Milestones

Someone else in our family started school today.

Teddy started a twos program today. He'll go by himself twice a week. We've been talking about Teddy going to school, and practicing, for weeks.

This morning, he picked out his outfit himself: a red shirt with a puppy dog on it, and his "special" jeans, the ones Nana monogrammed with his name, Teddy.

He was in the middle of picking his nose in this picture, by the way.

He did just fine at school. I knew he would. He's been going to the same program, with the same teacher, for about a year, but in a Mommy and Me format. This spring and summer he did partial separation, and finally, today, he was on his own.

When I picked him up, the first thing he did was run to me and show me the stamps on his hands.

The entire car ride home, he talked about "Miss Wendy's" class. The day's theme had been one of Teddy's absolute favorites, Thomas the train. I learned that he'd listened to a book about Thomas, sang songs about trains, made his very own paper Thomas the train, and had had a snack of crackers and juice. He wanted to know if he could go back tomorrow.

It was so sweet to hear, but at the same time I couldn't help thinking how strange it was that my two year old could talk in detail about his day, but when I'd picked my three and a half year old up from preschool an hour earlier, she hadn't been able to tell me anything. I knew they'd made blueberry pancakes in class and eaten them, since I'd dropped her off late and seen the class earnestly cooking them. But when I asked her if she'd liked them, she just smiled and started waving her hands and singing to Katie Perry on the radio.

It's hard sometimes to know with Johanna what's ability and what's just behavior. Yesterday we met with an audiologist at Blythesdale Children's Hospital and learned that yes, she does have mild hearing loss that could be affecting her speech. She'll need a hearing enhancement system in her classroom, and perhaps ultimately, a hearing aid.

But Johanna did do a milestone of her own today: she did both number one and number two in her Elmo potty. She's getting more and more successful on the potty each day--in fact, a couple times recently she's come up to me and said "potty", meaning she needs to go.

And baby Geoffrey has had some milestones of his own. He's started rolling both ways, tummy to back, and back to tummy. He hated tummy time initially, but now he's a pro at it.

Yesterday, I took Geoffrey to a baby music class. He usually gets schlepped along with his two older siblings everywhere, so it was wonderful to spend some one on one time with him alone. Geoffrey loved it. I've never seen my son squeal and laugh so much in his life. By the end, he was "singing" along with the teacher, and when the music stopped he started to cry. He was also busy checking out all the cute female babies (he's the only boy in the class). At one point, all the babies were lying on the floor together, and he got so excited that he started rolling from side to side scoping out the ladies on either side of him. He was so intently ogling the cute brunette on his right that he completely lost his balance and toppled onto her, much to her chagrin. Thankfully, her mother was gracious about it.

So everyone in our house is achieving their own milestones--at their own pace, in their own time.