Highlights this month:
- Calan starts Pre-K
- Evan needs more food?!
- Visits from long lost friends and family
September is an interesting month of the year: It seems to mark the end of summer, but it’s not because the weather changes. It’s the end of a season however, when you think about what changes for the kids and the modes of their lives. Calan and Evan are obviously very young now, but we feel the change all around us. It’s the transition away from late nights, looser routines and impromptu meet-ups with friends. September shows up and school goes into full swing, moods change, and routines and schedules take the place of more leisurely habits. Of course there’s nothing leisurely about having an infant and a four-year-old but its easy to see the September momentum swing as we look all around us.
That said, schedules don’t always have to be filled with structured, school-year type obligations. We made sure to continue making time for fun, friends, family and connections for us and the kids.
Calan
Preschool: Calan started Pre-K at the beginning of the month for his second year at Pleasant Valley Christian School. Going two days a week, plus his extra “Monday Funday”, he has two new teachers this year. Since he knew both of them from last year already, there wasn’t too much “new” for Calan to get used like in his first year. Nevertheless, it’d been three months since going to school. Calan did great in his return, with only a couple clingly moments at drop-off in the first week or so. Pick-ups tell the full story though, as he was usually filled with the excitement of the day and in good (but tiring) spirits. We also finally came to as good of agreement we can feel comfortable with regarding the school’s policies for handling Calan’s peanut allergy. 😉
In addition to preschool, we set up some standing “play dates” with friends during the week. On Wednesday, Calan goes across the street to hang with Leah and Maddie. Heidi helps Leah with her piano while Calan and Maddie have fun watching shows in spanish with Sandy. Then on Friday, Calan gets to go see his buddy Jake at his house. The two always have a “wild” time together jumping on the trampoline outside or cruising around Jake’s house at the wheels of their imaginations.
Uncle Colin visits: Our dear friend Colin came to visit on a warm Saturday this month. As always, we have a really great time clowning around, laughing, philosophizing about life, work and relationships and eating an abundant of delicious food with Colin. Calan and Colin definitely pulled their weight in the clowning around department. Colin came to visit a couple years ago when Calan was two. They really hit it off then, wrestling, exploring and making games out of pretty much any situation. This visit picked up right where they left off. The day was perfect for swimming and running around outside and of course wrestling and playing inside on the carpeted floors. Colin must’ve bench pressed Calan more than a hundred times throughout the day. 😉 It was fun just to let Calan be a kid…and us to be kids along with him too.
New wardrobe: One thing we’ve noticed in the last year is that while Calan has been growing, he’s been able to continue wearing many of the same clothes. This is great, but he never really had that many outfits to begin with. In other words, his late-toddler wardrobe didn’t exactly leave a lot of pieces to choose from. Aside from some generous outfits provided from Gran along the way, Calan was in need of some new threads as the new school year commenced. So, we got the idea to go find a used “lot” somewhere of his current size of clothes. Ebay had a few but shipping costs a bit. Fortunately, someone on Craigslist had an ad, and they lived five minutes away. In the end, Calan scored 85 pieces of warm and cold weather clothing for a hundred bucks. Not bad. He’s had fun the last few weeks trying on different outfits each day. Of course, September is the warmest month of the year, so his favorite attire of underwear-only still wins out most times around the house.
Cousins Susan, Todd and James visit: At the end of the month, we had a short visit from Heidi’s cousin Susan in from Tucson. Susan and Todd’s son James, who is eight, came with them. Funny, that it had been more than eight years since we last saw them at their house in GA, where they were living at the time. James was six weeks old then, so it was fun seeing him again. We had a great time visiting, eating and watching Calan and James become fast buddies. Those guys had a small band going with Calan on drums and James on piano – good stuff. Calan enjoyed showing James some of his toys and trains, and sharing a fast and furious game of tag and hide-and-seek in the back yard. The visit came to an end far too quickly, but we definitely cherished the short time with them and can only hope we can get together much sooner than the eight years it’d been since the last time.
Annie: One of Heidi’s long-time students Jackie had been watching Calan on Monday afternoons for much of this year (except the summer months) after our previous nanny Katie moved on to her new job. As it turned out, Jackie was able to find a new position that was closer to home. That opened the door for Calan’s new Monday friend, Annie. The best part is that she’s just across the streeet, the younger sister of our neighborhood friend Sandy. Even though Calan has preschool on Monday afternoon, it’s nice for him to have a chance to hang with someone else before Mama and Dada get back home. Annie is looking forward to getting to know Calan more too, but is definitely loving taking care of baby Evan. 🙂
Evan
Evan continues to delight us with his little milestones. His smiling and cute baby giggles come more and more these days. You really do forget about any difficultly that comes with caring for a little being in these moments. It’s great too that these are the little bits that we’ll always remember, while the challenges of the times will fade away.
One aspect we’d like to forget sooner than later is Evan’s sleeping habits during this month. At some point, his nighttime sleeping cycle fell off, and waking several times in the night to nurse became more the norm. The shorter stretches of sleeping and waking up to eat told us he isn’t getting enough to eat during the day. But what was confusing was that he was already eating quite a bit. For example, he’ll chug around 40oz. of milk per day, and pediatricians will tell you other babies his age usually only require 24-32 ounces in a day. So, even though it’s early we decided (with his doctor’s approval), to start adding powdered rice cereal to his milk. We even started some “solid” foods with mushed up banana and peas to supplement the diet further. This came with mixed results. You could even say a bit of a back-fire because Evan’s system adjusting to the new foods certainly didn’t make him comfortable, and we were in for some rough patches for a few days. We say that Evan is really in “no man’s land” right now because he needs more food apparently, but isn’t totally ready for hearty, solid foods yet either.
We also continue to figure out the best, rough sleeping and awake schedule for Evan during the daytime. In particular in the early evening as he winds down. It’s a tough balance between getting the right food at the right time, then soothing him off to bed before his overtired “crankiness” takes over. Combine that with getting Calan transitioned from his late afternoon activities into dinner and then his own bedtime can be tricky. Dada feels this on the nights when Mama isn’t home yet from work. We know we’ll keep making adjustments and things will get better and better each week.
When Evan is all fed and in between naps, he definitely likes to play and have fun. He’s learning to control his hands and grip small objects intenionally ever so slightly, and it’s fun to see him pick up little rings and toys. He also responds more to stimuli, especially when he finds it funny. Dada making funny noises, or Mama poking, bopping or kissing his face are some of his favorites. It’s fun though when he starts laughing when you aren’t expecting it. For example, Calan and Dada played “Ball Game” recently where we toss big, inflatable balls back and forth on the stairs. Seeing the big, colored balls bouncing about up and down the stairwell got Evan cracking up sometimes. With a simultaneous emotional excitement from Calan during the game, it just melts a Dada’s heart. It’s good to all be happy at the same time. 🙂