Brace yourself for the mother of all updates.  And I’m sure I will still forget some really cool stuff!

Aidan just finished up his school year and will be on break from his preschool for the summer.  These last few months have been amazing for him and I am so glad we decided to go ahead and get him going on preschool.  Pretty much all of the 16 kids in his “3’s” class are coming back next year to do the “4’s” class together.  The moms have organized summer outings once a week with the kids so they don’t miss each other too terribly.  He has made some really good friends there and his social skills are booming!

The preschool  year finished up with some neat events including baby ducks hatching in the classroom (the 4’s class brings them on their overnight to Pioneer Farm and gives them to the farm…Aidan will get to do this next year).  The kids got to see the baby ducks swim each class day and they all got their turns holding the ducklings.

The kids also had a “Teddy Bear Picnic” on the last official day of class.  A few days later his class gathered at the Pea Patch at Mercer Community Center to plant their pumpkin starts.  In the fall they get to go up in October and pick the pumpkins they planted.  I LOVE the wonderful continuity these teachers bring to the children.  I couldn’t possibly have found a better place for my boy. 

We spent Memorial Day weekend with my brother and his family.  My brother’s kids are 12 (girl) and 9 (boy).  Aidan ADORES them and he always rises to the occasion around older kids.  I couldn’t believe all of the things Aidan learned to do over that weekend.  He built marble runs with cousin Gavin, played stomp rockets with cousin Morgan, learned to ride a scooter, took part in a water fight and got Daddy, and got his first bike!  This child is really coming into his own and figuring out how his body works.  It is nice to see him take chances and not be afraid to try new things.  It was a glorious weekend.  When I saw him riding his bike, I actually had tears come to my eyes. So many times I had really never dared to dream of this day.  A day when I wouldn’t be thinking of oxygen tanks, damaged lungs, and all of the other things that came with his prematurity.  I was just watching my little boy growing up before my eyes…racing a scooter down the street and fearlessly pedaling his very first bike.  It was almost surreal.  I basked in it.  It felt….good, right, and overdue.

The weather in Seattle has also been almost too good to be true.  We had a couple of 95 degree days last week and I have been taking full advantage.  I think Aidan and I have fallen just short of living outside the last few weeks.  We have gone on outings to the zoo, out to new parks, out to the Town Center fountains, to a new splash park, many neighborhood parks, and gotten him his first supersoaker.

His brain is growing every day too.  He is currently amazing me with how much his intellectual curiosity is ramping up.  He has started asking LOTS of questions.  Some examples recently range from “Mom, do you think it will rain today?”, “My favorite engine is Thomas, what is your favorite engine?”, “What does THAT sign say?”,  “Why is Daphne’s (our cat) tongue so much rougher than mine?”  It is amazing to see his mind start to function in different ways and start to show lots of curiosity about the world.

Oh…and thanks to Daddy, Aidan finally totally potty trained in the snap of a finger. They were out and about with underwear on and Aidan wanted a pull-up to do “#2″ in and they didn’t have one. So Aidan didn’t have much choice but to go on the potty. And once he did that, he was totally trained. He has also stayed dry overnight better than 90% of the time. Just goes to show you that with a lot of things, when your child is really ready then it will be easier to do it than when they aren’t.

I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton, but let’s just say life is GOOD. It’s better than good. It’s amazing and I swear I am the luckiest woman on the planet to get to be part of this wonderful life with my son and my husband. I am truly humbled and grateful.

To close out the post, what would summertime with a 3 year old be without his first real summer scrapes? (courtesy of the new bike)

Until then, here is some eye candy from a recent park outing with some of Aidan’s friends.  Enjoy. 

As we would sit beside Aidan’s isolette in those early days, I don’t think I even let myself REALLY imagine the boy I see before me today.  The boy that would be going to preschool, going to a friend’s birthday party for the first time, and learning how to make friends. 

