School Boys

Noah and B. have started Junior Kindergarten last month. The first day, Noah cried for 40 minutes, or so his teacher reported. B. cried a little on the 2nd day. (They are in different classrooms.) It only took a few days for these two to realize how fun Kindergarten is. Every day when I pick them up, they run into the yard, a fierce look on their faces, saying, "We're Spidermans!" And they've already made a ton of friends.

I don't have to worry about drop-off, since Dan brings Noah to school before he heads to work. But after their morning, I head down to the school with Leila, Thomas and Oscar to pick Noah and B. up. "Whoa whoa whoa. Back up", you say. "Who's Thomas?" Thomas is THIS cutie-pie.

He's just over a year old and started at the daycare this September. He has won my heart already! He was a little bit nervous his first week, but is settling in and becoming very comfortable with the place now. He's a little chatter-box, and though his conversation mostly consists of baby babble, he also has some words already, like "Daddy", "Doggy", and "Hello". Sometimes I could swear I hear him say a more complex sentence, like "Daddy go work", but I must be imagining things, since he won't repeat it. Either that or he's trying to keep his superior intelligence a secret.

Thomas and Leila are developing quite the friendship. They immediately smile and clearly recognize one another when they see each other now. Oscar is also very good to Leila, and brings her toys. That's right...Oscar's back, full-time!

When Thomas and Leila go for their morning naps, Oscar and I spend some quality time together. (Much of it involves me trying to keep him relatively quiet, so the babes can sleep.) I love Oscar's spirit. He is such a "hit the ground running" kind of kid.

Here's a rare moment when he was not running. Well, other than snack time of course. Speaking of which, he cracks me up at snack time! I don't think it's possible for him to get any messier. It's hilarious! Although I put large bibs on him, he finishes his morning snack just covered in oatmeal. I stand him on the table while I shake the oatmeal off him. That's the first phase. Then I bring him to a different area for his second 'dusting off'. Hey, for a 21-month-old eating steel-cut oats, he's doing fabulous!

Here's the little rascal goofing around at snack time.

And here he is using a carrot stick as a spoon for his yogurt. Not very efficient, but creative, nonetheless! So darn cute!

So, the morning is relatively quiet, with 2 out of the 3 babes taking a little nap. This all ends when we pick the boys up from school. The kindergarten schoolyard is a busy, bustling place, once the kiddies are released. After the first couple of weeks it became clear to me that handling Leila, Oscar and Thomas around the playground equipment, amidst the pandemonium of the schoolyard, and retrieving Noah and B. from their classrooms was....too much for me. I hired an assistant to help with this lunch hour commotion (two hours actually, from 11 - 1). Her name is Daniella. She is a teacher, an ECE, and a godsend.

She is so great with the kids and we are so lucky to have her with us!

Daniella and I now bring the Spiderman backpack of outdoor toys to help keep the boys corralled in the front yard of the school (away from the playground). We usually have quite the little gathering of kids from the school and other daycares, wanting to share our toys and play with us!

Noah and B. go back and forth, from the playground to the front yard to check in with us. This is how we spend the majority of our outdoor time.

We often eat most of our lunch outside, but we finish off when we get home, and then the younger kids go for their afternoon naps. At that time Noah and B. do quiet activities such as work books, Lego, puzzles, painting, gluing and board games. We usually only have about an hour until at least one of the 3 wakes up and decides he or she would like to join the party.

The pictures above are just so sweet. I am only just realizing now that Noah is actually under the easel. It's funny the things you pick up on in pictures when you take a closer look, huh?

I also love these photos of Oscar painting. He insisted on bringing a chair over to the easel. Painting is, after all, hard work, and one may as well take a load off!

I believe this is all I have for now. I'm just going to go ahead and post it whether or not it really is 'finished', since it has taken me almost a month and a half to write this blog post. I don't think it has ever taken me that long! But, until last month, there would have been time to write a little while the kids were sleeping. Now, there's always at least one kid awake! Something's gotta give, and it looks like it's going to have to be this blog. Maybe I can make it a quarterly newsletter?

