Preschool Day 3 - Finally No Crying!

So it took Riley and I to day 3 of his new preschool class drop off to not shed any tears! Yea for us! 

Monday- Day 1-  he cried...so of course I held it together, but burst into tears by the time I got into my car! 

Tuesday - Day 2, he didn't full on cry, but as we stood outside the door to give him a second to get ready to go in..I was trying to encourage him. Saying you get to see Jacob and Kayla and all your new friends - and he looked right in my eyes and said "I don't want new friends Mommy. I want Matthew and Blake!" OMG! It BROKE my HEART in two! So I cried all the way to work that day too! 


So I blogged about them moving him to the older 2 year old class last year b/c they were scared he was going to hurt someone. Well the residual effect of that is that now they moved him back into the younger 3 year old class, so there is not ONE person from his 2 year old class in his current class! :( He lost ALL his friends in one fell swoop! Ugh!! I know he'll make new friends and stuff, but it made me sad!! He REALLY loves Matthew! And Matthew's Mom said Matthew would only talk about Riley at home and would ask if they could take him home every day! 

He was in SUCH a good mood when I picked him up. I asked if he like being in Ms. Amy's class and he said "YES!!". Then I asked how his day was he said "GOOD!" Then I asked if he liked all his new friends, and he said "YES!!" 

Wednesday - Day 3 -  I asked him the same questions I asked him on the way home on the way to school today, and got all the same answers! So I was thinking...good! Maybe the tide is changing! I dropped him off a little earlier than usual b/c I had a meeting, and they were watching tv during bathroom time! WAHOO! Bingo! He gave me a kiss and said bye as he sat down to watch Diego! He dropped me faster than yesterday's news! Getting up a few minutes earlier may be WELL worth the payoff!!! Plus, it helped me get to work at a much better time! Now if we could only get to bed earlier....yeah right!


Day 3 was also the first boo-boo free day too! Monday - he fell and busted the top side of the lip where he busted the bottom side 2 weeks ago! They thought it only bled b/c it was where he fell before, but it ripped some skin off  pretty good! Then Tuesday he fell and scraped his knee! 


He also had a runny nose Monday, so he was MISERABLE!! His nose would run on his skinned lip and he would just cry! Bless him! So we had some medicine and watched Toy Story 3 to help make that all better! 


Now we'll see how the rest of the week goes....stay tuned!

Riley's Actual 3rd Birthday in Pictures!

Riley's Darth Vader Jumbo Cupcake!

Darth Vader with the Light Sabers for his friends!

Light Sabers!

Waiting patiently for grace, birthday song and to blow out the candle!

Still waiting...patiently...

I thought he wouldn't want to eat it, but he dove right in and ate BOTH his eyes first!

Then he wanted a small chocolate cupcake to go with his jumbo Vader.

Yummy!

Yummy! To Riley's Tummy!

His friends Ava & Blake!

Lexi - she's obviously shy! :)

Vanshi!

Opening his birthday gifts at home after his school party! Yes! It's Star Wars wrapping paper, but NOT Star Wars gifts!

He's got this unwrapping thing down now!

Thomas - The Misty Island Rescue Shaky Bridge Train Set!

Tear it up!

Bigger pieces than that!

GeoTrax Toy Story 3 Train Set with Exploding Bridge! Yea!

Okay..so maybe there were a couple of Star Wars presents...we didn't have to remind him about these!

He was telling us every character on the bags first!

Star Wars figures that I can actually PLAY with! Yippee!

And a BLUE light saber! The ONLY one he didn't have! :) Notice who's standing behind Daddy!

More light saber action!

More! With sound effects!

Intimidating Vader! Riley kept standing in front of him saying "I am YOUR FATHER!"

And now we're off to the light saber duel that has to cover the entire house!

Maturing Every Day!

I think I posted about Riley all of the sudden speaking in complete sentences before, but it was funny b/c Kelly and I had that conversation and the next day when he picked Riley up - his teacher Ms. Dina said the same thing! She was like it all just started clicking over night! I'm sure you've all heard this soap box enough, but he's the YOUNGEST one in his class! So the fact that it's just now clicking for him is probably exactly when it should be! Every kid in his class except 1 other boy is already 3, and 6 months of age difference between 2.5 and 3 is A LOT! Anyway, it's amazing to watch him grow and take in the world. It's even more amazing to see his different reactions to things we all take for granted. 

