scowly thing is him being nervous. 
Look at the body language in this photo.... the reality of all of this JUST hit him and when it comes down to it... he's still just a "little kid". He looks SO small to me in this picture... I could just cry.

Poor kiddo. Sometimes I forget he's only five because he acts and talks like such a bigger kid most of the time since he hangs out mostly with Ben.  I have to remind myself that this is all new for him... the classroom, the teacher, the expectations. He needs as much coddling and preparation as his older brother got, even if it isn't obvious. 

So this weekend, we will drag out all the books about starting Kindergarten and have some chats about how things will go. We talked about it casually all summer (and well before that), but he's been so cool about it, I hadn't really felt like I needed to make a huge deal.

I have two days to make the huge deal.  

Anyway... so I have high hopes for a fantastic year all around. Ben's situation couldn't be better. Simon is in well-exerienced, kind, and patient hands, and, if all else fails, he has his good buddy Quinn by his side. 

Monday... here we come! 

Another Reader in the House...

Simon's motivation to learn how to read has jumpstarted since the school year began. He has started sounding words out left and right all on his own. I actually got him to sit down with me long enough to catch it on video today. He's doing so great! Next stop, kindergarten. What happened to my baby?! ;) Oh wait, I have another one of those. Okay, this is all good.

Update: Just discovered while he was showing Tom what he can do that he can also sound them out backwards. A Dibel-ee in training!

The Making of a Reader... Take II

So the middle one, just since school started, he is now interested in reading by himself. This is about the same age Ben was when the wheels started turning on the whole reading thing. So, I'm sure the next year and a half are going to be full of magical leaps forward for Simon in this area, with kindergarten being the place where things finally all start to come together.

It's fun to watch things start to click. He had picked up a few sight words here and there... just by living and breathing. With the crazy year we've had around here, I feel badly that I really haven't spent much time sitting down and working with him. But it's just as well because it's just NOW that he's really started to express some interest and some things are starting to come together for him. And frankly, I've learned that pushing things before their time never works for my kids. LOL. (or any kids? I don't know... I can only speak for mine)

Anyway, so we've worked our way through a few of the level 1 Bob Books and he is SO pleased with himself when he finishes one. We put a little sticker on the outside of them whenever he reads all the way through. He loves this. :) He does do the same thing Ben used to do though where he'll see a beginning letter and guess a word he knows instead of stopping and sounding things out.

Yesterday, he wanted to play with the letter stamps, so we got those out and worked on some endings and sounding out. He's getting it, slowly but surely. He only stays interested for 15-20 minutes at a time with that... but he'll play on the PBS website for longer and has learned a TON from that as well as from the Leapster Explorer reading games.

He SOooo wants to keep up with his big brother and he gets very frustrated when he can't read things on his DS or on on a website. I think this will drive him to do a lot of things in life... LOL. A little brotherly game of keepup... this is not a bad thing! ;)

Ben tries to teach him math problems too... which is amusing to watch. I'm starting to see that Simon, my more artsy child, may possibly have my brain as far as math is concerned. At the very least, he is not interested in it the same way Ben was at this age. (this was the age Ben used to say to me, "Mom? Why does 4+4+2+3+1=14?", to which I would reply, "Uhh...")

In other Simon news, he whispered to me last night before bed, "I have a secret that I can ONLY tell my family. Guess what? I am not really six, I am four. Also? I do not like the color pink."

I love that boy. ;)

Waiting...

Simon's in the midst of his poop window for today. I am determined to desensitize him to doing it in the potty today, so we're trying the tv distraction method. God Bless Noggin.




Sidenote: I think the songs I have come up with in the last few days: "I Like to Poop it, Poop it" and "The Poopy in the Potty Goes Splish Splash Splish" are genius. I may need to make my own kids potty training cd. ;)

Sorta Kinda Big Boy Bed...

ETA: Pics! :)
View from the door. (which makes the room look WAY bigger than it actually is... in some houses, they'd call this room a walk-in closet. ;)


Closer -- makeshift bedding which I'm trying not to let drive me crazy since I know he won't be in here very long.


