waddle waddle quack quack, it was fun

Even though Logan has ONE more day of preschool (Tuesday next week), the end of the year party was this morning.  The class hosted an ice cream party, and we all gave the teachers their end of year gifts. The teachers had gifts for each child, and they also gave us the many books the kids have compiled over the school year including their weekend journals, ABC book and a memory book the teacher made for each family with photos and special items they've saved the entire year.  

I wish I could share the entire book here, its so special and so full of memories that sum up a great year in the life of our special 4 year old.  But here are photos of a few of my favorite pages:

I won't lie, there were some tears.  It seems like he was eons younger when this preschool year began.

I don't know when my toddler became a little boy whose now ready to move into kindergarten and take on the world.  They tell you when you have kids it "goes by so fast"..   And its true, it really does.  You have to savor every minute, the great ones and the not so good ones, because next thing you know they don't want you to kiss them at the bus stop anymore and they start getting their own phone calls.

They memorized and recited a poem about what it was like to be a Lucky Duck this year.

And then it was time to give the teachers their gifts.  The room moms (I was not one this year) had a great, creative idea to collect money from us all and put together picnic/BBQ baskets for the teachers.  They filled them with all sorts of marinades, cookie cutters, grilling tools, s'mores fixins, Wegman's gift cards, and lots of other fun stuff.  They also collected favorite summer recipes from all the moms and compiled a Lucky Duck cookbook, and gave us all copies.  Fabulous idea, and I can't wait to try some of the yumminess listed in there.  I did share my Mom's famous baked bean recipe and my recipe for lemon bars which I've been hankering and I'm gonna have to make soon.

After all of that, it was time to dig into some ice cream.  At 10:30 in the morning.  It tastes even better before lunch.

As preschool ends and we look to kindergarten, we can certainly say Logan was a Lucky Duck to share the company of these teachers and his friends this year.  I met some really nice moms too.  I'm really going to miss that preschool.  There are no words to describe how much I respect the teachers and the program there.

And as one door closes, another one opens.  Tonight we head to our elementary school where the rising first graders will sing to the incoming kindergarteners, and Logan will get to ride the school bus around the neighborhood.  I can hardly believe our little bear is heading to big boy school in a few short months.

Waddle, waddle, quack, quack.



Preschool Mothers Day Party

This morning, I attended a very special Mother's Day party at Logan's preschool (the last of the preschool years, sniff).  The kids have been busy for two weeks making gifts, pictures and animals masks for a little performance.  They served us snacks, and took great pride finally revealing all these secrets they've had to keep!

I say it often, but its been amazing watching Logan blossom at preschool this year.  His teacher comments often how much he's evolved since September, and what great participant he is in school.  I'm a proud mama, and a lucky one too.

A little video snippet (taken with new camera .. had to figure out how to do it very quickly so only got Logan's part).

We decorated a flower pot together and planted basil seeds.

I love these questionaire's... apparently, I love to watch Phineas and Ferb, buy cheese and cook bacon (who doesn't?)!

They made handmade notecards for us.  His teacher said they used shaving cream mixed with Bio-Color paint to stain the paper, then die cut patterns to make the cards.  Very cool.  Sounds like something we might have to try ourselves on a rainy day!

I love you buddy!  Thank you for a very special morning!

Under the Sea

This week is nationally celebrated as Week of the Young Child as designated by NAEYC, and Logan's preschool does a lot to make it a very special time for their students.  One way they celebrate is to decorate the hallways of the preschool with a theme both fun and educational for kids.  You might recall last year at his preschool, each class built stores and they created a village of shops throughout the hallways.  It was incredible.

This year, the theme is Under the Sea, and the hallways are filled with jellyfish, submarines, and pirate treasure.  Here are a few photos, although nothing beats seeing it in person, where you even get sound effects of the ocean. The creativity is so impressive.  You can feel the love and passion for what these teachers do, and how they feel about the children.

I'm so sad his preschool time is coming to a close.  Its been an amazing experience for him, and he's made so many great friends and had so much fun.  The preschool staff is truly awesome, and we're going to miss it very much come the end of May when the year wraps up and we look towards his next school adventure at kindergarten.  New friends, new teachers, new experiences.  But we'll never forget this school is where he first experienced a love for learning.

