Tag Archives: preschool

March 4, 2018 ~ 41 weeks

This guy really enjoys his meal time! He’s been trying out all kinds of flavors over the last few weeks. His favorite is pumpkin, apple, peach, and cinnamon – it’s kind of like pumpkin pie! His mid-afternoon lunch is the meal he eats the most. I’m often amazed at how much he eats when I read what Debbie puts in the app. He usually eats two pouches, several pieces of pears (another favorite) and other fruit, peas and corn (both he seems to like also). He’s drinking both formula and breastmilk mixed together most times but we’ve also given him just formula if we’re on the go and he’s ok with that too.  Kevin’s work schedule is still pretty heavy so he often leaves early in the morning and gets home after both kids are in bed. On this night he got home while it was still light out and Reid hadn’t gone to bed yet (so it was before 7!) so we captured a happy photo.  Griffin was so excited to have his Daddy come to Dads and Donuts at preschool this week. They began with an early morning breakfast at Bob Evans with piggy pancakes and sausage. At school Griffin loved showing Kevin all around his classroom, playing dinosaurs, playing connect four (a hit!), and giving him the tie that he colored for him. Miss Laura also read each child’s paper about their Dad.  One of Griffin’s classmates, Riley, had a birthday party at Recreations Outlet in Powell on Sunday. He is one of four boys in his class this year (16 girls) so the party was mostly girls and a princess theme! But he really loved playing all kinds of sports for an hour or so and climbing all over the playsets and jumping on the trampoline.  Locker Soccer continues on Tuesday’s with Coach Aaron. Griffin really enjoys the different drills that they do and of course getting a stamp at the end of the session. Toward the end of the season session they give out goal cards about the kids progress that also has a free smoothie card on it from Planet Smoothie. This week we headed right from soccer to Planet Smoothie for a treat. I really like how the coach the classes at Locker Soccer and the philosophy of the kids learning through having fun rather than by strict drills and rule following. Finn has been testing pushing back the last couple weeks at home when he’s been asked to do things or given instructions. It’s interesting to see how he also does the same here and there at soccer yet Coach Aaron doesn’t draw attention to it. He just does little things like rather than sitting in the team stretch circle he will sit farther away against the wall and do his stretches there. Then after a few minutes he usually joins all the others. He’s typically pretty shy so it’s interesting to see him do his own thing in a group setting.  Driveway hockey continues on Wyndbend. These kids (and Brian) sure love to play together.  And here are a few from Finn’s days at home this week. He baked some cupcakes with Debbie and made crossants. We also had a Power Rangers photo session to get his birthday party invite put together! And here is one more of my store helper. I ran to Target early on Sunday morning and Finn wanted to come with me. We took the Jeep with newly installed car seats for a short trip.

