Life with the wee dude at forty months

I had my stitches removed on Monday, which has led to some more swelling and general agita on my part. I know, small potatoes in The Grand Scheme Of Things, but I’m tired of smiling without discomfort. I can read without pain, thank goodness, because nothing makes me feel shittier than telling Seamus that I can’t talk or read very much because my face hurts. Our heater is still acting up, which is now a boring and uncomfortable constant, and I’m marking the days till the warm weather makes an appearance.

California has set the birthday cutoff to November 1st, which means that Seamus is Kindergarten eligible in the Fall of 2012. His preschool will begin transitioning he and a bunch of other kids to the Pre-K program over the summer, and he will begin officially in September. Patrick is still on the fence regarding homeschooling vs public school, and I’m still interested in doing it if we aren’t impressed with our public school options. In any event, Kindergarten is not compulsory in this state, so we could start him later if we so chose.

We’re riding the waves of Shay’s age. Some days are delightful, some days he tests us, and some days he wakes up hard and it just snowballs. While no fun to experience, I feel better capable to deal with these than I had a few months ago. I think the trick is to stop it as soon as we recognize what’s happening, but to give him support and a safe space to feel his feelings. I think the carrier is still my best tool for this, since I can hold him close, keep him from running away (in public) or flailing and getting hurt, and still not feed the tantrums, since he’s on my back.

I’ve found some classes here in town that might serve as good entry points for the science classes he wants to take - they’re naturalist classes that focus on the bay, and they fit in our day really well, but aren’t every week, so we can still have field trips and playdates with friends. The Parks District has programs like this all summer long, so between the various events, he’s covered for biology-based stuff. Next up is math. We could be mathier. Right now it’s just allowance and letting him buy his own toys with it, but some of this stuff is going over his head. He does like making things into the shape of letters, and he’s sounded things out with me a few times, so I think the pre-reading is going well. I might be able to push it a little at this point, but I don’t want to turn him off of stories. Or poems, which he asks us to read to him. (My boy likes poetry! Suck it, Disney!)

He’s begun to be interested in current events, particularly the tsunami (pron. “salami” in Seamus patois), which he may be conflating with the wave that almost took him out the Thanksgiving he was two. We get the Oakland Tribune, which I think I’ll start reading to him. We’ll start with one story a day, and see how it goes. We’ve decided that we will all learn to rock climb (I think I’ve written that before) and sail - Patrick will teach us - so we have some fun extracurricular stuff to do as a family. This also solves our “Ooh, lookit all the classes!” conundrum. We want him to try things, but I don’t want him to get overscheduled by Things To Do. So we’ll rotate stuff through our family day, then we have the Park classes, and at some point we’ll find a swimming class. That’s a life-skill in both Patrick’s an my eyes, and non-negotiable.

He’s still interested in developing his own style, largely through stenciling his shirts and playing the tiny Fashion Director to my clumsy seamstress, who needs to make him some new jammies, since he literally outgrew everything sometime last week. My mom gave him a kiddie camera for Christmas, but the image quality is so poor I plan on giving him my old one. Which will need a case. Right. Back to the fabric.