Lucky the Ducky

Well, Lucky the Duck had a very busy weekend adventure, which we're getting ready to journal for Logan to take to preschool tomorrow.  

First, Lucky enjoy some good home cooked Italian food with us.

He also played with all of Logan's toys.

Lucky also came with us to get Logan's haircut, and to run our Saturday errands (including buying t-ball pants and other various t-ball items.)

Lucky enjoyed a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's Saturday night, too!  He ate tacos, made chocolate pie and played baseball!

Today was so beautiful, Lucky enjoyed some time at the park with Logan.

And visited some of our good friends on our way home from Grandma's, enjoying a walk by a gorgeous lake together!

I'm pretty sure I just saw Lucky yawning, which means he needs to settle in for nice duck nap tonight to get ready for another busy week ahead!

a very special duck

Logan got to bring home the Lucky Duck VIP bag from preschool today.  Next week he'll be the featured Lucky Duck of the week.  In preparation for Monday, we sat down together and filled out a questionaire all about him.  I provided the handwriting, he provided the answers.  

He  had to color and decorate his own Lucky Duck, complete with  pirate and Bakugan stickers, and then cut it out himself and write his name.

And now this weekend, we have to keep a journal of everything he and his Lucky Duck do.  We plan to go to Dick's tomorrow and buy Logan underwear with a removeable cup for T-Ball, so maybe Lucky Duck can come too!

He and Dylan are spending the night with Grandma Saturday so we'll be counting on her to help us keep track of his adventures too.  Its kind of the preschool version of Flat Stanley.

kindergarten ready

For the past year and a half, I have been stressing and struggling over whether or not we'd feel Logan was ready to send to kindergarten next fall.  As long as a child turns 6 by September 30th, they can begin kindergarten that fall.  Logan has a summer birthday, and these days a lot of parents are choosing to give their summer birthday kids, especially boys, the "gift of time" and wait until they turn 6 to send them to kindergarten.  Whether or not I agree with this is irrelavent.  I believe each child is an individual and each parent has to follow their gut instinct on what they think will be best in the long run.

Gone are the days when kindergarten meant going to school, playing and making simple crafts.  These days, the schools expect kids coming into kindergarten knowing what used to be standard for kids by first grade when I was younger.  The pressure is on to make sure your child is 'up to par' with gross and fine motor skills, and can jump right in once the school year begins.   And, since a lot of parents are waiting until their children are 6 to begin elementary school, its creating a cycle where the kids who start as young 5's like Logan will can have almost a year between themselves and some of their classmates.  As a parent, you have to decide, will it hurt your child to be one of the youngest in the class... do you want them to be the oldest and perhaps not challenged enough, leading to boredom and behavioral issues.

But I truly believe each parent has to follow their gut instinct on this.  So many things factor in to a child's being ready or not.   Are they developmentally on track?  Are they socially mature enough to handle it?  Can they sit still and follow directions?  Are they academically ready? 

Today we had Logan's parent teacher conference at preschool.  His teacher had a whole folder of his work to show us, beginning of the school year until now.  She's also been doing different exercises with the kids to assess where they're at and what their strengths are weaknesses are.    Although I talk to her the four days a week I take Logan to school and pick him up, this was a nice 25 minute conversation, uninterrupted and completely focused on Logan and his performance at school.

We had very recently finally come to the decision on our own to send him to kindergarten next fall.  We decided this for so many reasons I can't even write about them all here, but ultimately we completely feel he'll be ready.  He's grown so much this preschool year socially, developmentally and in every other area, and he's going to be ready for the next challenge 6 months from now.  If at some point, early in elementary school, it seems he's academically far behind most kids in his class (from being younger), we can always decide to hold him back and repeat a grade.

The other truth to the matter is, kindergarten is free, preschool, five mornings a week, is expensive.

Ultimately, if we really felt he truly wasn't ready to begin kindergarten.. if there were major developmental or behavioral issues, for example, we would have definitely considered sending him to preschool one more year to mature out of some of that before sending him to kindergarten.   A year ago, I really was on the fence about this. But in the last 6 - 8 months its become abundantly clear he's not only ready, I think he will thrive.

