MichaelandChrissy.com

Aiden has started pre-school!  He’s only three years old, but that’s when children are eligible for pre-school now.  The first day of school, Aiden didn’t scream or cry or anything.  We met his teacher at the door, and she knelt down and said, “Hi Aiden, and you ready to come in and have a good time?” Aiden says, “Yeah!” and just trots in the door.  Chrissy and I are like, “What, no goodbye?”  But no, he just runs in without hesitation.  This was in stark contrast to two other children that were throwing a complete fit.  One kid had to be bodily carried into the school, kicking and screaming.  It was sort of surreal, but it didn’t seem to affect Aiden at all.

We wanted to get Aiden into pre-school to expose him to a new social setting so that he would have good speech models.  He would not only have social interactions with other children, but his speech would improve by being around other talkers.  Chrissy was doing the Mom’s Club activities with the boys over the summer, but that’s not an option now that she has gone back to school (they don’t allow working mothers).  So we signed Aiden up for two days a week at the public pre-school.  He’ll have AM classes (three-hour morning sessions) twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday, including half an hour of speech therapy each day.

The big controversy was whether or not he would take the bus.  They offered to send the bus to our house in the mornings to get Aiden, but the school is actually in the next town over.  So, Aiden would have to board the bus and take it all the way to the next town, picking up other little kids along the way.  The problem is that this would be a 45-minute drive.  The school is maybe ten minutes away by car.  My commute to Chicago is 45 minutes, so we couldn’t see putting Aiden on a bus for that long (one way).  Chrissy’s mom was pretty vocal in her opposition, so she volunteered to drive Aiden to and from school.  Problem solved.

So Aiden is really growing up fast!  He has started school with little to no complaints and had a good day at school.  We asked him if he liked his class and he said, “Yes,” and we asked him if he wanted to go back again and he said, “No.”  Poor little guy doesn’t get how it works yet!  You’re signed up for the next nineteen years, buddy!  In two weeks, he’ll start at his other pre-school, the private school down the block.  With two more days of AM classes per week at TLC, his entire week will revolve around school and speech therapy.  At this rate, he’s going to be burnt out before he’s four!  Wish him luck!

Aiden recently participated in a study of children with Apraxia done by The Lena Foundation.  Chrissy responded to their open call through the Apraxia Kids web site.  The study involved recording everything that Aiden said for three days.  They sent us two pairs of overalls, one in a khaki brown and another in a darker brown.  They’re nice pants, well made, and the chest area has a little pocket that holds an electronic MP3 device.  It records for sixteen hours, so you just turn it on in the morning and tuck it into the chest pocket.

We had planned a trip to the Shedd Aquarium for that week, since I was on vacation, and the Lena people told Chrissy that we can go and do whatever as long as the device was active.  We packed the double stroller for Aiden and Gavin.  Aiden had a good time and didn’t take notice of the recording device at all.  I was worried that it would not be able to make out what Aiden was saying over the general din of the aquarium (it was crowded that day), but we had gotten prior approval so I guess it was all right.

On the second day, I took Aiden to speech therapy at St. Margaret’s, but I forgot to mention ahead of time that he was being recorded.  I had never met that speech therapist before, and I was telling Aiden after the session that she was kinda cute.  Purely innocent, I assure you.  Then it occurs to me that this was being recorded and I should be more careful of what I say!  With my luck, the transcript will come back and Chrissy will read it.   Then I would get, “So you have the hots for Aiden’s therapist?”  D’oh!

Although we’re not normally being taped, we’ve begun to watch what we say around Aiden anyway.  A few weeks ago, I came home late from work and was telling Chrissy that the commute was a “solid pain in my ass.”  From behind me, I hear “pain in my ass!”  Chrissy looks at me and says, “Was that him?” And I say, “I think it WAS him.”  So I ask him, “Aiden, what did you just say?” Aiden pipes right up with “pain in my ass!”  So you have to watch what you say to him, since he will repeat everything he hears.

The incentive was that Lena was going to pay us $100 for the three days of recording.  “Wow, that’s pretty good!  All you have to do is dress up your kid in these overalls and slide the recorder in for three days…”  What I didn’t know was that there was a lot of paperwork involved, like twenty pages of questionnaire for each day of recording.  It was a pain to complete the huge pile of paperwork.  I’d be pretty upset if I had to fill out all of this for free, so it’s good that we were being paid!