So watching Aidan today at the zoo as he saw his friends Ryan and Brooke was a moment of sheer joy.  I felt my heart leap a little and a tear came to my eye.  The three of them said their excited hellos and in a moment of synchronicity just took each others’ hands and walked happily from exhibit to exhibit.  They talked, made animal noises, made funny faces, shared snacks, and laughed…a lot.

I go to bed tonight with a sunkissed face and a grateful heart.

Oh…and a couple of cute ones with Daddy working with him on learning how to pump his legs on the big boy swing.

We were so pleased at our meeting. They said he keeps up well physically with all the other kids and is always willing to try new things. He interacts with all of the other children and is having one on one play with many of them. He is really good about coming to the teacher and specifically asking for help when he needs help with something. They say he is relaxed and has a good time while he is there.

They also commented that they feel he knows a lot about a lot of different subjects and feel that cognitively he is among the brightest. They also said he is starting to ask questions in earnest and he seems right on track in terms of that milestone.

Some areas they are working on with him are taking turns better, expressing frustration better, and sharing. They noted they are working with almost all of the kids on this. We did talk a bit about attention issues since I am concerned about those. They feel it is too early at age 3 to decipher what is truly attentional and what is a busy 3 year old boy but they are keeping an eye out for me since they know it is a concern.

I had wondered if it was wise to keep him back and have him repeat the “3’s” year next year since he only will have completed half of it and using his adjusted age he wouldn’t have been eligible to even be there this year. But both teachers felt like Aidan right now is thriving off of being the youngest and having the older kids to emulate. So they are recommending sending him off the 4’s class this fall.  All in all, a great report for a kid that is younger than everybody else in his class and is a preemie who had to be a bit socially isolated in his first couple of years for health reasons.

Following are a lot of cute pictures taken over the last week. 

Evidence of Aidan’s first “girlfriend” at preschool. 

Some shots of Aidan with Catherine’s dog, Bela.  So sweet!

And some outdoor shots of some our first spring park outings.  He was so exhausted from a morning at preschool and an afternoon at the park that he fell asleep on the way home.  But he wouldn’t let go of the two pinecones he picked up.

Oh, and he now not only wants to do EVERYTHING by himself, he wants to do things for us too.  Check him out brushing Daddy’s teeth. 

It wasn’t pretty.  I lost so much fluid that by 4 a.m. I was crying and waking up my husband.  He came into the bathroom to check on me and I told him I had almost passed out.  Twice.  Off to the ER I went where I got Zofran, Dilaudid, and 3 bags of IV fluid.  Now that is dehydrated.  Felt very tired Monday.  Sort of ok most of Tuesday and then the second part of the illness hit.  Massive fluid loss again, leading to another ER visit this a.m. and another bag and a half of fluid. 

Gratefully I am on the mend.

In some lighter news, Aidan has taken a very keen interest in emotions lately.  Talking about what mood people are in, guessing what a character’s face in a book is expressing, and asking us to show him certain emotions.  He will ask, “Show me angry.  Show me excited.”  And so on and so on.  It is beyond cute.  He looks at us very intently and then makes his version of each face.

Brandon captured him doing this tonight and I had to post it.  I didn’t know that 3 year olds thought like this.  Very, very cool.

Aidan’s angry faces.

Aidan’s surprised face.

Aidan’s sad face.

And the best….his happy face. 

Recently when we were shopping in the grocery store, Aidan started wiggling and kicking his right leg.  He had been sitting in the cart a while as it was a major stock-up trip.  I asked him what was wrong and he looked like he was trying to find just the right words.  Then he replied, “Mama, I have bees buzzing in my shoe!”  It took me just a second to realize that his foot had fallen asleep and he was trying to describe the sensation to me.  I thought it was a very inventive description for a 3 year old. 

