Preschool Visit

“My toes hurt,” Matt announces inside the car. 

“Have you seen my dog? Where is my dog?” Matthew has solved his toe problems by removing his shoes and putting his socks on his hands as puppets. That is probably the second funniest thing he has done on a grocery shopping trip. The first would be when after we thought for one heart stopping moment that we lost him, but then spotted him hiding on the bottom shelf of the paper towels.

We are on our way to check out a preschool. Matthew is very excited about school. He knows that his favorite storybook characters all go to school as well as his two best friends at daycare. “We are going to school to get shots!” he cheers. He also knows that the only two times he has been inside of a school has been to get H1N1 vaccines.

The preschool is set up exactly the way that I hoped it would be. Cubbies with names assigned to them, art smocks hung up on the wall, toys organized by category, small tables with colorful chairs, and full book shelves low enough for children to reach and read. Matt made a beeline for the train table, where he stayed while the adults chatted and asked questions.

The teacher told us about the classroom size, rates, daily activities, and showed us the school yard with a big fenced in playground. The school was everything we were looking for and as an added bonus close enough to our home that we could bike ride there on the warmer days. When it was time to go Matthew didn’t want to leave. Already he can’t wait to start school in the fall.

The Snow Keeps Coming

On Tuesday night sixteen inches of snow fell.

At seven o’ clock the following morning, the familiar sound of snow blowers lifting snow of the driveways can be heard through of the neighborhood. The snow plow is left icy banks of snow at the end of our driveway and the trees are bent over under the weight of heavy snow. It looks like a child’s art project of the North Pole.

We made a snowman and had pancakes and hot cocoa for breakfast. Snow is a lot more enjoyable with a small child around.

This Week In Winter

We took a nature walk through the woods behind our home. The snow had melted enough to not sink a small child up to his knees, but there was still enough to make pleasant crunching sounds under our boots.

For Valentine’s Day we too Matthew to see a planetarium show called, One World, One Sky which starred Elmo, Big Bird, and a muppet named Hu Hu Zhu. 

I made these cupcakes for a friend's baby shower being held at our home.

We also made salt dough  to keep us entertained one of the colder days this week. The snowman somehow keeps ending up near Matthew’s train tracks.

All That Ends Well

 “Mama, I need a tissue!” he Matthew out after he went to bed, “And some medicine!” That was codespeak for I barfed all over my sheets.

“Maybe I exercised my belly too much?” Matthew told us.

The next morning Bob went out to the grocery store to get Jello. He returned with a Thomas VTech game but forgot to buy Jello.

Matthew spent the rest of the day napping and playing his new Thomas game. He already seemed better by night time.

Explosive Gas

Written By: Bob

It was a typical, boring Wednesday night. By typical, I mean that Matt and I were playing trains. By boring, again I mean that we were playing trains. No offense to Thomas and his friends, but there’s only so many games of “Make Donald Say Hi to Percy” that one can tolerate. And we’ve been playing that game every day since October.

After putting Matt to bed, I decided the house needed a good Lysol spraying. Matt had been coughing like a three pack-a-day smoker for a few days, and my nose had been running like a faucet since the morning. Certain that our house was covered in germs, I proceeded to give everything a good spraying – TV remotes, doorknobs, computer keyboards, the whole works.

Upon completion, I settled down at the computer to check in with my lovely wife when I was rudely startled by an ear piercing 85 decibel beeping from our Carbon Monoxide/Explosive Gas Alarm. The alarm had gone off once before, with a low battery warning, so I went downstairs to check, figuring this was the case again. This time, however, the unit was flashing an ominous “GAS! GAS!” With visions of our house being blown to smithereens, with me and Matt in it, I quickly called 911 and then grabbed Matt out of bed, wrapped him in a sleeping bag, and went out to sit in the car and wait for the fire department to arrive.

At this point, I was worried that our house was seconds away from exploding. Matt, on the other hand, was having the time of his life, snuggling up with the sleeping bag on the back seat. As the ambulance pulled up our hill, lights flashing, it was like Christmas morning all over again for Matt. Two firemen arrived and checked the house, and let us know it was safe to come back inside.

As I talked downstairs with the two firemen, I could hear the front door open. Matt was attempting to head outside, in three inches of snow, to go get a closer look at the ambulance. One of the firemen then stayed upstairs with Matt, as I talked to the other one downstairs. I could hear Matt telling him, “Come to my room. Look, truck rug. Truck bed” while showing off his truck-themed room. “Do you have more fire trucks?” I heard the fireman ask Matt. At this point, I could hear the clatter of trucks being pulled out of the closet. Matt was getting a chance to play fire trucks with a fireman, and he was going to make the most of it by taking out every last fire truck he owns.

Before they left, Matt got a high five from each of them, and they flashed their lights and sirens as they drove away, Matt standing wide-eyed at the front door waving goodbye. Finally, Matt went back to bed and I turned to Google to solve the mystery of the false alarm. As the firemen suspected, the Lysol I had sprayed around the house to kill our germs had triggered the Explosive Gas sensor. After reading a number of Amazon reviews, it appears this is quite the common occurrence with any kind of household cleaner, aerosol spray, or perfume. False alarms have also been triggered by another kind of “explosive gas” emitted by humans, perhaps after a large meal of spicy food at a Mexican restaurant (dogs have been known to do the same, although I don’t think Mexican food is the cause in that case). I’m sure this has Laurie wondering how I never set off the explosive gas alarm before.

For me, the night could not have been worse. I stood outside in my bed shorts in 20-degree weather, waiting for my home to explode, and now my cold is even worse. For Matt, it may have been the greatest night of his life. His hacking cough has miraculously disappeared, he wants to go sleep in the car again, and he got to play fire trucks with a real live firefighter. For a little boy obsessed with all things trucks, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Happy New Year!

It has been busy around here lately. We rang in the New Year with a silly hat, Chinese food, noisemakers, and chocolate fondue.

Matthew is doing new things like getting out of his bed all by himself in the morning. I usually hear him open his bedroom shades, followed by the sound of his footsteps down the hallway to my room. In his own words:

"In the morning, I climb out of bed, open all the windows, find Mama, and play more trains."

Let It Snow

On Saturday night while two to three inches of snow all of the older neighborhood kids went sledding at nine o’ clock at night. The first snow fall of the season is always an exciting time!

At nine o’ clock the following morning, the  tops of the telephone, mailboxes, and tree branches are all coated with snow giving the streets a look that could grace the cover of a postcard.

 At first Matthew is afraid to go sledding down our backyard slope.  After a few rides with me, he takes a few more rides with Bob. Matthew asks us to go again and again. Not too long after, he is ready to sled on his own. He takes turn after turn, and instead of being startled, he laughs the couple of times that he wipes out. We spend all morning sledding until lunchtime. And what a fun morning it was!