Tuesday, August 31, 2010

No kid for you!. . .

Those unfamiliar with Parents as Teachers, it's a program that send out people to screen pre-pre-school kids to see if they are developing well and they educate parents on activities that they could be doing with their kids to keep them on track. And even though I know in the back of my head it should never happen every time we get ready to meet with our parent educator I worry that they're going to come in, see that our son likes to play with an old computer keyboard, tell us that it's an awful thing, and remove him from our home. I have to keep reminding myself it's Parents as teachers, not the department of family services.

We had our first home visit since moving in March, and with it we have a new parent educator. She was doing his yearly screening early. Again, just checking to see where he falls amongst his peers.

She asked him how old he was he responded "2 and a half." She asked "what will you be after 2" he said "6" and we all laughed, my wife and I a little nervously—like we failed him. Then this morning we realized that we had been teaching him that his birthday is the 26th. . . he was saying "2-6" for the date! And all day I've been fighting the urge to email our parent educator and tell her.

There was also the moment when I butted in and showed her that he can not only count but can identify all his numbers. . . and letters. And that was despite the fact that she had already marked him as being above average on every skills she checked.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with him being smart and doing well in school, I guess because I wasn't either of those things when I was young.

Or maybe I'm just worried they're going to take him away for neglect.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Vacation Log 2010


We spent 4 days at the Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells this summer. Partway through the vacation I decided to interview our little monkey about what we had been doing. He gets a little restless partway through, but he did pretty good.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

That's funny. . .


Driving home last night my son and I drove past a veterinarian's office. In the parking lot someone was letting their dog climb up in the back seat. My son laughed. . .

Son: That's funny.
Me: What is?
Son: That dog was getting in that car.
Me: I know I saw that, it was funny.
Son: (Laughing again) Yeah.
Me: Do you know what would be funnier? If the dog was DRIVING the car.
Son: (laughing harder) That IS funny!