Big Brother
So Patrick is three-and-a-half, plus one month. That one month has been a big one; he got a new little sister and he got to stop going to daycare.
I read somewhere that when you have a second child, you'd think the first one would be the loser, because the new baby needs lots of attention, has actual needs that must be met, etc, but actually the new baby ends up getting the short end of the stick. This has not been the case here. Well, I sort of feel like both of them are getting the short end of the stick. But where I'm going with this is that Patrick is doing pretty great. He is a good helper (well ... he tries anyway) and he is concerned about his sister, gives her kisses when she cries and tries to comfort her. She started crying the other day and he announced, "I think she wants to eat!" (Having an inquisitive toddler around while breastfeeding is interesting. I pulled out the manual breastpump the other day, and Patrick wanted to help me use it ...)
Initially we had planned that Patrick would continue to go to daycare while I was on maternity leave (and still getting a paycheck). Then, I would stay home with both kiddos. However, Patrick had other plans. For a while, he'd been upset about going to daycare. It's hard to know why, as he'd had three (four?) different teachers in less than a year, and we were now on our third daycare director (in three years). I was used to the crying at dropoff, though I couldn't figure out any way around it. But when Patrick started asking at bedtime if he had to go to daycare tomorrow, and crying if the answer was yes, it got a bit more complicated. Normally, he'd move up to the next older classroom in March, but by the end of April, he hadn't yet, so I talked to the director. She said she was planning a school-wide graduation in June, so he'd move up then, and in the meantime, he'd spend some portion of the day in the 'big kids classroom' to get acclimated. This was fine, until Patrick started throwing fits when they tried to send him down to the big kids class. And they gave in and let him stay in his class. I figure I'm allowed to be a pushover, but I'm paying them to keep him in line, so what gives? But anyway, THEN he started telling us that he didn't like the big kids classroom, because the big kids were mean and they hit him and they never got in trouble but if he hit them back he had to sit in timeout. It is always hard to tell how much a 3-year-old is making up, but his story was consistent so it gave me pause. Back to talk to the director again; she was noncommittal.
As we got closer to June 25, and Patrick cried every night before bed and every morning before we got in the car because he had to go to daycare, I realized that I was not going to be up to dealing with this while also caring for newborn. And we could save money by pulling him out of daycare. This was cemented when, by the third week of June, Patrick had STILL not been 'promoted' to the big boy classroom, and when I asked, AGAIN, I was now told that he would be moved up in August, after all of his friends (who are 5-6 months YOUNGER) had moved up, so then he would feel left out and theoretically wouldn't cry about it anymore. Yeah.
So he's been home and it's been fine. We watch entirely too much TV, but there are two things preventing me from doing much else: (1) Patrick's sister, who is much more needy than he was and does NOT like to be put down AT ALL EVER and (2) the ridiculous heat this summer. So eventually we'll have to get on a decent schedule and, you know, learn stuff, but, eh, whatever, it's summer. I was always bad about doing anything constructive over the summer anyhow.
I feel like I'm digressing from Patrick here. Oopsie. While all the daycare business was quite challenging, he is really in fact quite charming these days. He will give me hugs out of the blue and also out of the blue will say things like, "Thank you for not making me go to daycare today, Mommy." He has this quirky little thing where he'll say, "I'm so glad ... [you didn't make me go to daycare]," (heh) which cracks me up because it's rather formal and I don't think either James or I says it. The other thing he does is to end sentences with "...and stuff." Like, he's not quite sure where to go with what he's been saying. "Mommy, when that tree fell down, Daddy's friend came over to help him cut it and he used his chainsaw and I helped ... and stuff." Lately he has been saying he's "super happy" about things which I thought was ridiculously cute until I noticed that Kai-Lan of the ridiculously annoying TV show says that. (It's still cute. Whatever.)
Patrick likes to run around naked. Occasionally we can convince him to put on swim trunks. He has way too many toys and is fascinated by fire trucks, airplanes and trains. Possibly out of necessity he has become quite good at playing on his own, and is very imaginative. I'm glad that he has developed this skill but I wish I could play with him more. (Although, who am I kidding, half the time he tells me to go away.) He would like to eat chicken nuggets and french fries all the time and seems to have inherited my sweet tooth. He can occasionally be persuaded to eat waffles, as long as they have copious amounts of butter slathered on them, and I have on more than one occasion seen him licking the butter off.
I'm sure there's more, and I'll try to get to that soon. :)
Posted by Molly
at 8:27 PM EDT
Updated: Sat 07/21/2012 9:28 AM EDT