October 15, 2017 ~ 21 weeks

This guy just keeps getting bigger and bigger. He’s growing up too fast and this week he’s reached another milestone where he turned over from back to front! So, it’s the end of swaddling around here and I was able to capture Reid having a cozy nap one of the last times he was snug as a bug in his swaddle. To this point he’s slept really well on his back and taken good naps as his arms are on lock down in his swaddle. We’ll see what the future holds! He also “holds” his bottle some from time to time :). Big bro likes to play sports ALL.THE.TIME.  He pretends that his spider man gardening gloves are football gloves and he runs around throwing the football to himself and continuously play calling while he’s running around. If I’m not in the room when he’s playing he will regularly come find me to tell me the score for the Buckeyes versus Penn State (or whomever today’s opponent may be). He likes to call out plays using J.T. Barrett’s name (sometimes pronounced J. Teen Bar-ret, lol). Check out that baby bird hair! It’s coming in more and more and after a shower he’s like a baby bird with fluffy and fuzzy hair.  He’s adorbs. And he’s a mama’s boy for the time being. When I arrive home from work it’s time for him to eat so he pretty quickly gets fussy once he sees me and hears my voice. As much as I try to have others hold him, he also seems to prefer having me hold him if I’m around. So, we’re gonna have to work on his flexibility! For now though, he’s surely my sidekick.  We had a TON of rain this week. One morning I went to leave for work and I opened the door to the Jeep, which we park outside in our driveway, and the entire driver side floor was flooded thanks to a leaky windshield/seal. Yikes. What a pain. I left anyway thinking I could just dry it up at the gas station while I filled up. Boy was I wrong.  I soaked up the floor and rung out a full size bath towel three times before I decided to head back home. 🙁   So of course I arrived at work about 45 minutes late, which seems to be the story of my life anymore. Despite all efforts and no matter what time I get up I can’t seem to arrive at work before 8 am. I literally texted George and told him my car floor was flooded – I felt so silly, like seriously, I’m not one of our seasonals making up some story that the dog swallowed my car key – this flooded floor business is real life. He got a good chuckle out of that when I arrived at work and described my morning.  Thankfully he’s as flexible and forgiving as a boss can be and it was no big deal.  Finn and Daddy had some together time the other day where they stopped at Chuck E. Cheese and Oakland Nursery. Kevin sent me these pics of Griffin next to a ginormous pumpkin and having some fun playing games.  Our friend Nicole gave us a huge bag of clothes that her son Jake has outgrown. They won’t fit for a few years, but this rob fits perfectly now and Finn thinks it is so cool. Not to mention super soft and fuzzy fleece!I take pictures of most of Griffin’s worksheets and art work from preschool and what he does at home with Debbie. I’m excited to see how well he does writing his name and numbers and will be happy to have these to be able to compare the beginning of the year to the end of the year! He’s growing up so quickly, he’s able to do almost anything on his own and we encourage him to be independent and self sufficient! He really enjoys doing things independently and is typically very proud when you’ve asked him to do something or go fetch something and he returns or completes whatever he’s been asked to do. He’s got a cute grin. Debbie and the boys baked some tasty fall cookies this week too using miniature cookie cutters. It’s so nice to come home to lovely baked goods (though not good for my health, lol) and the mini size were perfect. Though let’s be honest here, we all eat many each time – not just one! Even Reid “participated”.  We’ve enrolled Griffin in his second season of soccer. He’s really enjoying it and loves all of the exercise he gets during the 40 minute class. He’s definitely come out of his shell since he first began and he really likes Coach Aaron. It is a fun program and I love that it is so close to home.  This week I was the “mystery reader” for Finn’s preschool class on Thursday. I arrived about 15 minutes before the end of their day and brought two of Finn’s current favorites to read to his class. “Kid Amazing and the Blob” from the library and “Mousetranaut” from home. He was so excited for me to be there. He did his excited face and jumped up and down and sat in my lap after I finished reading. It was a sweet thing to participate in and I enjoyed getting to see him dance for a game in glass and interact with his friends.  This big boy is so funny. Most days when I’m getting ready for work he follows me around like he’s my shadow and when I sit down to put my shoes on he instantly bulldozes himself into me! So we play and wrestle for a few minutes and then he sits down and lays his entire body all across my legs like he’s just a little lap dog. He’s a sweet boy, even though he’s huge and clumsy with his feet. He regularly brings things in his mouth to me, like toys or things he knows he shouldn’t have, just to get attention.  I’m so far behind on blog post I forget so many things from the weeks, but I think this pic was from a date night that Kevin and I had when Debbie watched the boys. And this was bedtime! As if life wasn’t busy enough, Kevin and I agreed earlier to again head up our church’s Fall Fest, which was held this past Sunday. In the moment we always enjoy it, though this year I was beyond stressed and frustrated even during the event. Help isn’t always as plentiful as needed and this year I’ve had little to no time to work on planning since I’m back to work full time. When I get home I had high hopes of planning and organizing and list-making to organize volunteers and activities, but in the end I ran out of time. My frustration is with myself, as when I commit to doing something I want it to be done well (read that as I’m a perfectionist) and this year in my eyes it was so far from that. I was irritable and annoyed and frustrated and kept thinking to myself, I can’t wait for this to be over and I’m never doing it again. Just ask Kevin, there were many times I wasn’t very kind to him as I expressed my frustrations about everything. But in the end it turned out to be a very well attended event, the rain held off, the flag football games were able to be played (and Kevin got awesome trophies for the winning team this year), the chili cook off was great (we had 26 entries), and we were given numerous compliments and good feedback from the staff who interacted with many newcomers. So in the end, all was good, but I have a long mental list of improvements should we take it on again! Neither Kevin nor myself are very good about asking for help, hence we baked all 20 dozen cookies ourselves! It was simply throw them in the oven as we bought frozen ready-to-bake cookies from GFS, but that was a lot of rotations. So, note to self for next year, add this to the sign ups! Duh! And I at the very last minute asked Andy to seek donations to give to the chili-cook-off  category winners. He rocked that task out in a matter of a few hours and got awesome donations from Nothing Bundt Cakes, BW 3’s, Piada, and First Watch!

