pre-school

We have decided to change our child care arrangements for Fay. For 2 years now she has had either a nanny at her home or her mommy to take care of her. But as of Sept 14, Fay will be going to pre-school for 3 days a week.

I hadn't anticipated doing this quite so soon, but we found a fantastic school/day care, and the timing is right for a lot of reasons.

Last winter a lot of my neighborhood friends were touring and applying for various pre-school programs. I was a little late to the party because Fay doesn't turn 2 until mid-Fall, and many of these programs have Sept 1 cutoffs. Some of them allow you to start late, on the birthday, but still charge you for the entire season. But, about one month after applications were due, I started noticing changes in Fay and really wanted her to attend one of these programs. She seems ready for that social environment. Since I was so late in applying, Fay was put on several waiting lists.

I think this turned out to be a good thing, because it would have been easy for me to send Fay to one of these pre-schools with all of her neighborhood friends. Instead we started looking at other options.

There is a school in our neighborhood, but further into Chinatown, that is bilingual. They do 2/3 of the day in English and an afternoon segment in Mandarin. They have two teachers in each classroom: one that speaks English and one that speaks Mandarin. They have a high percentage of Chinese children. I'd guess its about 80%.

I spoke to a woman in my neighborhood who sends both of her kids to the bilingual school, and she *loves* it. She couldn't say enough good things about it. So, last week, Ryan and I took a tour of the school and were very impressed. The classrooms were very large -- much larger than the other schools I'd seen. The teachers were all excited to talk to Fay. They paid more attention to her than to her parents which I always see as a good sign. There were a couple of specific concerns I had which were laid to rest:

Q) Would Fay receive one on one attention when she was upset or scared, or just transitioning into this new environment?
A) I saw a 2 year old girl crying her eyes out at two points during the tour (same girl!). The administrator told me that this girl has probably only ever been with her parents at home, and is having a tough time with the transition. Then, one of the classroom teachers scooped her up and cuddled her and removed her from the group for a few minutes. I was so happy to see how gently they were dealing with this girl's crisis.

Q) Can we start off slowly so Fay can adjust to the new school?
A) During the first week we will do 1/2 days, progressively moving up to a full day at school. So, I will pick up Fay after 4 hours, then after 6 (after nap), then after a full day.

A couple other facts that convinced us this was the school for Fay have to do with more adult concerns. They are much less expensive than the other options. And they serve 3 meals a day (the other schools have you send food with your child). We are actually paying for 5 days a week but will only be sending Fay for 3. This is nice for flexibility. If for some reason I need to work different days, I can change Fay's pre-school schedule easily.

Before taking the tour, I thought we might wait until January to enroll Fay in a program. But we realized that many of the children are meeting each other for the first time and going through the separation process together, and it would be best to get Fay in to meet her new friends as soon as possible.

So, we gave notice to our nanny last week. And now I'm freaking out because my baby is growing up. I'm anxious that she is becoming more independent and will go through a major life change without me. And I'm anxious that this is the end of my baby years with Fay. I hope she still will still want some mama cuddles, even after she is a big girl at pre-school.

The August babies turn two

Fay likes to hang with the older crowd. So this weekend we celebrated many of her neighborhood friends' 2nd birthdays with a group birthday party in the park.

At one point, we wrangled all the kids into the toy boat and began to snap photos. I think the photos mostly memorialize our feat of wrangling with no crying or injuries. Sooo many kids!

If you go to this link you can see many photos of the same moment, plus a video at the end. These are Orion's mom's photos:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36335244@N00/sets/72157622190058972/

the twos

I've been reading a lot lately about what to do with a whiney kid. For some reason I had expected and planned for a two year old's tantrums, as Fay approaches the pivotal age. But I have been taken a back by the onset of frequent and persistent whining. Its as if sound is just draining out of her mouth with no real purpose or direction. Just a constant moaning. At first I thought something might be wrong that I could fix for her. I don't think that is the case. More words Fay! More words!

Unprompted new word from Fay!

Tonight, Fay and I were heading back to her room to read some books before bed when Fay turned into the bathroom instead.

She asked to get into the tub. So, I lifted her in. Then she motioned for mommy to get into the tub. So I did. We were sitting there together, fully dressed in a dry tub. And Fay blurted out "Bubbles!"

I was so tickled! Up until now, there has been a lot of prompting for Fay to talk. I point to something and say the word and she repeats. Or, we work on the same word, over and over again, until she says it by herself (up!) But this! To make a request about something that is not even an object in her sight. And to use a word that I have not drilled into her head! She can simply call up a word and make her wants known! What a big girl.

Needless to say, I immediately gave Fay her bubble bath.

word list -->

I added a list to the right hand side of the blog to show off Fay's latest words. I'll be updating it as the new words come in. I'm told they should increase rapidly now that she's got the jist of it.

Whats that sound?

I don't think I have ever written about one of Fay's cutest little quirks and I want to remember this, so I'm making a blog post about it.

For a number of weeks now, when Fay hears a sound she brings her hand up to cover one of her ears and looks at me with a questioning look. Sometimes she gives a little "eh?"

I don't know how, but I immediately knew that she wanted to know what the sound is. Usually its a loud sound like an ambulance or a car beeping as it goes in reverse. It didn't even really phase me until one day Fay's babysitter brought it to my attention.

Babysitter: I think Fay may have an ear infection or cold because she keeps reaching for her ear.
Me: Oh, no, I just think she is asking what the sound is that she hears.
Babysitter: Really, well, I don't know, she is always touching the same ear.
Me: Well, I'll keep an eye on it, but I really do think she is just asking about a noise.

After watching more closely, she does in fact use both ears for the question, but I think she favors her left ear. Its the cutest thing because I would have never guessed that at this age she correlates hearing a noise with the use of her ears. I'm guessing that at some point I started using that sign when I was talking about noises to her. As in....Fay [cupping ear]...do you hear that sound? That's an ambulance.

talker

Fay has made some significant progress on her verbal skills over the past couple of weeks. I noticed a big improvement in her communication attempts and number of "words" she was using while we were in Wisconsin. I wonder if having so many people and new things around stimulated her to want to talk more.

We've also been showing Fay a sign language (ASL) video almost every day for about two weeks now. I hadn't intended to bombard her with ASL, but she loves the video so much and requests it every day. I think there are two reasons she loves it so. One, there are little kids throughout the video doing signs. And, two, there are most of her favorite objects being used as examples for the ASL words taught. For example, we learn how to say: eat, more, ball, baby, car, dog, cat, mom, dad, shoes. These are all of her favorites. If only they had a sign for "yogurt" we'd be set.

She immediately took to the "eat" sign and has been using it whenever I say the word eat. Even better, she has these new words:

"Mo" -- More
"Ba" -- Ball
"Mama" -- Mama (says it a lot more now)
"Bye Bye" -- Bye Bye or good night
"ooo-dy" -- Brody (her grandma's dog)
"Meow" -- Cat sound
"Moo" --- Cow sound
"Baa" -- Sheep Sound

Her babysitter, Deb has also taught her to say "Nana" and "Lyla" for her grandma and friend. But she only does those while singing a little made up song.

Also I've been trying to get her to do the "F" sound, so she can say her name. But it comes out as a tongue blow.

She hums along with the Alphabet song. And she is *really* singing along with old MacDonald. She says the animal sounds right after I mention the animal and she does the "E-I-E-I-O" in the right spot. Its so much fun to sing with her!!