Caleb's First Day of Mother's Day Out

Today was Caleb's first day of Mother's Day Out at First United Methodist in Temple!

I have spent the past week talking to him about school a lot - what he will do there, about making friends & sharing, how Mommy comes back, etc.  We have read Llama Llama Misses Mama more than usual and also started reading a new book, The Kissing Hand, about going to school.  Caleb has especially liked The Kissing Hand because it talks about a raccoon that doesn't want to go to school, but his mother kisses his hand and tells him to put his palm to his face when he misses her.  Last night at bedtime Caleb and I talked a lot about tomorrow being the first day of school.  For the first time he seemed excited!

This morning he ate a big breakfast and got ready for school.  Bryan stayed awake to see Caleb off to school even though he had worked the night shift.  He helped me to get some great pictures of Caleb in our front yard before we left.

I was anxious about how Caleb would do when I dropped him off since he cried at the orientation the second we entered the building.  To my surprise, he did fantastic!  Not a tear was shed.  He walked straight into his classroom and even said hello to his teacher and remembered her name.  He waved bye to me and went straight to the trucks.  I managed to waste the 3 hours by wandering aimlessly in several stores.

When I went to get Caleb he was playing happily and eating his lunch.  He was so happy to see me and exclaimed "Mommy's back!" just like in the Llama book.  The teacher said he did great and only got a little bit worried when his diaper was changed (he later told me, "Miss Kim change the diaper, me scared".  I think he is anxious about being up on their changing station but should get used to it with time.

He also told me that when they went outside "me hold da rope".  I'm guessing they hold onto a little rope to go outside to the playground.  Caleb also reported that he had fun, played with cars and trucks, painted a picture with his finger, talked about a 'scare' (aka square) and that one kid dumped a bunch of toys (tattle tale!).  All in all I'd say it was a fantastic first day of school!  I'm so proud of my big boy and how brave he was, and excited to see how much he enjoys going to school this year!

Happy Birthday Lainey!

Today I took Caleb to Lainey's 2nd birthday party while we were in Dallas.  Jamie did a fantastic job planning a garden party, complete with personalized flower pots for ice cream sundaes, adorable decorations and a bumblebee cake that she made herself!  Caleb was struggling to stay awake on the way to the party as it was his naptime, so he was a bit of a wild man once we got there so we made our exit shortly after cake & ice cream.  Nevertheless, it was so fun to see so many friends together to celebrate Lainey turning two!  I wish I had taken better pictures but I was pretty preoccupied with wrangling my own busy-bee two year old :)

Caleb doing 'dot dots' with the girls

(Lainey next to Caleb, Isabella in pink, Mia's head in the forefront of the pic)

What Caleb wanted to do the whole party: play with the balloons.

He told me, "Me hidin in the boons".

Cute gardening party favors!

Cake made by Jamie

Our best attempt at a shot of part of the group

Jennifer, Mia, Lexi, Isabella, Caleb & me

Birthday girl Lainey blowing out her candles

Caleb serenaded her repeatedly with his version of the birthday song before the group actually sang to Lainey.

Lainey enjoying her ice cream with Mommy & her grandfather "Pow Pow"

Even though he was exhausted, Mr. Cool Guy managed to watch a movie and stay awake the entire ride home.

Trip to Dallas to See Lexi & Isabella

This weekend Caleb and I headed to Dallas to visit one of my best friends, Lexi, and her daughter Isabella who were in town from Nashville.  The last time Caleb & Isabella spent time together was around Caleb's first birthday, and I think it's fair to say they've changed a lot since then:

Caleb was excited to go visit and really had fun with Isabella, who he called Bella.  Isabella will be 2 in November, so they are about 7 months apart.  They played well together and we often caught Isabella copying everything Caleb did, both good and bad! Together they enjoyed sidewalk chalk, swimming, playing cars and drawing on Isabella's easel.  It was such a blessing to see our children together and to see them form a friendship.  I feel fortunate to have such incredible girlfriends who love me well, love the Lord and are fantastic Mommas to their sweet babies!  This is truly a special phase of our lives to share together and for that I am grateful.  

Ready to go swimming

Swimming in the 'little pool' with Lexi & Isabella

Time for sidewalk chalk!

