Dexy's First Day of Preschool

The First Day of Preschool!

Dexter first day of preschool was awesome. Well, at least his time during preschool was awesome. Getting out of the house that morning was a bit of a challenge.

Normally, mornings at our house are not total chaos. Aside from me, naturally being a 'chicken with her head cut off' (I get that from my mom - hope she doesn't read that), mornings are pretty smooth, especially since we use a super-great chore chart that I will probably blog about on Thursday.

However, this morning took a turn for the worst when.....

Dexter has a bad cold. He seems to be at the end of it, as it is the 'coughing phase' right now at nighttime.

This morning, despite looking horribly (and still having acceptable clear-snot for preschool), he was doing well and excited for preschool, when he very wonderfully said, "Mom! I need too poo poo in the potty!" And he did just that. He motioned to the flusher, which I assumed (mistakingly) meant for me to flush the toilet for him. In fact, he meant to say, "Don't flush, I want to show Daddy my very big poop."

And, as he watched his proud poo poo flush down the toilet, the irate meltdown began, and basically didn't really end until AJ and I were packing ourselves in the car and saying good-bye to Dexter.

Hence the reason his picture looks like this:



But, as we neared preschool, the weather was not only sunny, but so was Dexy's attitude:


Albeit he had some help from me, he was ready faster than AJ, for sure once we were inside. He ripped off those shoes and slipped on his indoor shoes. He was EXCITED!

After I dropped the boys off and handed in one more document for Kindergarten Registration, I headed to the gym as per my normal morning routine.

After the gym, I did exactly what I KNEW I would do with my spare time...
I went to the mall.

But don't worry, I didn't go crazy. I just bought myself some very much needed undies. No biggy.

I picked up two VERY happy boys from preschool, and VERY STUPIDLY took them for their lamely scheduled (as per moi) haircuts that ran through lunch time and into Dexter's nap. Let's just say it wasn't the most pleasant hair cut experience and Dexter was falling asleep in the chair.

I picked up my coffee and then dropped AJ off at his friend Josh's house (until 4pm!).

Dexter came home for a little lunch and a little late nap. He was bagged.

But he was still game for swimming lessons. Those went well and Daddy came to watch again.




Thursday

Thursday night was skating lessons again. Dexter's getting better at staying up on his skates and taking little steps. I will forgo telling you how annoying it was to get both kids' skates on and completely laced and ready and THEN realize that I forgot their helmets out in the car.

Good grief!

But it was a good time had by both boys. AJ is just zooming across that ice and likes to do dramatic skids to the ground onto his knees that end in him rolling across the ice like someone who's been thrown from a moving vehicle. I'm thinking acting lessons may have been a good idea.

They brought out the little chairs this time to help some of the little kids get going.
Dexter thought that pushing the teacher around was BIG fun.
No pics of AJ from this lesson.

Stinky, sweaty, ice skaters get a bath.


Oh man. If these guys end up being hockey players. Yuck. The stench. They just sweat at their lessons!

And the night ends with some spaceship building.




Friday

That was a nice, special day. Auntie Ryan came out from North Delta (thanks so much for coming all that way Auntie Ryan!) to our local play-place. The kids has a serious blast-o-fun at the playcentre. They were sweaty, and their socks weren't very pretty. Erica and I had a nice time getting to catch up with Ryan, and the kids were occupied with fun. It was, unfortunately, a torrential downpour outside. YIKES! Crazy rain. Erica had to get some grocery shopping done, so I offered to take Ryan and Jack back to my place during Dexter's nap. It went VERY nicely. The kids played great!

In fact, there were lots of playdates over the weekend and into this week. AJ's been a lucky boy having so many friends over!

Friday night and Saturday night, I think, ended with some family "Rock Band" time! Fun.


Saturday

Saturday was very relaxing, everyone in their comfies around the house. It was so quiet. There was no tv, and not even music in the background like usual. The boys rediscovered their Leapsters and Daddy's ds. I just puttered around the house cleaning up and the boys alternated between little video games and playing Lego and Duplo. It was seriously, so quiet.