View from above because I wanted to test out my rocking chair balancing skillz. Changing table will be making an exit eventually, even with a new baby... we just never use it, except for storage. A bookshelf would be much better use of the space! We are all about storage in this house! ;)


I had been mulling over putting Simon in the toddler bed for awhile now, but was going to wait until he was a few months over two... only because that timing worked out well with Ben and I thought, why mess with a good thing?

The topic has been bounced around in my toddler mommy circles now for a few months too. My plan had been to start him in the toddler bed either in the nursery or somehow rearrange Ben's room to make room for it until Simon was ready to be in the bottom bunk bed. (which necessitates Ben being out of the house during naptime, a.k.a. at kindergarten, or Simon no longer napping. (gah!)

At any rate, Simon sped the process up a bit last week when he started saying, "Do OSelf!" with regards to getting in and out of the crib. He wasn't making any progress, but he's persistent, and I had visions of him launching himself out onto the floor one morning.

So when my friend Beth converted her crib for her little boy a couple days ago, it inspired me to attempt the converted crib idea with Simon. So off came the side rail, on went a bed rail and voila, toddler bed without much impact on the look of the nursery... and which means when a new baby comes along, I won't have to completely reassemble the crib. Woohoo! ;)

Simon watched the process with curiosity. "Bed? Simon bed? Do oself?" Then when it was all put together, I brought him in and he excitedly climbed in and laid down. He napped there yesterday and slept in it last night with no problem! Like Ben at that age, he doesn't seem to even think it's an option to get out when I'm not in there... so hopefully that will stay that way.

So operation toddler bed was a success! :D I figure he can sleep there through the summer and then in the fall when Ben goes to school, we'll make the move to the bunk bed, which will leave the nursery vacant for an eventual Baby Three. ;) (or, depending on how crazy my kids drive me, a very nice guest room or office) ;)

Pic coming soon. :)

Simon's Surprise!

Last night, I guess Simon was feeling like he was missing out on the daddy/Ben party in the basement because he DID NOT want to go to sleep. I went up around 8:30 and just rocked him and talked to him for awhile. Eventually he put his head on my shoulder but continued to babble away.

Just for fun, I said, "Simon, where's your nose?" (not expecting a real response because usually he just giggles at me or pinches MY nose)... he sat up, pointed to his nose and said, "Noh". So I tried another one. "Simon, where's your mouth?" He pointed to his mouth and said, "Meh." I tried to stump him with teeth, but apparently he has figured out where those are too, and calls them "Chee" That was the end of the game as it seems eyes, hair and ears are still a mystery to him. ;) Oh, but he DOES know where his big 'ol belly is!

Anyway, I was so surprised! I had NO idea he knew any of that yet. That's kind of the sad part of the second child... you don't have as much one-on-one time as you do when you only had one, so sometimes they learn things without you even realizing it.

I can't wait until school starts in September and I have that little chunk of time in the morning with just him. :)

Because the Blog Curse Apparently Goes Both Ways...

(which means now that I post THIS, it will probably reverse itself) ;) But anyway...

Guess who started walking all over the house just after my post yesterday!? So far, his longest trek has been from his room all the way into Ben's room. He has also done almost the whole length of the living room. You can tell he is quite pleased with himself because he giggles with every step! Either that or he just thinks all the clapping and "yay!!"ing we're doing is funny. ;)

Seriously... He Really IS a Closet Walker...

So, yesterday, I was walking Simon around the living room and at one point, I let go of his hands and was holding onto his overalls instead. (he actually checked to make sure I still had him)... I could feel he was completely balanced, so I let go. He walked 3/4 of the way across the kitchen! Then he realized I wasn't holding on, plopped himself down on his diaper and angrily screeched at me.

Lordy day... I can't WAIT to teach him how to ride a bike. ;)

Closet Walker...

By my best estimate, Simon walked five or so steps this morning to get from the nightstand in our bedroom to the vacuum cleaner in the middle of the room. That's a guess, however, because I only caught the last two steps before he saw I had spotted him and promptly sat down.

The sneaky little guy is becoming a closet walker, a term coined by my mom's friend Hope, whose grandaughter (same age as Ben) used to walk all over the room until someone came in and then she'd sit down and pretend she couldn't walk at all. I don't think she "came out" until several months after her first birthday.