Of course Caleb kept getting distracted with spinning the trash can wheels. Yuck!

Lexi & precious daughter Isabella

Sporting Isabella's princess gear - a selection of items we do not have in our basket of toys!

Isabella dancing - one of her favorite pastimes!

Flying in her princess fairy wings

Helping Caleb with his breakfast

Time to eat!

Watching Elmo on Sesame Street together

Drawing on the easel

Playing with sweet old Munchkin

As you can see Munchkin was patient & a very good sport :)

Caleb with his very first Mr. Potato Head creation

Caleb's Funny Comments

We have recently completed 'nap time boot camp' and Caleb now puts himself to sleep for nap, compared to having me rock him completely to sleep each afternoon.  It often takes him 45 minutes to settle down but he does finally fall asleep!  He sings, talks, yells, jumps and sounds like a 3-ring circus while he winds down so we have to go in there once per naptime to remind him of the end goal and the use of an 'inside voice'.  One day as he was settling down he was yelling for me to come get a 'boogie out'.  How humbling to be asked to come in to pick your child's nose :)

Yesterday at naptime I was holding Caleb (we still rock him for 1-2 songs) and he was petting my hair.  He said, "Mommy's hair down.  Mommy's hair spider web."  I guess I was having a bad hair day if he compared my hair to a spider web.

Caleb's favorite foods right now are "big corn" (corn on the cob), "Chicka Fey" (Chick Fil A), "water-men-on"/"menon" (watermelon).  Although he doesn't love to eat them, he calls sandwiches a "swirnch".  We have found that he would eat all fruit for every meal if we would let him!

Tonight at dinner we talked to Caleb about going to school because we will attend his Mother's Day Out orientation tomorrow night.  At first he sounded excited about going to school, but as we talked about it more he got very uncertain.  He eventually told us, "No schoo-dool.  Me's house."  Sounds like next Tuesday might be a rough first day of Mother's Day Out!

We also talked to Caleb tonight about a new baby brother or sister.  Lately he consistently says "baby brudder", so it will be interesting to see if he's right!  In tonight's conversation he said he won't share his toys with the baby, and when I asked why he said he needed to be gentle to the baby.  I guess that's true!  A few minutes into the conversation, he changed his mind about 'baby brudder' just like he did about school.  He started telling us, "Baby brudder go bye bye.  Mommy and Daddy are here."  He may not be sold on the idea of a new sibling yet!

And finally, a few miscellaneous pictures from around the house:

Bryan noticed a lot of these odd looking ladybugs in our backyard yesterday

Caleb having fun at the park today - it was only about 80 degrees instead of 104!

New Car Seat

Caleb has been looking awfully tall for his Britax car seat lately.  We measured him and although his overall height is ok for the seat, his 'seated shoulder height' was a little less than an inch away from the maximum safety rating for his seat.  After researching different 'booster seats' we decided our next seat would be the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1.  The day after we chose which seat we wanted, Target put it on sale for $40 off!  I've heard they sometimes put 'old' patterns on clearance, but we were not lucky enough to find one with a steep discount.  We decided to go ahead and get the seat since it was on sale and in stock at our local store.

Caleb seems to like it so far and is excited about his new car seat.  He likes the built in cup holder and the hidden storage compartments under the arm rests.  I told him the compartments are for cars so he lets his cars - especially his favorite car Doc - ride along in the compartments.  This seat will work as a five-point harness until he is up to 65 pounds and as a booster seat until he is 100 pounds, so hopefully we won't be buying him another car seat for quite some time!

Another use for a toy bus...

When he's not rolling his vehicles across the floor or trying to catapult them off the kitchen table, Caleb also likes to sit on his toys!  Here he is going for a ride on his school bus while watching Sesame Street one morning this week.

Today's Piano Concert

Caleb performs a piano concert to the delights of Thomas the Train, Mater & Doc

Second Haircut

On Monday we took Caleb to get his second haircut.  At this rate he'll only need a haircut three times a year!  One of Bryan's med school classmates and fellow ER residents is married to a cosmetologist.  She cuts hair at a local salon so we decided to take Caleb to see her and give her some business.  Paige is the mom of 3 kids so she knew exactly how to deal with a toddler getting his haircut!  Overall Caleb did really well and his haircut looks great!