Summer!

I've thought "I should put that on the blog," about a hundred times since the summer started but it seems like there's so much to do always. I'm really going to try to make a commitment to do it more regularly, though. The boys are changing so fast.

Big news on the Luke front is that a five-year-old boy, Max, just moved into the first floor apartment next door. He is starting kindergarten at the same school Luke will go to in the fall! They made friends in about 30 seconds and have played with each other every chance they have gotten since that first evening. Luke was so excited that he could just go next door and ring Max's door bell and ask him to come over and play, that we actually had some issues in the first few weeks with him leaving the house without our permission (or even our knowledge) and leaving the door open so his brother could get out. He would just get so excited when he heard Max outside. We made a door hanger that says "Please ask mom!" in big letters on it and hung it on the front door, and since then he hasn't forgotten to get permission once. The two of them will spend the whole morning at one of our houses, separate for lunch, and then get back together at the other house and play for the whole afternoon. When Teo takes his nap, if Luke is next door instead of here, it means I have two or three whole hours to myself. It's a miracle.

At the same time, though, I really miss Luke. We haven't been doing as many fun activities (going to the zoo, going on nature hunts, going to the library, etc.) as I planned on this summer. Luke just always wants to be with Max. Also it really ties me to the house, because I can't just run out to the store or run an errand even if he is next door. I know it's really good for him to have a good friend, though, and to have the experience of spending a lot of time together and learning the kinds of social skills you need to have for that. So far, I think he's doing really well, and luckily, Max is no pushover, so Luke is learning to do some negotiating.

Teo does NOT like Max, though. He keeps hitting him on the head and pushing him, and which unfortunately is making the feeling mutual. I tried to explain to Luke today that Teo gets jealous when Max is over and Luke is playing with Max instead of his brother. Normal stuff, I guess, and stuff they'll just have to learn to negotiate.

It does mean that Teo and I are getting a lot of time together. It gives me a little window into what it will be like this fall when Luke is at school all day and it's just me and Teo. Teo is in such a great stage right now, and so wonderful to be with. I did tell him today, though, that he's going to have to work on his conversational skills if we're going to keep spending so much time together. Basically all he does in that regard is point randomly at things (and sometimes at nothing at all) and make cute little "Ah, Ah" sounds. Still, it's refreshing considering Luke uses his language skills to do things like update me on my approval ratings (very low today, apparently, because I wouldn't let him and Max have cookies until after they'd both eaten lunch).

What's amazing to me is how much Teo is able to communicate even without using any words. On Sunday first thing in the morning I decided to go grocery shopping because we were totally out of food. I was just going to run out quickly. While I was putting my shoes on, Teo brings me over his shoes and puts them in my lap. So I said to him, "No, Teo, you stay here with Mama." He screwed up his little face into a perfect picture of discontent. "I'm just going grocery shopping...it will be more fun here...you haven't even eaten breakfast..." With each of my arguments, made it clear with his whole body that he was coming with me. Finally, I put his shoes on and we headed out towards the car. He was still looking at me as if he didn't quite trust me. Then I said to him, "Wave bye-bye to Mama!" He burst into a huge smile and started waving at her so hard I thought his little hand would fall off.

He worries me, he really does, because he is so opinionated and he's uncannily good at getting what he wants. He really has us wrapped around his little finger. I mean, we're being careful not to give into terrorism (tantrums and the like) but he's actually more subtle than that. He manages to get what he wants and make you think it was really all for the best. Scary.

I have been doing a lot of reading for my career change and I'm starting to suffer that side affect they say medical students get when they start diagnosing themselves (or their loved ones) with every medical condition they read about. Yesterday I was reading about all these factors that in early childhood that make it more likely that a kid will be learning disabled, and Teo had four of them. I really have never believed that we've seen the last of the impact of his traumatic birth and early lung problems, and this only confirmed that fear. Luke, of course, had only one of the factors--THE one--that I am constantly worrying about, which is being the youngest in his class. I am really leaning more and more towards having him repeat kindergarten next year, but with Max next door now, I know that will be even harder to do. Then I remind myself that he hasn't even had a day of kindergarten yet, and that it's way too early to decide something like that. It just breaks my heart, though, to think that we've set him up to have a bad start in school.

Well, today at Target we let Luke pick out his new lunchbox for school. Despite my worries, I want to make sure to enjoy and share in his excitement at starting kindergarten at a new "big kid" school. He picked out a Batman lunchbox that is wearing an actual cape, and a Superman thermos. He was very happy with them and made sure to put them in a safe place where he can see them when he got home.

We are working on big plans for his birthday, which is in a little more than a month. He decided he wants a Halloween birthday party, so we are calling it "Luke's Spooky Birthday Party" and "Halloween in August". We went on Oriental Trading Company last night and looked at a million Halloween items and ordered about $150 worth of Halloween toys and candy to give out to the kids when they go "trick or treating" in our house (from room to room instead of house to house). I am going to look up some fun Halloween games. I think it should be a good time. We invited 18 kids! Way more than we should have, of course, but these are the same kids who had him over for their birthday parties all year, and then we got into "if we invite this one, we have to invite that one..." What the hell. He'll love it and he'll clean up.

Tina is working full time now, so I am adjusting to being the full-time mom. I am mostly really enjoying it. I know it will be more stressful when I start seeing clients more regularly, of course. For now, it's great, though. I kind of wish I could just not work and do it all the time. I used to think I couldn't do it, but I don't know. Now I wonder. It would be hard in winter I guess. I am getting a little obsessive/compulsive about the house, which is probably not a good thing, but well, the silver lining is the house is really clean.