Going into this conference today with his teacher, Andrew and I knew we had made our decision and were following our guts.  But it was still interesting to get his teachers' insight and see his school work.

She was really thorough and talked about everything from how he cuts (great), how he interacts with other kids (wonderful, with a few minor blips here and there), how he follows step by step directions (perfect, and stays on task all on his own), his knowledge of numbers/shapes/colors/concepts (completely up to speed for a kid his age). 

This is a circle he cut by himself back in September.  Pretty darn good, I'd say.

He understands the concept of things  happening in a certain order.

He knows how to pick colored pattern up and glue a pattern on another piece of paper.

The one thing challenging him right now is handwriting.   He needs much more practice applying the right amount of pressure to his writing utensil, and forming his letters with more definition.    This came as no surprise at all, since we gots a heads up on this last fall and have been working with him a lot on his fine motor skills.   Dylan's handwriting was the same way at this... I think its very common for boys to struggle with this area.  They're more active than girls and have spent these early years honing in becoming gross motor experts..not sitting still for long periods and coloring/drawing.   By first grade, Dylan's handwriting was greatly improved and now its even better.  It just takes time and practice.

Despite that one little area that needs work, she agreed with us, he's completely ready for kindergarten and she thinks he'll do well next fall.   We just have to work on his handwriting between now and the end of the summer.     And between the internet, and amount of teachers I know, I'll have all the resources in the world to make sure he gets lots and lots of handwriting practice.

I feel good we've not only made our decision for him, and that we strongly feel its the right decision, but that his current teacher feels he's ready too. 

Kindergarten registration in our county is Apil 12th.  And I'll be there, standing in line, forms in hand, trying not to tear up about sending my youngest baby off to kindergarten next fall and seeing him reach yet another huge milestone.

Dads Night

Last night after dinner, Logan and Andrew set off for the annual Dads Night at Logan's preschool.  Presumably, this is Logan's last year of preschool (with his summer birthday, we could opt to wait for him to start kindergarten until he's 6... but I think we've decided he's ready to go this fall). So these last few months of his preschool experience will be a little bittersweet.  When I think back to him starting preschool as a young 3 year old... he was still so tiny, so inexperienced.  And now he's Mr. Social, so constructive at school and ready to take on new experiences.

Anyway.  Dads Night.  Its very, very cute.  Since Father's Day is in June, after preschool is over, they invite all the Dads in to spend an evening at preschool.  The kids get to show off their classroom to their Dad, and they get to work on a project together.  Logan's teacher asked all the kids and their Dads to bring in a hammer.  I was wondering what the project would be, and this is what they came home with. They've been studying the rain forest, and they made rain sticks.  They hammered nails into the tube so the popcorn kernels inside make a nice rain song as you turn the stick over and over.

The teachers interviewed the kids last week about their Dads.  Here is Logan's perception of Andrew.  The dots around the mouth are his moustache and goatee.

A Lucky Duck, he is.

Logan's gift

Logan's precious Christmas preschool program was this morning.  All month, his backpack has come home empty as they've been working hard on secret projects, gifts and songs, all to be unveiled today. 

My camera isn't great, and I had to do the best I could from where I was sitting.  He's 2nd row from the top, all the way at the end, red vest and white turtleneck.

They sang a whole list of songs, each one sweeter than the one before.  I adore his school and the work the staff puts into every program.  The kids learned hand motions for every song, and stood proudly singing their hearts out.

Logan loves to sing Jingle Bells. 

After the performance, each class hosted a party and the kids presented their parents with adorable homemade gifts.  These are the moments you live for as a parent.  His class had a special performance back in the classroom and every child had a line to say about the Symbols of Christmas.

Logan's line was "The Three Wise Men gave Jesus special gifts."  Forgive me, I shot this video portrait thinking I could flip it later but no can do...  Just think of him as laying down. 

You're my special gift, buddy. So proud of you.

flying feather

I think Chief Flying Feather is ready for Thankgiving, don't you?

our Logan

Its been a long time since I've blogged about Logan's developmental progresses with speech and behavior.  So hold on tight, this will be a long post but there's no way around it.  In some areas, things have gotten easier and some areas remain quite challenging.  I try really hard to focus on the positive. 