Star Wars Party: A Farewell to Aidas

Aidas started at this daycare when he was a mere 10 months old. He was our very first daycare member. I have watched this wonderful little baby grow into a busy little toddler, and now a super-hero and Power-Ranger loving little boy. But most of all, he loves Star Wars. Thus, there was no theme more fitting for his good-bye party than a Star Wars Party. 

The first part of the party was Aidas's favourite: The Droid Hunt. The scenario was that there were missing droids that needed to be rescued. I hid two kinds of droids in Leila's room. Four of them were larger droids (made of 2 tin foil cups stuck together). I also hid 12 smaller droids which consisted of plastic Easter eggs wrapped in tin foil. All of the droids contained Star Wars stickers inside.

 Before the kids entered the room, they were each given flashlights and glow in the dark bracelets. They also each carried a little plastic bag with their name on it, to collect the droids they found. I stuck 2 silver car sun visors together and hung them over the doorway to the room to make it look more space-like. I also played Star Wars music from a laptop and since it was part of a video, it distracted them a little, as you can see in the video below.



After we had found them all, we brought them to the living room to count them. Our mission was incomplete. We only had 11 out of the 12 droids. Finally, (after I remembered where I had hidden the other one!) we found the last one. We cheered that we had successfully completed our mission. Oh my goodness. The kids were so cute. They were genuinely very excited and proud of themselves at this point. Pure joy!

Aidas had already noticed earlier that there was something inside them. The kids opened them up to get all of the stickers out. I thought they would be really into the stickers, but Aidas left them on the ground and requested that we go back and look for more droids. I told them that we had already found the droids. He responded with "Can we go fight Darth Vader or something then?" 

Instead, I helped them build a space ship with cushions. We used the flashlights as headlights. Since it was Aidas's good-bye party, he got to be the captain, up front.

I also had lightsabers to award them, since they had completed the important mission of rescuing the droids. I made these (2 at a time) by cutting a pool noodle in half, and then wrapping the bottom in duct tape. I wrote their first initials on each of them. Aidas had the fencing down pat, making the noises to accompany two lightsabers coming together. These lightsabers are the best, since they are foam, and relatively safe!

We headed outside for the official Jedi training. The kids had to hit a foam die off of a platform three times, using their lightsabers. They were all successful! We also trained by seeing how long we could keep a balloon in the air using our lightsabers.

Then we came in for a Jedi lunch. We had breadstick/turkey lightsabers and cucumber/cheddar cheese lightsabers! I know...it's a stretch, but I had to try! Oh, and in the photo beside are the rocket ships (fruit and graham crackers) we had had for morning snack. Again, a stretch, but 3-4 year-olds aren't too critical!

We used a black table cloth to make it look like the night sky, and had sparkly silver stars scattered about. We had shiny party horns too. 

But the best part of lunch was...dessert! My friend Kirsten from Yummy Mummy Cupcakes made these awesome Star Wars cupcakes. http://www.facebook.com/groups/310188892658/

Aidas chose R2D2. They were so delicious! And, although I have read that "the sugar high" is a myth, the video below begs to differ. It's Aidas after lunch (and dessert). True bliss.


Since Aidas had seen some of a star wars video when I was playing the music for the droid hunt, he really wanted to see more. As it was his party, I obliged him, and we watched a couple of clips on the computer (in lieu of a story book) before nap time.

Look at Leila. Just one of the guys!

After naps we made R2D2's. Each of their robot cutouts had shapes penciled in on them. The kids were given foam shapes to put in the right penciled area.

Here was the Bristol Board paper cut-out (with baggie of foam shapes clipped to it).

 And here was the finished product. So cute and so easy!

Afterwards, the R2D2 clones met each other.

I took a few last pictures of this very special daycare group playing together.

And when I saw Aidas being....well, so Aidas, I had to take a couple of last pictures of him at the daycare. He is always carrying a multitude of objects. Together, they seem random, but his creative mind has it all worked out. They are usually tools, or gunners, or other weapons, often the kind that superheroes use. I am really going to miss his ways. We love you Aidas. The rest of the world will too!

#starwarsparty