We also had another maturity milestone yesterday and today - Monday's are usually the most difficult drop off days b/c he's been home with us all weekend. And when we pulled up, I though this Monday would be no different (of course, I had no time to spare in my haste to get to my usual 1st thing Monday morning meeting with my boss) because when we turned into the school - I heard a little whimper from the back seat. I just said - 'Awe! It'll be fun! You get to go to Chapel and see Ms. Dina and play with all your friends!' And much to my amazement, when we walked into his room 2 of his friends came over to give him hugs! So sweet! It was funny though! He totally let John give him a hug, then stepped back and waved and said 'Hi John'. Then Matthew came over and gave him a BIG bear hug! And Riley stepped back and said 'No Matthew! No touching Riley!' Those two CRACK me UP! They totally have a love/hate relationship! I've seen Riley run give him a hug when Matthew's Dad drops Matthew off after Riley too! 

Anyway, I guess the hug greetings paid off b/c without solicitation - Riley turned around, waved and said 'Bye Mommy! I love you!' I was in a such a state of shock, I almost ran out without saying bye back! I just said 'Bye! I love you! Have a good day!' And he waved and said 'Bye Mommy!' one more time then walked off toward the room! Yippee!!! How could I NOT have a good Monday morning after that?! 

I usually feel like an emotional wreck by the time I get to work! Always running late, then a traumatic, screaming 'No Mommy' drop off! That was a nice change of pace! It also happened again this morning! And he even had a substitute teacher this am, so we're on a ROLL! Fingers crossed this continues! It makes for a much better emotional start to my day!

Star of the Week!

At Sloan each child gets to be the "Star of the Week" during the school year, and it just so happens Riley is "Star of the Week" this week. That means we (as in I until I called for backup!) get to do a star to represent all Riley's favorite things that will hang in his classroom all week, and I can take a special snack for his class one day! When he's older we'll do it together, and he'll be able to speak to each of them. But since he's so young, I wanted to mainly do pictures of the things he likes that he can point out and say by himself.

Of course, they give me the Star on Thursday before we're supposed to have it done by Monday! Ugh! Hello! I'm a much bigger planner than that! Needless to say, I felt behind the ball before I even got started! Even so, it turned out great and it captures all of Riley's Current Favorite things!!

Many thanks to Talana for coming over to help me do the star at the last possible moment on Saturday. I spent Friday evening shopping for scrapbooking stickers, then Saturday morning uploading pictures from all our cameras and going through them to pick out ones to be printed at Walgreens. I'm ashamed to even admit that our nice Nikon camera had not been uploaded from since JANUARY! Hello Misty! Not good! I told Talana my suggestion for the school was going to be to NOT have a Star of the Week during December! OMG! We already have enough to do!! The good news is that as I was going through all our pictures for this, I already came up with some themes for pages in his memory book I make for family each year.

Anyway, I had a very loose vision, bought a bunch of stickers and went through and printed out pictures of his current favorite things, but Talana totally executed on the vision! She's a Master Certified Scrapbooker (if there were such a thing)! :) Once again - she comes through for us like family! She's babysat for us only 2nd to GiGi and is always there to lend a hand and help us out with any crazy thing we may have going on! That's true friendship! Love you Talana Banana!!

Of course, we had to make the background "flagish" considering they are one of his top 3 favorite things! :) I intended to have more basketball on the star too so as to represent the order of his favorite things, but that just didn't work once we started lying things out.

Anyway - here's the Star! The top leg is Zoo - with pictures of Riley and a gorilla and me and Riley in front of eledents (elephants - his #3 favorite thing). The left leg is swimming with Daddy in a pool and lake, splashing Mommy with water while we were in Cozumel, and a picture of the ocean from our room in Cozumel. The middle picture is obviously a family pic from our Christmas card last year because I realized I don't have any other family pics! ugh! The bottom left leg includes from bottom to top, bicycle, basketball or "shoot it" as Riley says, pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse from Cozumel - cake cakes as he calls them, and an airplane up in the sky! The bottom right leg includes from bottom to top - Riley as Buzz Year going down a slide, Buzz Year!, another basketball, Lightening McQueen from Cars and of course BARNEY!! The picture in the middle of the bottom legs is 5 flags hanging on our hotel in Cozumel that Riley wanted to "Reach it" every time we walked by them! Then the right leg is Mommy, Daddy, B - his bear he sleeps with and his teacher Dina who he regularly calls me! :) But I'm not jealous because I want him to love his teacher that much!

