He can be a real sweetie

The other day before bed Brendan told me that I was supposed to go to bed at 10:00 and when he was a grown up like me he was going to go to bed too at 10:00 and he'd sit and watch TV and play with the computer before he goes to bed (nice to see what he thinks I do all the time after he's asleep, lol) and he's going to work in Manhattan like me and get off the train at Houston St. like me. It's so nice when they still think we're so wonderful and they want to be so much like us.

And he really does want to be grown up. The last 3 nights he's put himself to bed. I'm not even allowed in his room. He turns on his A/C, the humidifier, pulls the blanket down that covers his window (the blinds don't keep the light out well enough) and settled himself into bed. At least he let me give him a kiss before he went in his room and let me yell in that I loved him. He was so proud of himself too.

He's also taken to interior decorating too. A little unfortunate though as his primary means of decoration was black marker on the carpeting and red crayon, writing Bs and Ls all over the kitchen. The marker actually came out of the carpet fairly easily, but he tagged the whole kitchen, floor, cabinets, countertops, walls, fridge, microwave, garbage can. With alot of scrubbing I was able to get it all off except for the cabinets and garbage can, which I'll be attacking later today. When I asked him why he did that, especially as he'd already gotten in trouble earlier in the day for the marker incident, he told me he wants to put our initials all over to make it our special kitchen. Good reason I guess, but the markers and crayons are however in timeout for the near future.

A few Brendanisms

In our attempt to discover some new foods for lunches in the fall, Brendan wanted to try salami. After taking a few bites -

B - I don't like it.
Me - Why don't you like it?
B - Too much fat, not healthy for your heart.

Discussing his trip to the SI children's museum tomorrow at his school where I'm a parent volunteer -

B - When we go to the museum you'll be a school mommy but when we go home you get to be a regular mommy again.

Mentioning my trip to Minneapolis in May that he believes was for work.

B - Why did you go to work in Minneapolis in May instead of in Manhattan.
Me - Sometimes you have to go on trips for work.
B - When I grow up I'm going to work in Manhattan.
Me - That's nice.
Be - Yes, I'll work in Manhattan and I'll go to work with you. We'll work together eat lunch and play after everyday.

Talking before bed tonight -

B - I miss you so much when you go away.
Me - When am I going away?
B - When you go to work.
Me - I'm not going to work tomorrow.
B - No, I meant on Wednesday.
Me - You know I have to go to work.
B - Yes, you have to go to work so you can get money and we can have a house to live in.
Me - You're right.
B - I think you can just go to the money machine and forget about work.

And a couple of days ago -

B - I'm going to have a cold next Saturday.
Me - Really?
B - Yes, you're going to have one too. We'll have breakfast in bed and stay in bed all day forever.

Highlights of our weekend

We went to the uniform store that handles the uniforms for Brendan's new school. They have a website I could have ordered them from but I had no idea about sizes and I wanted Brendan to be able to try everything on. I figured aftere he tried on samples I'd order everything, but were able to get them all while we were there. I walked out of there $271 poorer though. Ugh!!! This was for 3 white short sleeve polos, 3 white long sleeve polos, 3 pairs of navy shorts, 1 navy t-shirt, 3 navy sweatshirts and 5 navy sweatpants. The white shirts have the school's name embroidered on them and the rest has the name printed. They're nice, but still. OTOH, I'll be buying so much fewer regular clothes for him so it should balance out a little, hopefully. And I got smalls instead of x-smalls hoping he might get to wear some of the clothes again next year. I do like though that the pre-K kids, and the K kids too, don't have to wear the dress uniforms and only wear sneakers. But if he's still in this school in 1st grade it will be dress uniforms and real shoes for him.

Here's my model. Now bear in mind that I bought a size larger than he'd normally wear and they haven't been washed yet so probably will shrink quite a bit. I didn't include the long sleeve white shirt or the navy t-shirt because Brendan was losing patience. I just wanted to cry, he looks like such a big boy.





I took Brendan to the Brooklyn's Children Museum yesterday for the first time, and I'm sorry I hadn't taken him before because it's a really fun place. They had a whole bunch of different play areas, a room with all sorts of instruments, another where you can dress up and put on shows, a science area, just lots of fun stuff. He was particularly enamored with a play area that was set up like a pizzeria. He made me pretend pizza after pretend pizza and cups of iced tea.

We had actually gone today because they had a program about Pinky Dinky Doo, his favorite show on Noggin. The creator of the show Jim Jinkins, who's also the creator of Doug, PB&J Otter, JoJo's Circus and Stanley, talked a little about the show, read one of the books, Polka Dot Pox, and showed the episode that was the same story as the book and answered some questions after. It was about 45 minutes to an hour and Brendan loved it so much we had to watch the second presentation that was the same as the first. He had a representative from Sesame Workshop, who produces the show, laughing. Each episode has a big word to teach the kids like stupendous or apprehensive. This episode's big word was frustrated. Brendan has seen it several times already and knew it before the character said it. So the character starts to say "I feel really" there's a pause and he's going to say frustrated. Before the character can say it Brendan yelled "FRUSTRATED". And he was singing with the music and just bopping to it. After the second presentation they had pictures from the show that Jim Jinkins was signing. Brendan went up to him and told him "Thank you for Pinky Dinky Doo, it's the best show in the WHOLE WORLD". I thought he was going to split a side he was laughing so hard and told me "He's so cute".