Simon will do positively ANYTHING to avoid walking, including crawling on his hands and the tips of his toes outside so he doesn't scrape his knees on the sidewalk. He will also leap from object to object even if they are ridiculously far apart for cruising purposes...

At this point, I'm very curious to see just how long he can draw this out. I'm really thinking he might go as long as the end of the summer or even September. I figure the longer it takes the more money I'm saving on shoes, right? ;) LOL! These days, it's all barefoot, all the time!

Baby Steps...

Until very recently, I never understood why someone wouldn't say their baby was walking when they had already taken their first steps. Then I had Simon. He is learning to walk in such a completely different way than Ben did and it's very interesting to observe. Ben took three first steps. Then a few more the next day and a few more the next day. I bought him his first shoes and the next week, he was walking more than we he was crawling. A month later, he was running. I thought that's just how it worked. Which, back to my first sentence, is why I never understood why it was so hard for some people to come up with exactly when their child "walked".

Simon, in keeping with his personality, has approached it in a much more cautious manner. He has taken steps. Quite a few, actually, in the last two weeks. Usually two or three at a time before he falls on his well-padded backside. I did write in the baby book when his actual "first step" was, but it kinda feels like cheating because I definitely would not say he's walking. In fact, I bet we have another month or two before it really gets going.

Anyway, it's just very funny. But when someone ever asks me years from now when my second child started walking, I'll have to ponder it for awhile!

And to all who who will criticize me for comparing my children, I'm not... just noting and enjoying the differences between them. 'K? :)

Official and Stuff...

I'm writing "brother" in the first word blank. Simon picked up one of my framed pictures in the living room this afternoon, pointed to Ben and said "Buher". He did it two more times before I finally decided to give up and say it was for real.

I guess we now know who Simon deems most important around here! ;)



p.s. Yes, I corrected the baby book. One of the milestones listed was "I can sit supported" Um... if you prop them up enough, can't babies pretty much do that from birth? We used to wedge Ben in the crack of the couch! Anyway, I thought it was dumb, so I fixed it. I'm kind of ocd with the baby book in case ya couldn't already tell. ;)

Update Dump...

* Ben woke up SCREAMING at the top of his lungs. While this is not particuarly uncommon, this morning it was warranted. The poor child can't breathe through his nose, has a dry cough and his left eye is practically swollen shut. Does anyone know (since the doctor's office isn't open yet) if you can give Benedryl while they still have Zyrtec in their system? And for those of us who have been around us lately, no fear... it's just his allergies. :( Must make that allergist appointment today.

* Which brings me to my second bullet. WHY is it so hard to make appointments of any kind when you have children? I have a list of five appointments to make... some for me, some for Ben, one for Simon... been trying to do it for three weeks now. THat will be today's goal...

* Just since Sunday, Simon has pretty much mastered standing alone. I know I've said this before, but it continually amazes me how one day they seems a million light years away from doing something and the next day, they can be right there in front of you doing it, the whole time looking at you as if to say, "What's with you? It's no big thing!" Anyway, so he's standing and even standing and squatting down to get things... however, he will only do it on his terms. God forbid you try to put him down in a standing position. I see a lot of cries of "I do mahsef!!!" over the next few years.


* Words... you know, I still haven't filled in that blank in the baby book for "first word." For some reason, I find that blank very intimidating. I never know what to call a word. I was confident Simon was saying "brother" the other day, but after that day, he hasn't said it again. So now I find myself second guessing it. I think I have also have heard "hello" a handful of times, as well as a few other things that might be actual words. (possibly - "light", "all done", "that", "have that" "ball" and "bye bye"...??) But I just can't bring myself to fill in the blank. And now I have been watching videos of Ben when he was between 11-13 months and I hear him saying all KINDS of things that I didn't notice were words back then! My solution has just been to create a running 'Maybe' list on the side of the baby book page and when we get a consistent one, that will be it. Am I making this too difficult? I am, aren't I? He also roars when he holds up the lion from his Little People ark... do animal sounds count? ;)

* I got the opportunity to test drive "the puppy" yesterday when my neighbor Beth brought theirs outside. I think it's a go. ;) Simon loved it and I didn't mind the sensitivity thing. He also took a liking to a baby doll one of the little girls had outside, so really, the Cabbage Patch Kid is on his birthday list for a reason. He and Ben BOTH love baby dolls... and he keeps stealing and drooling all over Ben's CBK.