Oh yah, Daddy was fixing up our Wii. That's contributed to a lot of the quiet.


The boys took a break from big boy Lego to build some big ships with the duplo. I am amazed daily by what both of the boys create.


Some of the cats playing a part in our lovely, quiet day. Sassy on the left and Shakespeare on the right.


Sunday

What a GREAT day!

Happy Birthday Brunch for my Auntie Brenda with a whole slew of family again! Thanks to everyone who came! It was so great to see you all!

About ten minutes before we left the house to head to brunch, my-other-friend-Jen called to ask if AJ could come play with Landon (while she got some painting done). AJ was given the choice and definitely wanted to go play with his pal. We dropped him off and headed to brunch one-kid-down. It was so nice to be at a restaurant with just one kid! You forget so easily how much calmer it is with only one! Dexter enjoyed his favourite food, curly fries, after eating some fruits and veggies. YUM.

We left there to pick up AJ, so I could take he and Dexter to a birthday party. Daddy's been dealing with a cold, so he stayed home, kidless, to rest-up and relax. The boys had a great time at the pool.

Come to think of it, Daddy didn't really relax too much. I think he did some more grocery shopping.

Thanks for brunch, Mom and Ken!


Monday

Gym. Another playdate. Landon came over to our house. It was another one of those hear-a-pin-drop kind of playdates. Lego is just mesmerizing I guess. Yah, the were downstairs loudly pretending to be in a rockband for a while and the Rescue Heroes were escaping some natural disasters, but most of the time was quiet-Lego and quiet-Duplo. Nice.

Can't remember the rest of Monday, just that I remember saying to Richard that I was "filled with joy" that day. It was a really nice day.

Daddy may be getting no sleep because of his cold that has him down for the count, but he still busted his arse to make me a giant batch of his delicious homemade chicken soup for my workdays.

And, he played some 'robots' with AJ and Dexter.

Daddy does a really great robot-voice.



Richard

He's been home for a week! It's been really nice to have him home. Unfortunately, he caught a cold and now Dex has it too. Hopefully, it's on it's way out. His body seems to be fighting it.

I'm finally used to having another adult in the house again, so that's good. It's amazing how you get used to being by yourself.

The nice thing is for Richard, that I'm still acting like I'm by myself a bit which means that he can do as much as he feels like he can do, and if he feels like doing absolutely nothing, then he can do that too.

But of course, he's Richard. And you know Richard!

I don't need to say too much about him because he's been updating his blog!
This week marks "Day 100" since the stem cell transplant! Can you believe it? So exciting. He's, of course, not out of the woods, so to speak, but still... out of the 'acute' phase. Now, if Graft vs. Host occurs, it's considered 'chronic'.

Everyone's really happy to get see Richard around lately. We had a game night with Erica and Kevin (thanks you two!), people got to see him at brunch, my friends get to see him when they pop by, and he's making appearances at swimming lessons!

We're happy to have you home, Daddy!




The Boys

I'm definitely going to have to do a baby book entry soon to discuss funny Dexterisms that remind me of how old he is such as, "Oh Mom, I almo sowgah my bahpah." (oh mom, I almost forgot my backpack!)

AJ is reading bigger and bigger books. He enjoying trying out little mini chapter books. He likes the nightly routine of me reading the boys one book, AJ and I alternating pages reading another book, and then AJ reading a whole book himself. He's reading with more and more expression. It's fun to watch the progression.

Tonight, instead of the usual '3 books in bed' rule, AJ informed me, "Look how many books I'm going to read in my bed tonight, Mom!" I think there's about 10 in his bed. Our books, not his library books. I would worry about the library books getting squished and bent.

OH yah! Something funny. AJ informed the hair dresser today with a frown, that he did NOT want his hair to look like Daddy's. lol