Boys Will Be Boys

Posts Tagged ‘merrick’

Not only did I have to get used to the idea of Braysen starting Kindergarten this year but what I think made this back to school time even more difficult was knowing Merrick was starting too.  Something about your youngest heading off to school and no longer being “the baby” was tough for me.  It was like double whammy of sadness that they are both growing up so fast!  A few days after Braysen started school Merrick started his preschool journey.  He is attending the same preschool that Braysen did for the last 2 years so that’s a nice comfortable feeling and I can’t say enough good things about this preschool!   He’s been there a bunch to pick up his big brother so it’s a nice familiar place for him but now he gets to stay and play instead of me trying to rush him out the door.  He has been wearing his backpack around the house for a long time now and has some jealous moments caused by Braysen’s cool lunchbox and his dinosaur backpack.   You can say he was just a little bit excited about starting school like big brother!

His first day was a parent-child day so I took the morning off to go with him.  It’s a get to know the classroom and basic routine day with circle time and playing mostly.  He loved the play dough area..seriously the homemade stuff is the best so I don’t blame him for not wanting to go elsewhere at first haha!  He did quite well, with only a few moments of wanting to escape circle time because he spotted toys he wanted to play with.

We had a long summer of weekly speech therapy for him and we made some progress but he still has a long ways to go sadly.  We are in the process of getting his records to the school district to hopefully have them do early intervention therapy with him at his preschool during the school year. 

Here’s a few pictures of him during back to school week!  We had scheduled a hair cut for him the week before school started but of course Braysen got sick and then Merrick caught it so we had to cancel. Murphy’s Law!!  He’s definitely needing a shorter style! 

1st day of school (hard to pick one so I put both up)

Some of him in the class (taken from iPhone so quality is eh)

I’ve always thought that phrase was funny…now there’s this harsh reality about it!  We are off to a exhausting start of a new school year.  It’s a huge change for the whole house really because we have both of the boys in school and I’m trudging away at my classes too.  As usual we have the chaotic schedule.  I’m not sure what we will do when our lives aren’t a crazy scheduled mess but we are years away from that…maybe when the boys have grown up (which is definitely something I dare not think about because they’ll stay “little”, right?).

Braysen is officially a Kindergartner and is in all day!  Merrick started preschool 3′s. Tues/Thurs am’s.  I have more credit hours this semester and more work hours.  What was I thinking?  Plus, there’s running all of us to/from places and we haven’t started the extra-curricular sports stuff yet.  I’m waiting to schedule the swim lessons/karate type stuff until October so we can get our bearings with the current schedule first!

I thought it’d be funny to put a picture of our spreadsheet that I make up every semester and give to everyone involved in the chaos (in-laws, daycare, work and of course it hangs on the fridge).  We also keep a Google calendar organized with various lovely color coordinated calendars.  I’m not sure what we’d do without Google calendar!  They are blurred out a bit because I don’t think people need to exactly see what our schedule looks like ..privacy issue type of thing but you get the general idea! Chaos I tell ya!

I’m doing lots of posts right now instead of giant ones..or trying to separate out them a bit!

Google calendar synced with Outlook and on our iPhones with Calengoo

Excel calendar we keep on the fridge.

I’ve been wanting to do posts on some of my favorite things for a while!  It’s been in the back of my mind and I even have some drafts from ages ago saved that I might try to clean up some for posting.    Whether it be kids toys, random kids stuff, mom stuff, house goodies …just things I love for whatever reason!  Today happens to be favorite toy day..or at least a few of the top hits!

Role Playing/Pretend Play:

Playmobil & Imaginext:  Sometimes I feel like our house is overrun by little people!  We have knights, superhero’s, family members, fantasy characters, doctors..you name it!  They definitely rank high up there in actual “played with daily” toys.  It’s amazing the imaginations of the boys when it comes to these little figures.  They have of course typical boy battles between the figures but they also have loving family moments where they tuck each other into bed and cook for one another.    These toys go on various road trips with us and are held tightly in their clinching hands as they fall asleep!

(some of the sets shown in these pictures are the Treasure Temple, Summer House, Kids Petting Zoo, Dragon Fortress, Batman Cave, Veterinarian Hospital and lots of other random pieces + accessories)

Super Hero costumes:  What little boys do not like to pretend to be super heroes?  Finding “dress up” clothes for boys is not the cheapest thing to look for!  I found a Super Hero set on Amazon and It’s a hit with the boys.  They also still gravitate towards the doctor set, especially Merrick who loves to play doctor.

Building toys:

Zoobs:  Crazy things can be made with these!  Merrick makes robots with them while Braysen makes crowns and other random objects!  Wherever their imagination takes them!  They had them at daycare and I heard they were a hit so we finally got our own set as a gift from Grammy for Braysen’s birthday.  They are currently scattered all over our living room…maybe I should pick them up before bed.

Beka Blocks:  Every kid needs a good set of blocks I’m convinced.  This particular set is made in the US and great quality!  These were our Christmas gift to Merrick 2 years ago and now are used to build all sorts of things, including buildings for the Playmobil people  They also make really nice tower structures for dragons to guard!

Magneatos:  Another building toy comprised of giant magnet balls and magnet type tubes.  Like the zoobs they can make all sorts of neat structures.

Books:

Can a kid have too many books?   This is my other weakness besides the Playmobil.  I love kids books!  Right now I’m a huge fan of the Mo Willems books because Braysen loves reading them!  They are super cute with the little chat bubbles above the Elephant and Piggie characters.  When he reads from them he reads louder when they have larger words and exclamation points.  When the text gets smaller he reads quieter.  It’s really cute to hear him read these!  I’m also a huge fan of the Bob books sets because thanks to them he picked up the sight words so quickly that he moved onto these new longer books.  I told Patrick that I cannot wait until he starts reading longer chapter books just so I can read them too!

Video here of Braysen reading to my sisters while they were visiting – might have to turn up fairly loud.

Just a few of my boys favorite things and mine too – kid tested, parent approved as they say!