Logan is incredibly smart on so many levels, its actually scary sometimes.  He recently sat down (for the first time) to play Dylan's (highly addictive) Rush Hour Jr. game and was able to quickly solve almost every card right away.  He is already sounding out words.  He's extremely athletic with terrific hand-eye coordination.    I just signed him up for T-Ball this spring for his first ever season and can't wait to watch him whack that ball.  He has no fears and goes off to preschool each and everyday with a smile on his face, ready to see his friends and do his work.  He's passionate, creative, sweet and strong-willed.  He not only knows how to have a great time, he could care less about any rules telling him to live otherwise.  He tells me he loves me a hundred times a day.  He can be such a sweet brother to Dylan, and always makes sure Dylan gets his share of any special treat we might buy during the day while Dylan is at school.


But, he also still has a hard time controlling himself.  He has anger that is always right under the surface and if its the wrong situation at the wrong time, we have a Mount Logan eruption.  Its never a peaceful lava flow, rather, its gushing, bubbling and burning everyone that gets in its way.   I've talked about his anger many, many times, including needing to take a step away that this summer and get some perspective.  And for every one time I have talked about it on this blog, there have been a whole other slew of episodes that left us spinning and exhausted.  Its been a challenging time for our family.  I have lost my sanity many times, and somedays I feel like I've been hit by a truck.  But when that happens, you get up the next day and try to make it a better day.  Its just the way it is.


We're doing everything we can to help him learn how to control his emotions and reactions.  And I have every confidence, like a fine wine, he'll mellow with a little more age and experience under his belt.  Some anger can be good.  I'll certainly never worry about him being taken advantage of by other kids, for one thing.   However, I also don't want to worry about him being the bully in his class, or ending up at "Opportunity Station" as the principal in our elementary school calls the time-out work station next to her office.  

While there are a million great adjectives that can describe Logan's character, I don't envision "laid back" ever being one of them.  I'm fine with that.  We have one laid back child.  Dylan is just built differently.  He has his own easy going approach to deal with life.   And Logan is built the way he's built.  His passion and determination will be a huge benefit in some areas of his life, no doubt. There are plenty, plenty of descriptives we can be proud of.


Last year, we were under the impression that his behavior at preschool was much more controlled than his home behavior.  It seems that probably wasn't exactly the whole truth.   I had his fall parent teacher conference a few weeks ago, and it turns out he's having some issues with self control and expressing his anger appropriately.   This really didn't surprise me, since its true at home.  In fact, the thought of him having SO much more control at school than at home was somewhat alarming.  To be honest, it made me partly feel something must be setting him off at home to make it so much worse at home.  The fact that his lack of control carries over from home to school and back again makes more sense.

It turns out, also, he seems to have a few more issues with speech delay that need some extra help and focus right now.  So its been a couple of weeks of going back to the drawing board, making some phone calls, having some meetings and getting some help in place for him.


1.  He started speech therapy again today, and will go to speech once a week for an hour with an elementary school speech therapist.  He is in there with his teacher, and one other little boy having similar articulation issues.  He is struggling with consonant blends, sounds (especially at the beginning of words) such as "st-", "sp-", "sk-", "dr-", "th-", etc.   We listen to Logan all the time and get used to the way he talks.  But when he's around other people who aren't used to him, and he says the word "skateboard" and it sounds like "sateboard", well, it makes it hard to understand him.  You ask him to repeat himself, and then the anger kicks in.  He's frustrated you can't understand him (who can blame him?  HE knows what he means!), and then he starts yelling.

We have also found an excellent private speech therapist who will be working with him for the next few months, really honing in and trying to nip some of these phonological issues in the bud.  We're having to work the speech therapy in around his already busy preschool and taekwondo schedules, but it will be worth it in the long run.


