Don't Look Now - I Think He's Learning

This school thing is pretty cool.  They actually TEACH him stuff.  And stuff.  This week they have been focusing on feelings at school, so tonight at the dinner table we had a really nice conversation about what hurts my feelings, and what hurts his feelings.  We've been making faces all week and trying to guess what the person is feeling.  Today he came home with a Feelings Clock that he made at school.  When he pet Buddy a little too hard, he ran in to get his Feelings Clock so he could give it to Buddy, and he put the clock on "sad" because Buddy was sad.  Because Dexter pet him too hard.  It's pretty remarkable to watch.

Also amazing are his writing skills, which I pretty much have nothing to do with.  Today we got out the sidewalk chalk and wrote a few things on the driveway.  This is the first one:

It says "Try it out."  The only letter I had to help him with was "Y."  Yes, he still has issues with his "T's" and I don't know why because he has to write a T every damn time he writes his name.

Here's the more impressive second one, which he wrote when he was giving his Feelings Clock to Buddy:

I'm not even gonna tell you what it says, because it's clear as day, right?  I helped him with the "M" and the "Y" and the rest he did by himself.

He's wicked excited about riding the bus.  I don't know if that excitement carries over to school, but the bus is the highlight of his day, I think.  At 8:30 this morning he asked if his bus was in the driveway yet.  Well, no.  Your bus comes at 12.  Right now it's 8:30.  We have a long time.  At 9:30 he asked again if his bus was in the driveway.  Nope.  Sorry, kiddo.  Not yet.

I toss Buddy outside a few minutes before the bus is supposed to come because it's hard to see the driveway from anywhere in our house, and Buddy barks when it comes up the driveway.  So we know the bus is here.  And Dexter RUNS to the door, yelling "My bus is here!"  He says hi to Ms. Loretta (his very nice bus driver) before he even gets out of the garage.  And apparently he talks her ear off in the bus, same as he talks my ear off in the car.

So all is well.  School is good.  My new Fair Hill website is good.  Swimming lessons seemed to go fine yesterday for Dexter.  The baby is doing well in my belly, and the past couple non-stress tests have been fast and uneventful (after one eventful NST when I was apparently having contractions.  I couldn't feel them, but the monitor picked up on them, and I had to stay and chug juice til they stopped).  And Dexter has continued to help with baby prep.  Now that we've got a few things in the baby's room, he prefers to play there, and tonight he asked if he could sleep in the crib in the baby's room.  Ummmmm.  NO.  And here's why:

You are, perhaps, just a LITTLE too big for the crib now, kiddo.  Which is insane, because I swear you were not this big when  you left the crib and got a big boy bed, like four months ago.  How many feet have you grown this summer?

Here's a few more baby prep pictures:

Putting circle decals on the walls of the baby's room

He did an awesome job.  I went back and smoothed out a few circles, but otherwise he did all the circles all by himself.

And look!  His butt was even covered up this time!  Yes, it was another Sunday afternoon.  And yes, he has no pants.  But he has SOMETHING covering his butt.

I think it looks pretty great.  We might even get another pack some time, and put up more.

Fairly typical Buddy positioning.  Dexter insists on locking him in the baby's room whenever we are in there.