4 year check-up

Notwithstanding the unexpected lead test and MMR and Hepatitis A shots, it was a good visit. Brendan's hearing was perfect, his blood pressure was perfect, he stayed on 90th+ percentile curve at 44.3 lbs and 43.5". It's so nice to go to the doctor with a healthy child.

My big, beautiful boy.

The great fruit and veggie campaign of 2006

I had decided to start doing a behavior chart with Brendan to work on a couple of issues, mainly his jumping and throwing in the house. I wasn't sure how well it would go over only because I think it was going to be really hard to be clear about just what would earn him a smiley face, I mean, I couldn't expect him to never jump or throw. I had already bought him a special prize though, a Backyardigans Leapster game, but I didn't want to just give it him. Then I had my inspired moment. I talked it over with Brendan and we decided to make a fruit and veggies chart. He eats such a small variety and I want to get him to at least try new things. So starting on Friday, for 14 days our deal was that he has going to try a new fruit and veggie every day. Trying means taking at least 2 full bites of each without refusing or complaining. My hope is that he'll wind up liking at least a couple of them enough to add them to his regular repertoire.

The first day was a success. He decided he wanted a peach and green beans from a can. I'll give him him his due, he was game for it and he ate 4 green beans and ate the two pieces of peach I cut up for him. The looks on his face as he was eating were priceless though. And when he was finished he said to me "And now can I have some real food?", lol. The second day was a little harder. He chose tomato and apple. After half a bite of one tomato slice he was ready to give up. I told him that was fine and I wouldn't mind playing the Backyardigans game for him. That got him going again and he ate his two tomato and two apple slices. It took him a good hour to do it, but he did it.

Tonight will be red bell pepper and orange. I should start dinner a couple of hours early, give him a chance to finish before bedtime.

Mosquitos

Are evil!!! That's all I have to say. End of editorial.

Summer in the city

Brendan has been really into taking long walks lately. We've wandered for hours and it's been so nice because it's been sans stroller. Alot of it is that we live in a nice residential area, but still the city with lots of houses and stores packed close together so he can entertain himself reading the numbers off of every house, chatting with the old ladies who sit out in their housecoats in front, checking out every mailbox and fence. Yesterday we walked in a different direction from our usual walks and wound up at a park I haven't been to since I was a kid and damned if there wasn't a pool there. I'd just been saying that I wish there was a public pool near us. I live in a 3rd floor walk-up and don't have a yard or else I'd have a pool. And there are a couple of private pools near us that are just so expensive and I was reluctant to join them since Brendan has been pretty water phobic (wonder if that's a chicken egg thing, no time in a pool, so he doesn't like water, etc.) But there it was. Near enough to walk to, open every day and free. We didn't get to go in yesterday since we didn't have suits on but Brendan played himself silly at the playground, very unceremoniously pushing me over to a bench and going and play with the pack of boys (what a change from my formerly asocial boy). I even got him to run twice through the sprinkler when I made him laugh doing it myself.

We were back today as soon as the pool opened. Brendan was really excited about it but when we got to the water he got really hesitant. I got him into the water gradually and had to carry him alot. But damned if he didn't start having a good time really quickly. The pool is only 3' deep and he could stand it with the water coming up to just about his chin. But mostly he liked holding onto me so he could paddle and kick. And after awhile he was jumping into the water. I would stand near him and he would jump into my arms. We played in the pool for almost 2 hours. He's already told me we're going back on Tuesday and then every weekend, lol. And it was nice being in the pool myself. The pool is just supposed to be for kids, but if a child isn't a certain height and can't go in by themselves they have to be accompanied by an adult so I can be there with no problem. There were only a couple of other adults and the rest kids. And the funny thing is, even loving the pool and wanting constantly run into the shower at the pool, he was still leery of the sprinkler and refused to run through them even after trying it yesterday.

I also got into an interesting conversation with the mom of one of the boys Brendan played with today. She wound up telling me her life story which included her 5 kids, their 3 fathers, etc., just the most incredible level of detail of her life. She had just left the last husband and had moved back in with her mother and I figured she needed someone to talk to and you know how sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger about things. But then she wanted to exchange numbers to set up a playdate for the boys and I'm wondering what one earth could she have left to tell me, lol.

He's a graduate

It was the little graduation that could on Friday. This was the originally scheduled date for the graduation from his preschool. However his school changed the date to the 23rd and neglected to say it. Actually they verbally said the 30th and it did apparently say it on the invitation which I didn't notice. My bad, but Brendan was the only child graduating who only attended mornings. On the 23rd when my mom went to pick him up they didn't say anything to her like "see you back at 3:00" or in any way mention the graduation. They said they tried to call me when he didn't show up but called my home number. They know I work so this made no sense. They didn't try my work number. Or my cell. Or my mom's home or cell number. So he missed it. We didn't find out until my mom took him to school on Tuesday. She was so upset, so was I. Brendan had been practicing songs for the graduation and had spent the weekend talking about it, how his name was going to be called so he could walk up in front of the other kids. I was especially upset because they acted like it was no big deal, even made a snippy comment "didn't I read the invitiation?".

In any case they offered to do a special graduation for Brendan on the 30th. And it turned out to be even better that way I think because he got to be the star of it. He marched in with the other kids, sang his songs, had his name called and marched up and got his diploma. He was so proud of himself and happy.

Congratulations my sweet graduate!!!