September 10, 2017 ~ 16 weeks

Our big boy Griffin is off to his last year of preschool at NPCA! He is in the pre-K Monkey class this year and will go to school four days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9:30-1. He has been pretty excited with just a bit of apprehension saying he’s going to miss being with me. It’s been so much fun being home and seeing him all day long, I will miss him too! Along with the new year I’m trying new things: preparing in advance! We’re setting out his outfits the night before and making his lunch the night before also in an attempt to make the mornings smoother around here! He chose his buckeye shirt and gray jeans for his first day which was a beautiful fall morning. He is happy to have Miss Laura as his teacher in the Monkey class.
Reid is just so cute and happy almost all the time. I miss the day-long snuggles and seeing his smile and even comforting his cries. But I’m also super comforted knowing he is home being well cared for by Debbie and that I get frequent photos throughout the day of the fun he’s having. We’re working on his schedule still – he is a great eater and eats pretty consistently on a schedule during the day. Naps are a little less predictable as he tends to wake up after a half hour with a burp or for whatever reason. Sometimes he’ll go back to sleep, other times he won’t unless he’s being snuggled. I’m pretty sure Griffin was similar and at some point we’ll reach a good schedule.  This week his nighttime sleeps have been awesome. He goes down around 9-10 pm (last feeding about 8:30-9 ish) and hasn’t been waking to feed again until 6:30-7 am! Sometimes when he’s rustling around I’ll give him his pacifier. He’s also been sleeping in only sleepers and not being swaddled and he seems to do really well like that also. His hair is really coming in and he is really in to tracking people and movement. If you catch his eye he is usually quick to offer a big and bright smile.  Our trip through the car wash :).  On Friday, Kevin brought Griffin and Reid to the annual Millcreek Open House. I met them in the parking lot and when Griffin got out of the car he was holding a monkey with the tag still on it. I was a bit confused as it didn’t look familiar to me. As it turns out, his teacher gave him “Banana Peel”, the class mascot, for the weekend! Each child will get to take her home once throughout the school year. While you have Banana Peel you take her on adventures and care for her for the weekend and then document what your weekend was like in a journal she comes home with. I was so excited for him that he was given Banana Peel on the very first week of class! Kevin mentioned perhaps it is alphabetical though I recall the teacher explaining situations when they may decide who to give the mascot to for the weekend such when a child has been doing really well, been showing a lot of progress, having a tough time that week, etc. In any case, Griffin really enjoying having Banana Peel home for the weekend.  Saturday morning Kevin was working on cleaning out the garage so I headed out with the boys for a nice walk. Griffin rode his new bike (we ended up putting training wheels on a smaller bike we bought for him so he can more easily get on and off) and Reid rode in the basket. He isn’t going to fit in that too much longer! You can see how he is really grasping things really well lately. He’s even put the paci in his mouth a couple of times after he’s taken (or pushed/pulled) it out of his mouth.  This year we decided we would need a third car so that Debbie will have the van to take Griffin to school (having Reid and Sam also in the car). Being in school four days a week it is a lot of miles driving back and forth to Dublin twice a day. Our game-plan on what we were looking for went back and forth for a car for me to drive to and from work to a car for Kevin. In the end we decided it made more sense to replace Kevin’s aging Jeep in the long run. Kevin spent countless hours researching cars and we ended up getting a Volvo XC90 sport utility that has two rows of seats in the rear. It’s super pretty and snazzy. The technology that cars have these days is amazing – from steering assist to all the touch screen features. It’s kinda fun! We’ve been experimenting with car seat arrangements and haven’t settled on a perfect one yet but we will get there. Debbie has the van during the days and I drive the Jeep to work and back. I’ve always like driving the Jeep as it is pretty zippy!  So far so good!  We are also excited to be replacing our family room furniture. When we remodeled three years ago we had in mind to replace our furniture and it’s just taken some time to get there. So we bit the bullet and took advantage of the end of the Crate and Barrel Upholstery sale and ordered a new sectional and chair for our family room. The chair will be here in a few weeks and the couch a few months (!). It’s considered a “custom” order since we needed a narrower width of the section coming off the wall since our room is a bit narrow. The couch is a gray microfiber and we went with a brown leather chair that swivels around. Brutus’ crate will need to be relocated as the chair will go down where his crate is. At least that is our initial thinking. Kevin purchased a gray and white rug for the room several months ago even before Reid was born. So we are looking forward to it all coming together.  This guy continues to give me laughs. He is so big yet such a teddy bear, an overbearing one sometimes. I get home from work and he jumps into the air such that his nose is close to my face. Then when he’s beat tired he looks like this. We do need to look into a training collar to get his barking under control. He often feels threatened or on alert when the kids play next door in Cooper and Cole’s driveway and he will consistently bark at them with his hair standing up on his back. We need to do something to train him that they are just fine doing their thing! And thankfully when Brian’s tree came down in the strong winds the other afternoon it landed perfectly in his driveway and didn’t hit his house (or ours!).