Mom's Night

Last night was Mom’s Night at Mister Man’s preschool. Actually the whole afternoon was Mom’s Night. Fortunately, we had lots of fun.

Well, maybe not to start. Mister Man took a killer nap yesterday, and I had a really hard time waking him up. When we got to Language Stars – my one session to see him in person and where the other moms in his class also see him – he still was not really all that awake. In fact, he was mostly interested in lying on the floor and covering his face. Oh yeah, and not participating.

Fortunately, he wasn’t the only reluctant child in the class of five, and only one other mom was there are the time. Phew! Eventually, he woke up enough to participate and have fun. When we voy’ed a el Supermercado, he definitely was interested in shopping en el section de pan. I think I maybe could have talked him into la section de las frutas. From that point, we were good to go, and he was so excited to choose the items to put into his “shopping cart” art project.

From there, we had an hour to get to Mom’s Night at his preschool. I wanted to get there early since I had a ton of photocopying to do – since you know I sort of have a toe in the water at the PTO and we have both our Cinco de Mayo celebration next week (anyone want to enter our raffle or silent auction?!) and Teacher Appreciation week.

We decided to stop for a quick dinner, and Mister Man decided that a smoothie sounded good to him. Good choice – gotta love the child who goes for healthy. And shockingly, even when he took off the top to drink it, nothing spilled in the car – or for that matter, in the teachers’ lounge when we got to his preschool.

He thought it was the greatest thing ever to be my helper at the copy machine. Fortunately, I decided to copy the Spanish and English packets for Cinco de Mayo first, when he was still drinking his smoothie. Once he finished, he came in, and every time a paper came off the copier, he grabbed it with a cheerful “Here, Mom!” When you think about the fact that there are around 250 kids in his school, and each kid was getting a copy, he had fun. I did the photocopying in batches – 15 for this class, then 17 for that class, then 8 for the next class, et cetera. Every time the copying stopped, he started hopping up and down, “Do more, Mom! Do more! Do more!”

We finished just in time to get signed in for the Mom’s Night event itself. We ran into several of his classmates as we were making our nametags. It was pretty cool to see how excited he was to see them, and even cooler how excited they were to see him.

Once nametags were made, we had a long line to wait in. Having not been to one of these nights before, I didn’t realize we could have skipped this line and come back later. It was the photo line. No one told me I was having my picture taken. This is what happens when I don’t know my picture is about to be taken:

(Pretend there’s a picture here – I haven’t had time to take it yet, let alone download it)

We went to his classroom first, where we had snack. Using pretzels and cheddar, we made hammers and ate them. I’d never have thought of that on my own. Somehow, we skipped the puzzle room, and I swear it wasn’t because I didn’t tell him about it. Actually, he decided he had to go potty right after we walked into the puzzle room but had to go in his classroom then forgot about the puzzles, and I didn’t remind him.

Reading a book with Mom was his favorite room, I think. After we finished the other two rooms, we came back to this one and spent the rest of the time here, some with him reading to me – he’s getting really good – and some with me reading to him.

Our next room was where he had the opportunity to make a book for mom. The pages were photocopied, and he got to draw the items in the appropriate pages. Page one was drawing something just for mom.

So what do you think he drew? A monster. With fire on its back. And a mean face.

The next page was drawing a picture for mom.

Not a surprise, we had another monster, this one breathing fire.

On the next page, it was draw mom’s hand and draw his hand. Awww. He actually drew mine. And his isn’t that much smaller than mine. Freaky!

The last page was a portrait of mom and me.

Three guesses. Yep, we’re both monsters. In face, we’re both mean monsters. I think someone’s in the midst of a new obsession. We won’t talk about the monster that lives in our garage when the door’s closed.

The good news is that his drawings are starting to be somewhat recognizable, which is a new trait. Plus, he was holding the markers correctly instead of with a fist grip the whole time! And Victor was working next to Mister Man while they were making their books, and both interacted – Victor showed Mister Man how to draw a cat, and Mister Man showed off his monsters.