Then we returned the paperwork and the three recording devices in the mail (we got to keep the pants).  Despite the financial incentive, it’s nice to be able to contribute to a study like this.  They will return a report with Aiden’s analysis, but I think that these will be just scattered data like ‘words per hour’ or something like that.  It would be interesting to see the completed study, though, and understand what they were looking to find and what the final results were.  We’ll keep an eye out for that.

Chrissy and I were looking at outdoor furniture at The Great Escape when we wandered into the swing set area.  There were about six rather large sets on display, so we let Aiden try a couple of them out.  He seemed to enjoy it.  This would be a good time to get one, provided that it would fit in our backyard, since the boys will probably get good use out of it for the next seven or eight years.

A few days later, Chrissy checked on the DirectBuy web site and found out that we could get one for about $600 less through them.  She put in an order for an Oasis III model along with the outdoor dining set that we decided on.  The swing set would be another birthday present for the boys, so we had hoped that it would arrive before their party next weekend.  Luckily, it did!

The shipment of four long boxes (up to 200 pounds each) and one slide was too large to stay in the DirectBuy warehouse, so we had to pick it up immediately.  It took Glenn and I eight hours to build, with a bit of help from Aiden.  Unfortunately, relentless sun and ninety degree heat made it hard work.  But Aiden was having fun on his new swing set by the end of the day, so it was all worth it.

Chrissy’s mom read in the paper that there would be a Touch-A-Truck event at Redar Park in Schererville.  This is where they line up a bunch of big trucks for people to see (and kids to play on).  Aiden loves trucks, especially construction vehicles, so Chrissy decided to take him.

Chrissy arrived a little early, but they let her and Aiden go in to see the trucks anyway.  They totally beat the crowds that way and Aiden got one-on-one time with each of the trucks.  He was able to sit inside most of them, and he even honked the air horns on a few (that was loud).  It was a little wet outside, but everyone was very friendly.

Aiden got to sit in a police car and a fire truck.  That was pretty exciting for him, since he loves the Tonka books that feature emergency vehicles.  He also got to “drive” a school bus and a semi truck.  Although he got to sit up front in a huge cement mixer, he didn’t get to handle the front loader.  So, it was a great day for Aiden!

Aiden turns three years old this Summer and Gavin just turned one, so we had their photos taken with a birthday theme.  Chrissy set up a session with our regular photographer, Miss Mandy.  Mandy always manages to make Aiden and Gavin smile and she’s very good about taking as many photos as Chrissy wants (she shows up with a list).

The boys also had some photos taken in their “Thing 1″ and “Thing 2″ shirts.  We picked those up at Universal Studios in Orlando back in February, but Gavin has just grown into his.  But wait until you see this one.  IT’S CUTE OVERLOAD!

Aiden got a tether ball as a prize at the St. James Festival last weekend.  It’s literally a ball with a string poked through it; a loop on the other end goes around your wrist.  You can throw the ball and it has no choice but to come back to you.  Aiden played with it for a bit, but Gavin got more use out of it as a teether.

The other day, Aiden and Gavin were playing in the nursery.  Aiden had the tether ball and was saying something that I couldn’t make out.  He’s been talking a lot more lately, but sometimes I need to go back and clarify what he is saying.  I thought that I heard him say, “Rock this house”.  That’s an odd thing for him to say.  Who taught him that?

Then he whipped the tether ball at the playhouse.  He was actually saying, “Wreck this house”.  Ah hah…  Aiden has a set of Tonka books that use construction vehicles to teach sounds.  The book featuring a crane equipped with a wrecking ball highlights words with a short “e”.  The wrecking ball “wrecks” an abandoned apartment building.

It’s nice that Aiden is speaking more and he has shown a real knack for imaginative play.  The tether ball didn’t actually wreck the playhouse, but Aiden did run to get his bulldozer to clean it up.  Gavin, safely inside the non-wrecked playhouse, was not injured.  I’m left to wonder which is preferable: wrecking the house or rocking the house?