Garden Walk

This morning Atz & Allie came over to stay with Ronin and Audrey while Denis, Nikko and I went to the Westbrook School for their Garden Walk. Nikko seemed curious and excited as we walked up to the school; he wore his Thomas backpack and while he feet were shuffling on the pavement he seemed excited.We had a sheet of paper that indicated what stations we should check out and would get a sticker after meeting said person. We ended up in Room 211 where Nikko will have his morning session with Mrs. McCarthy and Ms. Winters (the speech therapist that seemed to like Nikko very much and who I hope becomes Nikko's Guardian Angel. We walked around the room after talking with Ms. Winters about the basics, and then Nikko was welcomed to the sand table by one of the aides. I didn't see it but Denis modeled for Nikko how to pour sand into a bucket, and that's exactly what Nikko did. Honestly, I haven't seen him take a shovel of sand and pour it purposefully into a bucket until this morning, so seeing him do it was great. He didn't seem to notice that we had walked away from him to look at other things. After a good 15 minutes I decided we should transition him onto something else so we said bye bye to the sand table and directed him to the toy area. He saw a lego-type block table and was intrigued by some kind of plastic robotic arm on it. Denis tried to build with him and Nikko seemed interested in it. Ms. McCarthy tried to take Nikko's picture and probably had one good picture out of many. Ms. Winters joined us at some point near the end. I glanced around and saw that most of the parents had left by now, save but two or so students. Nikko sneezed and we geshuntited him. He then razzed his lips and everyone laughed. Nikko must have thought it felt funny so he did it again, and everyone laughed again. He looked around slightly, pleased that he got a reaction so he did it again, and everyone laughed again. He smiled as if he "got" it, and I felt really happy that all that just transpired. It was time to go, finally, so we went to the main office to finish up the Garden Walk stops. Nikko was happy and ran down the halls a little bit, so I had to calm him so that he wouldn't get too excited. He was antsy in the main office because it was crowded in there. It made me worry a bit because he has such a short attention span that I wonder if he'll be able to attend to class. The aides had told me that they have a very strict routine and that Nikko will learn it and eventually follow it. We came home and everything was fine. Audrey was down for a nap, and Ronin was getting his diaper changed.

After lunch the afternoon was slow because Ronin had to nap and Audrey didn't go down right away either. I hesitated to put her down until past 4 and realized that I should just put her down at 3:30, which was 4 hours since she woke up from her last nap. She didn't seem sleepy at 2:30, so maybe 4 hours is a good stretch to be awake. While she napped, I took the boys outside to get their ya-yas out since they were chasing each other around the living room and being rambunctious boys. Outside we had a few moments of physical activity joined by Denis, running up and down the driveway, me chasing them and tickling them on the front lawn. Nikko ended up digging in the dirt with a stick while Ronin ran around me as I drew the town of Radiator Springs with sidewalk chalk. I managed to get the boys into the backyard and play on the slide because Manolo was mowing the lawn next door and I wanted to distract the boys from the hot lawn mower. I got them to go up and down the slide for a bit, until Denis had to leave for martial arts class. Audrey woke up anyway and it was time to go in and give baths. Dinner, TV, Audrey's bath, then bedtimes followed. I may have to put Audrey down even earlier than 8:30p, in order to get the boys in bed by 9p, because it took me 30 minutes to go brush teeth, change diapers, read stories, pray and bedtime... and this is without their regularly timed bath! Luckily I bathed them before dinner, but that's not always going to be the case. Perhaps I'm going to have to start their bedtime by 8:15 instead, if I have to put them to bed by myself. If Denis helps and gives the boys baths, I can be putting Audrey to bed while they get started. I think stories and songs take over ten minutes. Hmmm....

Tomorrow is Nikko's first official day of preschool, where I put him on the bus, buckle him in, and let him go all by himself. I'm nervous for him. I wonder if I will cry.