At the end, he talked to last year’s teacher, Miss Erin for a bit before we left.

Mister Man: Will you remember me in a day?
Miss Erin: Yes.
Mister Man: Will you remember me in a week?
Miss Erin: Of course!
Mister Man: Will you remember me in a month?
Miss Erin: Certainly, I will.
Mister Man: Will you remember me in a year?
Miss Erin: How could I not?
Mister Man: Knock, knock.
Miss Erin: Who’s there? (says a somewhat confused teacher)
Mister Man: Hey! You forgot to remember me already!

That has to be his favorite joke ever, and he absolutely loves catching people with it. Fun night!

Mommy's Little Helper

Wow, I was looking back at my recent posts, and I’ve been in quite the crabby mood lately. Sorry for whining so much! Usually I’m more positive. I’ll have to assume it’s the never-ending winter, but that’s a bad excuse.

Anyway, today is a happier (and shorter!) day.

My kids generally eat fairly healthy foods. They’re little kids though, so there are definitely exceptions to this. But some of the things they eat and enjoy surprise me – salmon, edamame, miso-glazed chicken, mango pudding, beef stroganoff. I’ll toss it all at them and let them decide.

It’s sort of fun to watch them insist there’s no way they’re eating something. I inevitably remind them of our rule that they have to taste something – and no, tasting doesn’t mean putting your tongue in the general vicinity of said item and the insisting you don’t like it. You actually have to take a bite, chew and swallow. The swallowing part is key. Needless to say, I always ensure they have a glass of something to drink in case they don’t like it. And well better than 50% of the time, they decide they like it.

They also enjoy cooking and baking with me – at least until their attention wanders elsewhere. Whenever I’m at the island, Little Miss insists on dragging a stool over and climbing up to observe or – better yet – help me.

This morning, I had to make some more granola. Yeah I know, I make my own granola. It’s what I eat for breakfast most mornings with a bit of yogurt atop it. Yum!

Once we got Mister Man on the bus, we headed inside, and she climbed onto her designated stool. She helped me dump in the four cups of oats. Then she proceeded to pick them up a few at a time and eat them. “Mmmm, oatmeal!” Well, actually they’re oats, Sweetie. “No, OATMEAL! It’s oatmeal, Mommy.” I tried to explain the difference, but to no avail. But let’s back up a moment – she’s picking up dry oats and eating them. And likes them. What kind of a kid does that? Oh yeah, one who decides she likes baking soda.

Then we add the wheat germ. She doesn’t think she likes that one. Coconut is next. By now, I’m catching on, and I decide to add a little extra. Smart Mommy. She ate probably a quarter of the coconut I put in there. Apparently, she also likes coconut. In go the pine nuts. Yup, she apparently likes them, too. As I add the cinnamon, she starts dipping the pine nuts into the cinnamon. Granted, I’m combining the flavors in my granola, but dipping pine nuts into cinnamon wouldn’t be my first choice of a snack. Nutmeg? Same thing.

Of course we have to smell all the yummy ingredients. She now prefers to hold the jars and baggies herself. “No help, Mommy. I can do it myself!” So far, so good – knock on wood. We’ve yet to have a cinnamon-scented floor because the spilled something everywhere.

Well, sort of. As I was getting the olive oil and honey together, she decided she wanted to stir the dry ingredients by herself, just like Mommy did. Yeah, we had a little spray of stuff go all over the island. And the assorted items that somehow seem magnetically and irresistibly drawn there – the books, children’s museum membership card, children’s artwork, etc. Whoops. Fortunately, her stirring was fairly shallow, so only a bit of the ingredients went flying.

Smart girl knows that there are some things she can’t do. The last step is adding chopped dried cherries after the granola has baked. She pulled her stool back up to help me. Then she saw the knife. “This is adult work, Mommy. I’m just going to watch.” She paused for a moment, and then, “But, Mommy, I want some cherries, too.”