My thought patterns and a funny moment

I taught preschool this last week and our letter was P. I had all sorts of ideas, but ended up using Puppet on Tuesday and Picnic and Painting on Thursday. The puppets we made were really cute and we watched a little of the 1972 Muppet's Frog Prince to show how puppets actually work. Then, because I had been having home schooling discussions with a friend in the ward who started homeschooling this week, I decided to try and integrate some traditional cultural pieces, so I introduced the children to Georges Seurat and pontillism through Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jette.

Now, whenever I think of Seurat, I remember watching (and re-watching) the Andrew Lloyd Webber video with my best friends from high school (hi, Betsy and Laney). Somehow, as I was searching for this song, I was convinced that it was from Sunday in the Park with George. I was wrong: Sunday in the Park with George is by Steven Soundheim and this song is from Surrender, aka. Song and Dance by Webber. But, I always think of the song as coming from Sunday in the Park with George.

Anyway, the children did wonderfully with dot painting. The pictures turned out beautifully.

But after all this happened we were reading stories by the bay window, when the girl in our preschool screamed. An Asian beetle had landed on her. (Don't get me started on stories about Asian beetles and broken vacuum cleaners. I would forget what story I was telling here and I've already digressed a lot.) The beetle was flung to the floor where it seemed that he had died of fright. Then a boy (not my sons) picked up the beetle with a cardboard advertisement. He carried it to the window seat.

"You can tell it's dead because its legs are gone."

He started talking to the dead bug and touching it. Then the bug, which had only been stunned, turned over and crawled off the paper.

"It's alive," cried the boy. "I brought the ladybug back to life."

For the next few minutes he kept talking about how he had made the ladybug come back to life. I couldn't help but think that it might be a little interesting discussing resurrection with him around Easter if he remembers his version of this little incident.

Our Sunday

Morning:

A-- peaceful, F-- sad, S-- running around the house in pjs yelling "You can't catch me." Peace does not reign in our house. We make it to church on time (barely.)

Afternoon:

A-- screaming (all afternoon), F--fussing and biting and playing with the soap and peeing in his underwear, S-- whining and demanding and annoying my husband. Peace does not reign in our house.

Evening:

A-- finally asleep, F-- finally asleep, S-- finally asleep, dear husband at priesthood meeting. Peace reigns as I sit in silence.

I'm glad today is over.

DIRTY!

As I mentioned before, F-- has decided not to wear diapers anymore. For a while we succeeded in keeping him in diapers by tucking him into onesies and safety pinning his pjs, but about 9 days ago he started fighting (literally) me every time I tried to change his diaper. It would take 10 minutes and end with me holding his upper body down with my leg and his legs down with another leg and trying to keep him from twisting out of the waist with one hand while I put together a prefold diaper and cover with one hand. It didn't always work. I decided not to fight it. Instead I pulled out the training pants.

Well everything was going swimmingly, until Thursday of this week. After playing with a friend in the morning, we came home for quiet time. And he went down like a champ, or so I thought. About 15 minutes in to his "nap" I started to hear him playing in his room. I was frustrated that he would be a very tired boy that afternoon, but kept him in quiet time for an hour. When I went in to get him up, I was shocked. He had pulled off his underwear (no naptime diapers for him) and pooped on the floor. Then he played in that poop, smearing it on the floor with his hands and feet, rubbing it into the laundry in his closet, and running it through the Geo-Trax station that his brother is currently insisting is their clock. It was everywhere. And it had dried everywhere.

Luckily, S-- kept an eye on A-- in the swing while I pulled out the chemicals (there goes my green ideals) and cleaned everything, starting with a very poopy little boy.

The next day, he pooped before he got out of bed after his nap, but I caught him before he could do anything.

ARGH! S-- never did anything like this. I was unprepared.

Bragging

Yep, I made it.

All by myself.

To Pee or Not to Pee . . .

Friday afternoon F-- decided that he was done with diapers. For the umpteenth time in three days, he started screaming and squirming and grabbing and throwing and hitting and crying while I changed his diaper. There was no rash. I was not dilly-dallying. But he was done. So I asked him if he wanted to start learning to go potty in the potty, went to the basement, fished the training pants out of a bucket, and started potty training. I wasn't planning on doing this so soon. I was hoping for warmer weather and an older infant. No such luck. It will probably take a while.

It has been a messy first few days if only because F-- has some runny poops right now. And our house isn't the warmest place on the planet--far from it actually. But we came up with a way to keep little legs warm--my knee-high socks with the ties cut out.

F-- doesn't complain about his nap-time and bedtime diapers. He also likes the idea of special "church" underwear. Wish us luck.

Blessing Day

Sunday was the first time that we had blessed one of our children in our own ward and away from family. There was a lot of sweetness to focusing on this as the big moment and not feeling like it was getting fit in. My dear husband spent the week preparing for the blessing, the family home evening lesson last Monday was about baby blessings, and we were able to invite some friends of another faith to attend with us. (They stood in as family.)

It was a wonderful blessing, even though A-- cried through the whole thing. My dear visiting teacher took notes for me, which answered a prayer I muttered as I frantically dug in vain through the diaper bag, looking for a pen. Among other things, he was blessed to be a peacemaker and a joy.

His outfit is semi-homemade. I didn't have the foresight, time, or energy to knit the sweater and hat, but they were too big so I sized them down. I also learned to sew on knit materials by making the footed pants.

A-- had wet through his pants before church was over, so the family pictures we intended to take are missing. We'll get some a little later.

He's One (month that is)!

Happy with the world

My husband's colleague found this cute reindeer outfit. It is soft and warm and a bit silly.