snow shoveling

Yesterday we had the biggest snowstorm since we have moved to our current house. PJ was very excited to help shovel with the children's shovel we have. His eagerness didn't surprise me; the fact that when he wanted to he could actually manage to move snow from the sidewalk to the pile did. He was also very disappointed when it was time to go inside and take a break. He was busy clearing the snow off the car and wanted to finish, even though he had wet socks, pants, and mittens.

dentist

PJ had his first dental cleaning today. It wasn't (unfortunately) his first visit to the office. Last time we went (6 months ago) he was scared and wouldn't let them do more than count his teeth, though the hygienist looked at his teeth and said that we had been doing a good job brushing.

This time I was very proactive and I took out every book about visiting the dentist from the library and read all of them to him several times over the past two weeks. We also pretended to clean his puppets teeth and brought his favorite stuffed animal with us and a DVD to watch (the office has screens on the wall.) He was on his best behavior- I am very proud of him. He was a bit shy and at first didn't want the hygienist to put the suction in his mouth, but she showed him what it did and that it didn't hurt and he warmed up to the idea. The highlight of the visit was when the dentist said his teeth look excellent. He was so excited about it and when I left him at school he was excitedly telling his teacher about it. I am curious to ask her tomorrow what he might have told her.

Party for grownups

Last night my huband's company had a end of year party celebrating 13 years since it was founded. We left the two boys with a sitter, who came early to help the baby adjust, since he has been in a stranger anxiety phase. While I was getting ready and the sitter was watching the baby, PJ was watching me get dressed.

PJ: Where are you going?

Me: A party for grown-ups at Abba's work.

PJ: Can I come?

Me: No you weren't invited. And there won't be any other children there. Just grown ups standing around and talking.

PJ: I want to come anyways. Please?

Me: No.

After speaking to my husband, he had a very similar conversation earlier with PJ, describing how there wouldn't be food he wanted to eat (PJ :I'll eat it) and lots of speeches (PJ: I'll listen.)

He cried for two minutes after we left and then played nicely and was asleep when we returned home.

Counting and adding

Last night, on my car ride home, I was listening to a program that spoke about numbers and mentioned that around age 3.5 children start being able to understand integers.

As an experiment, I started asking PJ simple addition and subtraction questions at dinner. He easily did the add one or two, had trouble adding larger numbers and refused to do any subtraction problems. (I think some of that started when I asked him is he had jelly beans and I took some away... At least I was able to appease him with raisins for dessert instead of the requested jelly beans.)