Montessori Week One

Dear Montessori, enjoy day 2 of the plaid shorts fashion show.
Many, many more to come.

Cade's first week at Montessori is officially in the books! Overall, it went very well.

Thankfully he's pretty OK (knock on wood) with being dropped off. I think this in large part has to do with the afternoons he spent at Erin's for the past 9 months. Mommy leaving and him playing with another grown up and babies is old hat at this point.

Moving to one nap has been a little bit more of a challenge but still, not terrible. He's napped 1-1.5 hours at school each day. Ideally he'd nap for more like 2 hours. However, until that gets sorted out, "short nap" just translates into "early bedtime."

We also suspect he might be getting his top teeth so the shorter-than-ideal naps may have less to do with school and more to do with that. Who knows. Every time he is cranky and not napping/sleeping well, I think it has to be teeth. So far I've only been right once.

Of the many things I like about his Montessori school so far, the weekly class update is high on the list. We received it as an email this afternoon highlighting three things the kids have been working on. And Cade was even featured* in a picture! Obviously this was immediately forwarded to grandparents and his Dad.

And in non-Cade news (who even knew there was such a thing), there's some serious spring cleaning happening around this house. For the past year, deep cleaning has not been a priority; feeding, clothing, bathing and loving our kiddo has been. But we're taking advantage of these first few weeks of our new schedule to whip this place into shape. Between the two of us today we got new tires for the truck, mulched the trees out back, pulled weeds, folded 3 loads of laundry, vacuumed and cleaned out the (huge under-the-stairs) coat closet. I'm sure these levels of productivity won't last for long but we better make the most of them while we can.

*The class only has 6 kiddos so I think every kid was in at least 1 picture.

Cade's First Day of Montessori School!

That's right! Today Cade had his first day of Montessori school.

He's a little guy still so it is kinda pre-pre-school. His class at Sunrise Montessori, called the Sweet Peas, is 12-20 month olds and lucky us, there are only 6 kiddos in the class with 2 teachers. Talk about a great ratio!

Ross and I took him to school at 8:30a this morning and walked him into his classroom. We unloaded all his stuff (diapers, wipes, lunch, blanket, etc) into his cubby and chatted with his teacher Miss Lori. Slightly unusual for Cade was that he did not want me to put his puppy lovey into his cubby. He wanted to hold it. And could not have been more clear. So though toys from home aren't the norm, his teacher said it might be a good first day crutch so we went with it. That made him much happier.

And then he was off. As in walking/crawling straight to the toys, see-ya-later-Mom-and-Dad style. I took a few pictures and then, well, he was ready to play without us. So we hugged him goodbye and left. No tears from anyone.

The teachers and school directors said we could call as many times as we wanted to check on him. We restrained ourselves to just one call around 10a. He was doing great. A little bit of sadness when he had to put away the classroom toys to go to recess but I figure if that is your biggest problem in life, you are doing A-OK.

We picked him up from school at 2:30, right after nap time. We were given a glowing first day report. He ate his snack and his lunch, took an hour nap, only used his paci at nap time and really enjoyed the music and movement part of class. In fact to quote the take-home report:

Cade had an awesome first day! He was busy exploring all parts of the room. He enjoyed playing the musical instruments during music & movement. He especially liked the jingle bells.

If that isn't a successful first day of school report, I don't know what is.

Yay new school!

How to Raise a Texan: Bluebonnet Photos

"How to raise a Texan" is both a Texas Monthly feature article from 2012 and an unofficial tips series from a former co-worker of mine.

It is very serious business.

So this morning I made sure to raise my little Texan right with a bluebonnet photo shoot.

We are lucky that around the corner from our neighborhood are a few random house with big lots, animals (goats and horses) and most importantly today, wildflowers. 

We started with some squatters (photo) rights in a field of flowers that wasn't clearly anyone's yard. We got some good photos and then mosied along to finish our adventure to the swings.

But we got sidetracked about 20 yards later by an awesome field of bluebonnets that was clearly someone's yard. We started by taking a few photos on the street-side of their fence. I was worried we'd be told to get off their lawn so when the home-owner emerged in her slippers I hollered "Sorry! We're leaving!" (which of course now we would be but would not have been otherwise). Except she said no, no, no, quite the opposite. Would we like to come inside the fence where there were more flowers?

YOU BETCHA WE WOULD!

And that is when we got the really good, lots-o-blue bluebonnet pictures. If you think you can handle Texas-sized levels of spring-time cuteness, then please enjoy the slideshow below.

Being the Cade-man

Our little boy is really developing some little boy habits and ways lately. And to that end, he's developing habits and preferences.

• Loves avocado. Like obsession level love. If he sees an avocado, he doesn't want to eat anything else at all.
• Loves mac-n-cheese. Not quite to avocado levels but he eats inhales it.
• Stuffed animals. He is carrying them around with him a lot more lately. He has this stuffed Taggie Dog that he just toddles around the house with. His favorite though is Monkey, his animal-blanket hybrid that he sleeps with. We now have to consciously leave Monkey in the crib after sleep time.
• Turning on his music. He can reach the CD player in his room and goes over to it all the time. He bangs on the buttons until he hits play and "Somewhere over the rainbow" starts playing. Then he dances. But he gets really upset if bad 80s/90s music comes on the radio instead.
• Toddling. He officially toddles all over the house. He'll spend 5-10 minutes basically just doing laps around the downstairs.
• Mama's dishes. He really wants to get into my server cabinet and take out my entertaining dishes. This is less than popular.
• Books. Per the usual, he still really enjoys books which I really enjoy that he enjoys.

First Swim Lesson

Yesterday Cade had his very first swim lesson! We are enrolled in an 8-lesson mom(or dad)-and-me course for little guys like him at the Round Rock Rec.


At first he was a little bewildered. He looked at me like "what is this giant bathtub and why are there so many babies here?". He continued to be baffled through the scoop-water-on-to-you-and-baby and hokey pokey sections. But when we got to the sit on the side of the pool and kick part, he quickly took to it. It was like a lightbulb went off that splashing was not only acceptable, but encouraged. AWESOME.

He also really enjoyed playing with the beach balls in the pool and eventually being on his tummy and back in the water.

As I told the instructor, our one and only goal for this course is to learn to blow bubbles. He really likes to stick his face in the bathtub water but since he currently doesn't know how to blow bubbles, it gets a little un-fun pretty quickly. And he's drinking more soapy water than I'm enthusiastic about.

Ross plans to attend at least one of the upcoming lessons so hopefully we'll get a few pictures then.

More 1st Birthday Pics!

Because you know you want to see them