2. We continue to work on the behavioral stuff at home and with his behavioral therapist.   We continue to use the jewel bear reward system, and every day is an ongoing series of reminding him what is appropriate and how to show respect for other people.    We have good days and not so good days.  We will be deciding this coming spring if he'll be going to kindergarten next fall as a young 5, or if (since he has a summer birthday), we'll wait until he's a young 6 year old.  These  next few months will be critical with the whole behavioral thing to see if we think he can handle it.   I'm very thankful for his excellent and helpful preschool teacher this year.   I had full disclosure with her and gave her Logan's history.  She is completely supporting everything we're doing at home, and giving me daily reports so I can talk to Logan about his days at school and find 'teachable' moments in them.  He's getting rewards for good days when we get home.


3. He continues to excel at Taekwondo, and in fact, is testing for his next belt tomorrow morning.   We'll all go to cheer him on and celebrate his success.   Taekwondo has become an important part of his life, he goes twice a week.  He's built a relationship with the other boys and his instructor.  And it reinforces all the things we are trying to teach him - focus, self control, discipline and respect.   Its been worth every penny.  If anyone has a child struggling in any of these areas and only has money to spend on one extra activity, this is where I'd put your money!


4. Back in September, we talked with a doctor friend of ours who thought it might be useful to have Logan allergy tested for food intolerances.    Logan has a history of not wanting to eat, asking only for very specific foods, avoiding entire food groups, throwing up easily and having a low gag reflex. We've also read a lot about the relationship between certain foods, particularly milk, and behavior.   Its all very interesting.   We took him to a popular pediatric allergist who did a patch test on Logan's back.  As I type this, I can't believe I never blogged about it back when it was all happening.  Its all been such a whirlwind with so many things going on at once.  I think I've also just needed some time to get my mind around it all.


But anyway, here is what the patch test looked like when the patches were on his back:

And here is what the reactions looked like after 48 hours when the patch came off:

Its hard to tell what you're looking at, but the patch reveal seemed to show that he might indeed have some intolerance to milk (which is a huge part of his picky eating diet, he drinks milk by the gallon). 

That led us to Step 2 - taking him to a pediatric G.I. specialist in our area to pursue more answers on the food intolerance.  To make it as concise as possible, Logan is scheduled to have an endoscopy on Monday, November 22nd (just over a week from now).  He will be put under anesthesia and they'll scope down into his belly, doing biopsies down his entire G.I. tract. They're looking for the  presence of eosinophils and irritation in the G.I. Tract...a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Whether or not this is related to behavior remains to be seen.  It could be another piece to the puzzle, or we might be discovering a whole new can of worms.We won't have the results back until early December, but we're hoping we can either rule this out completely or, we can try some elimination diets so see if less milk in his diet has a positive impact on his behavior.





Whew.  Are you still with me? Its a lot to take it, believe me, I know. 


I've had my hands full with taking Logan to preschool four mornings a week, taekwondo twice a week, and now speech twice a week, and still having time to fit in playdates, giving Dylan everything he needs to be successful at school and have lots of fun in his life, maintaining the housework, managing the family calendar...  Its true what they say, a mother's work is never done.  Its been a very busy fall indeed.  But I'm just doing what any other mom would do... trying to do the best things for my boys all the while trying to  keep a sense of  humor and sanity.


I've said many times how thankful I am that I've had this time to be home with my kids and focus on what they needed.  I can't imagine trying to balance in a career while all of this has been going on.  I have an incredible husband who works very, very hard to make it possible for me to stay home and there isn't a day that goes by I don't appreciate that.  


Being home as enabled me to spends hundreds of hours on the phone with insurance companies and doctors, taken Logan to more hours with more therapists and doctors than any four year old should have to endure, and stay on top of everything it takes to manage a household.  Many, many parents do balance all of this and also manage a career.  I just don't think its something that would have worked for me, at this point in our world.


I'm sharing all of this because I know I'm not the only parent with a challenging young child.  I know it helps me everytime I talk to someone else who has struggled with their child.  Parenting isn't always a neat, pretty package full of cute moments and laughter.  Its sometimes messy, loud, and not what you expected. Its hard.  Really hard.  And if someone can read this and find comfort in that, I'd feel very glad. 


Logan, from the casual on-looker, just seems like any other four year old boy. And in many ways, he is.  He just has some extra little special nuances that make him, him.  There's never a dull moment with Logan in our family, and I wouldn't want it any other way.


I love you, little buddy.