Anyway - you can't see the details in these pictures, but you get the idea!

Now I just gotta figure out that special snack.....I'm thinking animal crackers or something "Toy Story" to go with his favorite things! I guess I have til Friday, so plenty of time! ha!

Speaking of - his favorites we'd would rank them in the following order:
#1 - BASKETBALL~ I was thinking the other day - there has not been ONE day go by that Riley has not dunked on that basketball goal since he got it for Christmas last year! Seriously! Not one day! And he still gets just as excited EVERY single day! There's a lot more commentary now though like ew, almost Mommy, missed it, made it, yea, shoot it, pass it, dunk it, etc. And if anyone is playing at the park, they always crack up that he says ew or awe when they miss it too.
#2 - Barney ~ He will grab the remotes and ask for Barney by name, and that's the ONLY 30 minutes of the day that he sits still! What more can you say?! Santa *may* bring Riley tickets to Barney Live in his stocking, so I can only imagine how exciting that outing will be!! Especially for Mom and Dad too! :)
#3 - Gotta be FWAGS! MOMMY! FWAGS! WOW! ~ Which is what I hear almost EVERY morning and afternoon the the way to and from school.

#4 - Eledents (followed by a trumpet eledent sound now)  ~ Elephants- LOVES them!
#5 - Monkeys ~ They are quickly moving in on the eledents!

I coming! I coming! Thank you!

Now when Kelly or I are driving home with Riley and the other parent is already home - Riley starts saying "Daddy/Mommy I coming!" to the parent at home! It's so sweet!

And now he's starting to understand "right back", so when I leave the room he says "Mommy back". 

And he says Thank you to you when you are supposed to stay Thank you to him! I guess b/c that's how his teacher's teach him.

He also covered his mouth the other day when he coughed, so obviously they are teaching him LOTS of things at school! It's so awesome to see them come to realization!

Oh yeah, the other day Kelly was driving Riley home and all of the sudden he counted to 13! I know our friend Nicolas was counting to 20 in both English and Chinese at his 2nd birthday, but neither Kelly or I have really worked on counting with Riley out side of how many flags do you see, or balls or this or that - one...two..three.., etc! So I feel bad for selling him so short! Ha!

He also all of the sudden sang his ABCs the other day, and Kelly and I just looked at each other like where did that come from?!

And he has to get a hug and a kiss anytime we hear the Barney I love you song! He gets really frustrated in the car when he's strapped into the car seat and can't give you one right then!

He is definitely talking up a STORM! Sometimes he still gets on a roll, and it all runs together. But I notice that when we watch videos of him, and he's talking in them - he talks back to himself on screen - so he knows exactly what he's saying! 

There's no crying baseball!

Sorry! I love that line, so I couldn't resist using it for this post! Today is the first day I dropped Riley off at school, and he didn't cry one tear!! Yea!!!! I was beginning to think this day would never come! And I really didn't think it would happen after a long weekend, but I guess he had his fill of me this weekend!

Drop off time is during their outside play time, so that definitely helps. So I put him down, and he went running off like he was going to start playing! This was a first too! Then he eventually came running back to give me a hug and kisses! It's so sweet because now he'll give you a hug and kiss when you ask for one! Not all the time, but most of the time. I ended up having to hand him to Ms. Jessica (his teacher). When I did he looked at me and his bottom lip quivered for one second, then he took a deep breath more like a sigh - then he waved and say bye bye to me! Awe...I've been so good at not crying once while dropping him off at Sloan, but this almost made me cry!! My little boy all grows up!!! (Another movie quote from Old School!) You can thank my husband for all the movie quote lines...he and his friends are the ones that got me started down that path!