He has also started to think it is really funny to steal whatever spot Brandon and I have been laying in/sitting in.  When he first wakes up in the morning, he always trots right into our bedroom and wants a few minutes to snuggle with us before we all get up for breakfast.  If Brandon gets up to go the bathroom, Aidan excitedly moves over to Brandon’s spot in bed and gives me a cheesy grin.  Then he says, “I’m taking Daddy’s spot!  He’s gonna tell me to scoot my buns!”  So when Brandon returns he obliges and tells Aidan, “Scoot your buns!”  And Aidan giggles wildly.  Today he did this to me during lunch.  I left the table a couple of times to get things from the kitchen and each time I returned he had gotten out of the chair he had been sitting in and took whichever chair I had just vacated.

I came back and he was grinning from ear to ear and said, “I took your spot!” 

There are so many fun moments with a 3 year old.  I am truly a blessed woman.

Some recent cute moments caught on the camera.

Stuffing Daphne into a little canvas toybox with him.

Getting his own water….”I do it MYSELF mama!”

Making cupcakes with Daddy.

Occasionally I would let him watch “Sesame Street” as a baby.  More for the colors and music.  Then as he approached the age of 2 he really began to like the characters and understand some of the stories.

“Curious George” was added to the “ok to watch” list around the age of 2.  I can’t remember what “Curious George” was like when I was a kid, but this newer version is great.  It teaches lots of math and science concepts.  Some even simple enough for preschoolers to get.  Plus, George is just a silly, funny monkey.  Aidan loves his antics and this show definitely was great as he started developing his sense of humor.

The show most recently added to the list is a newer show called “SuperWhy”.  There are a lot of early reading concepts on the show.  Some of the activities include identifying letters, starting to introduce lowercase letters, and phonics.  Here is a good explanation of the show.

Right before Aidan’s nap today, I let him watch the episode of “SuperWhy” that I dvr’d while he was at preschool.  I was amazed watching him.  At one point in the show, one of the characters always asks the kids to help her phonetically spell a word.  So she will tell them the word and then start asking questions about the letters.  Today’s word was “BELL”.  So she asked, “What letter makes the sound ‘buh’?”.  I looked over and Aidan is excitedly shouting “B!!!”  He did this for the whole word.

Now, Aidan has known his phonics for a while, but really the only way I had seen him use that skill was to tell me what sound a letter made and not the other way around.  For instance, when he sees a sign he might pick out the first letter and tell me “M says mmmmm”.  I had no idea he could work from the sound to the letter.  Too cool!  He loves this show and the characters are constantly asking the kids questions.  It was so much fun to watch Aidan shouting answers back to his SuperWhy pals.

In my book, PBS rocks.

Here is a picture of Aidan today enjoying his episode of “SuperWhy” with his favorite furry pal Daphne.

And one from a couple of weeks ago of Aidan telling me that someday he wanted to build a nest like Big Bird. I left the room for a couple of minutes and returned to an “Aidan nest.” I love watching his imagination grow.

Last Thursday when I picked him up, the kids were still outside on the playground and had just started to come in when teacher Judy blew her whistle.  There were a few stragglers that didn’t want to go in….and big surprise…Aidan was one of them.  I saw teacher Nancy gently prodding them to go in and then she spotted me coming to them.  She said, “Wait there, we’ll come to you.”  I heard her tell Aidan, “Your mom is here Aidan.”

I heard a squeal of delight and out pops Aidan’s smiling face from around the toy shed.  He took off in a full sprint to me and threw his arms around me.  He missed me!!!  But the good kind of missing.  Where he had had a great time without me but was still happy to see me.  I loved it.  That moment will probably be burned into my memory forever.

Teacher Nancy told me he is starting to really make some more connections with other children which is great because that is one of the big reasons we wanted to do preschool.  His preemieness (especially his fragile lungs the first couple of winters) really limited our ability to get him same age social exposure. 

I remarked to teacher Judy today that Aidan seems more comfortable being a little chatterbox around adults and a bit more reserved around his peers.  I love these teachers because they bring a sense of balance to my thoughts around Aidan and help me understand the way kids work since their experience is MUCH more broad than mine.   Judy nodded and said, “Well, Aidan is an oldest and an only.  I always expect those kids in my class to be more comfortable with me in the first few months than their peers.  Most of their conversations have been with listening, relatively quiet adults and it feels natural to them.”