I think that's my brain dump for now... off to go try to fix Ben. He is miserable, though he is currently sipping blueberry tea through a straw. (his request) and watching PBS, so it's temporarily quiet. Ahhhhhhhh....

One Small Step for Baby Kind..

So yeah, in what has turned out to be his signature way, Simon just unceremoniously took a step. I didn't even know the kid could stand on his own for an appreciable length of time yet, but, as it turns out, the opportunity to HOLD my video camera is amazing motivation. It was while attempting to grab said camera that he took this rather flukish first step. He also stood longer on his own than he EVER has.

I somehow doubt the next steps will come quickly... but a step's a step, baby!

I wasn't in any hurry to get him walking until he gained this last pound or so... I mean seriously y'all, this kid is DEAD WEIGHT. I either need to get him walking or find a stroller he'll tolerate because my arms are breaking.

Anyway, I DID capture this on video (for once!) since I was taping him So I'll get it uploaded a.s.a.p! :)

Here's the video, which would SO not hold up in a court of law... you can't even see his feet because he was so close to me. When you see him jerk a little to one side, that's when he took the step. LOL. I even marked it on the video so you don't miss it... but you probably will anyway because it's happens in about an eighth of a second!

Simon Says...

This will be the title/category I'm going to use for Simon's words... sorry, but it was just too easy. ;)

So, anyway, Little Dude surprised us last night by saying...
"BROTHER!"

Actually, it sounds more like "bruhbr". But it's definitely in reference to Ben because he said it always directed at Ben and always after we'd point to Ben and say, "brother".

Again, wish I could get it on film, but you know how that goes. We'll keep trying. ;)

He's Happy. He's Knows It!

Yesterday, I was changing Simon's diaper and singing to him like I always do (when I'm not yelling at Ben to "STOP TRYING TO SEE THE POO ALREADY!!!") Anyway, so I'm singing...

"If you're happy and you know it..."

Simon clapped his hands twice, like it was no big thing, then grinned at me and waited for the next part.

"If you're happy and you know it..."

Clap. Clap.

I went ahead and finished it and he was right on cue, giggling his head off the entire time.

This is particularly amusing because a) I'm fairly sure this was the first time he clapped his hands. and b) I don't sing that song THAT often... though when I do, he's usually in my lap and I clap his hands for him. So I guess he picked it up that way.

Anyway, suffice to say, there was some serious cuteness happening. He brings his hands together with this look on his face the whole time like he just can't believe you can actually DO that with hands! I mean, mommy, are you SEEING this?! It's insane!

Of course, I spent the rest of the day on and off trying to capture it on video. But, well, like the blog curse, you know how that goes. It's all outtakes of me singing and him trying to grab the camera or crawl away or just going about his business and then me ad-libbing verses like "If you're happy and you know it, take off your sock/eat your lunch/break my camera/pee in your pants." ;) Maybe we'll try again today... or maybe I'll just give you the outtakes. ;)

Sketties...

Last night, I gave Simon spaghetti for dinner, one of his favorites. I was hoping we could avoid a horrible, tomatoey mess, so I decided to help him out and feed him the spaghetti while he fed himself the avocado I had sliced up for him. Everytime I'd get the spoon near his mouth, he'd cry and turn his head. I'd try again and he'd push it away and eat the avocado instead.

Confused, I wondered if he had suddenly decided he hated spaghetti, which seemed strange. And I KNEW he was hungry too, so it wasn't that...

I walked away to put some dishes in the sink and left the bowl and spoon on his tray. He spoon fed himself the entire bowl of spaghetti. OHMAHGAH what a mess... but honestly? I think he got the majority to his mouth... he did need a bath afterward, and his tummy is currently still stained orangey-red, but he was happy. Apparently, he no longer wants ANY help... which, though nice, is really REALLY MESSY!! Gah!

Also, note that the spoon is in his left hand! Maybe we got ourselves a real lefty this time! ;)