She told me Aidan shared well today and that he is doing wonderfully.  She thinks he is coming along at a wonderful pace and that I should not worry.  At that point Aidan came running up to me, hugged teacher Judy, asked where teacher Nancy was, and insisted he must say goodbye to Liam before we leave.  Too cute!

I am so glad we made this decision for our boy.  It seems to be going really, really well.

Oh…and a funny.  Aidan is SOOO obsessed with his Thomas trains.  He has taken this into his pretend play.  He pretends to be a train.  He army crawls sometimes and tells me his knees and elbows are the wheels.  He toots and chugs.  Then he says , “See the smoke coming out of my smokestack” as he points to his head.  And the color of shirt he is wearing determines what train he is that day.  Today was a blue shirt so he was Thomas.  Yesterday was a red shirt so he was James.  He will even refer to Brandon and I as different trains based on the color we are wearing.  He called me Gordon this morning because my coat was blue.  I asked him why I wasn’t Thomas and he said, “Thomas is smaller and Gordon is big.”

Please, oh please tell me that their obsessions give way at some point.  I just can’t go through life being called Mavis, Percy, or Gordon. 

Cuteness at preschool to follow.

In the video, Aidan has just woken from his nap and discovered that his cat, Daphne, had crawled under his covers and slept with him. Aidan is clearly delighted. And, yes, this is the glorious laugh we get treated to every day.

He has given us signs over the past couple of months, however, that he is wanting some kind of new challenge.  I wasn’t really ready to throw him into a preschool that was for more time than a couple of hours a couple times a week starting off.  I looked into various preschools and found some that were WAY more academic than I even thought possible for a group of 3-4 year olds.  I mean….DESKS?  Seriously?  For 3 year old boys?  Yeah, right.

I had a friend of a friend suggest looking into a cooperative preschool.  Somehow I stumbled onto the Mercer Island Learning Lab.  They have  “3’s”, “4’s” and “5’s (pre-k)” programs.  Aidan and I observed one day in the classroom in December.  He leaped right in.  He painted, he built marble tubes with other kids, and he asked to go back after we left.  I guess the decision was made.

I love the classroom and I love the philosophy.  They follow the Reggio Emilia philosophy which believes that learning at this age should be child led and that they must explore and that too much structure stifles a love of learning.  The two teachers told me that in their minds preschool should serve really only 2 main purposes.  1.  An opportunity to build social skills.  2.  Create a love of learning in a child through self-directed learning and exploration. 

The classroom has 2  full time teachers and 3 volunteer parents each class time.    There are 15 children in the class and it meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30-11:30.  Parents are always welcome to stay with their child at any time, but are required to be a class parent about 2 times a month.  I stayed today and Aidan did well.  I think he will be more than fine with me leaving now that he knows the 2 teachers.  Today he built blocks, played with farm animals, hid in a bear cave (kids took a box and made it a bear cave), played in the water table, painted, sat down during story time, joined in group welcome circle and did some arts and crafts.  He had a blast.  At the end of each day they always have outside time.  The playground has a massive “sandbox” and it is amazingly muddy after our December snowstorms melted. 

Note to self.  Go out and get rainboots tonight or tomorrow.  Lots of the kids grabbed shovels and went to town.  Aidan got incredibly muddy and needed a bath when he got home.  He had a blast!

This seems like just the right kind of environment for a 3 year old boy.  I think he is going to grow a lot from it.

And last but not least, here is the eye candy. 

Daddy getting me ready for my first day.

Guess who is going to his first day of preschool?  Yup, ME!

Daddy and me at the front door.

Mommy and me at the front door.

Teacher Judy leading the welcome circle.

Daddy checking out the classroom.  Ice in the water table today.  And a pretend kitchen! 

Outside time!!!  Getting dirty just the way boys are supposed to!