Oliver's Host Week at Preschool

What a lot of fun. But Mama just has to say—bless all the preschool teachers out there! They are a very special lot of people. Wrangling a bunch of 2.5 year olds is fun, but probably the most exhausting thing in the world! 

We spent some time getting our apartment ready for the invasion, complete with special dinosaur tiles. (Which we finally removed by the 3rd day since one of the favorite activities seemed to be to pull all the tiles up and throw them around the room, particularly during clean up time.)

Ollie was very excited to have his friends over to his house for his week. He ended up doing a pretty good job of sharing his toys and his Mama. And by pretty good, I mean he only bit one kid, had three meltdowns, and one time out. But it could have been worse. It's hard having 5 other kids all up in your space! But really, he mostly shared well, showed the other kids where some of his favorite things are, participated in all of the art and cooking projects, and loved to shout out the answers to questions that Teacher Vickie asked. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

Each day started with circle time. Ollie loved shouting out answers to Teacher Vickie's questions.


And all the kids liked the songs.

Making playdough.

A rare group effort using Ollie's tools to build "Baby Ana" (Ollie's baby doll) a bed.

Ollie usually has fun with his toys, but it's even more fun playing with them with the other kids.

Art project time.

"I know! I know!"

Time to bake pumpkin seeds. Here they are getting them ready and tasting the uncooked seeds.

Much better once they're baked!

Time for a little group yoga.

Ollie's favorite: Tree Pose.

It rained the first two days of class, but finally on the 3rd day, we got a little outdoor time on the roof.

Getting ready for another art project by looking at different kinds of pumpkins, squashes, and gourds.

Messy time: painting. (Why did we get a white couch?)

Another group effort... the kids made this train all by themselves.

Then time for dress up with our new stash of costumes. First there was doctor. They all took turns being the doctor and the patient and then gave each other treats after their appointments.

Next it was time to put the helmets on and "go rescue people".

But Zadia clearly won the prize for the most creative and stylish firefighter costume.

Something was pretty funny, not sure what it was.

Helping Teacher Vickie make chocolate chip pumpkin muffins for snacktime.

Of course you have to sample the ingredients.

Snacktime. The muffins were a big hit.

Yep, he definitely likes preschool!

Hypofethis

Ollie is getting ready to be a big brother

the craaaaaaaazy bus goes round and round

i met my buddy miles at the queens county fair the other day...we had a blast

we rode our papas

we watched the grass grow

we ran and ran....and rolled and rolled

and then we went on the craaaaazy bus and went round and round

 

miles, i cannot wait until we hang out again...

More Apples

 More pix from our recent Apple Picking Adventure

Apple #3 plus Mama!

Apple #4

OllieCrow!

The best feature of the apple orchard was the 1/4 scale mini village, with jailhouse

And schoolhouse

Bus Fest

Apparently buses are as cool as trains. Ollie recently went to the MTA bus festival and had the chance to make his own bus and drive it around the hood...

BEEP BEEP

Along with the make your own bus session, Ollie explored some vintage buses parked at the festival.  Meanwhile his Papa tried out his new panorama feature on his phone. I apologize in advance if this blog starts to have too many panorama. Click on the photo to see more detail.

Where Do Apples Come From?

Ollie has been asking lots of questions lately. His favorite is, "where does __________ come from?" So when Ollie asked where apples came from, we decided to show him. Papa planned a special secret Sunday trip upstate. He told Ollie it was a secret and not to tell Mama. The next time Ollie saw Mama he promptly told her, "we're going apple picking!" (But it was okay that he blew the secret part, because Papa still had a secret massage appointment for Mama up his sleeve. Ahhhh, what a great Papa this Mama has!) 

Ollie was pretty excited about pulling his own wagon.

A lot of the apples were pretty high up in the branches so we started out with a little help from Papa.

But Ollie's favorite part was the special apple picking stick he got to use.

And insisted on carrying himself.

It was a little heavy so Papa helped him get the apples down.

Which was VERY exciting to him, "we got an apple!!!!"

We collected a few bruised ones before Ollie understood that he had to put them gently in the bag rather than throwing them from 2 feet away.

He ate probably 5 apples that day... and some more when we got home.

And that is where apples come from.

i wanna be a raver some day

the story of my first rave:
according to papa, when mama and papa were in college they used to go to raves all the time....i am not sure if this true, cuz i hear papa was just a part time raver.... i asked papa for some pix of said rave days, but unfortunately his pix are not digital.  he did find some videos of raves he attended in a tunnel and in a run down mall in pittsburgh.

back to the story...here I am with mama and my fellow raver ju-ju bean at the secret meeting spot -  where we had to get directions for the party.

after a long drive in a a van, we came across the rave site...a tent in  ju-ju's backyard

after the sun went down, we got in to our pjs  and  got the party started!!! 

papa provided the choons and ju-ju's daddy provided the  

glow sticks!!!!

rave on!

glow stick action!!

luckily i couldn't figure out how to use seth's camera, otherwise i would have been able to film papa who fell asleep in the middle of the rave! smile!

i can't wait for my next rave....

First Day of School!

Yep, can you believe it? Ollie's going to preschool! We're doing it Brooklyn style. Six families have formed a coop, named it Tiny Human Academy, hired an amazing teacher, and will take turns hosting the new classmates at each home every six weeks for three mornings. Ollie was REALLY excited to go. He's been telling everyone, including the guy who runs the parking lot down the street, that he's going to preschool. We've been talking about it for a while, got a special new backpack, and he knows a few of the kids in his class quite well (the first week is at Zadia's house, so he's really familiar with his "classroom" this week). All of that made the first day a lot of fun—he didn't mind at all when Mama waved goodbye... it was just Mama who got a little teary.

First though, Ollie practiced being a teenager and tried to sleep in on his first day.

But soon enough he was up, filled with breakfast, dressed, and ready to go with his new monster backpack. 

High-fives for Papa on his way out.

And poses with Mama.

Zadia's house was all ready for the first week... complete with special cubbies for each kid!

On the first day of school when Papa was little, Poppy used to tell him, "the party's over!" since summer was ending. But we think for Ollie, the party's just starting!

Never Too Much

I think Ollie has a new favorite food....one he calls Something for Licking (vs Something for Eating or Something for Drinking)

...as you can see Ollie like his folks is not good at making a choice. 

Why choose when you can have two flavors!

Biking Pregnant Lady and Toddler Style

A beautiful day and a trip to Governor's Island.

We rented a "family" bike. Mama and Papa did all the pedaling (and by Mama and Papa, I mean Papa).

And Ollie was in charge of the brake. Which is a good thing, because we all know Papa is a wild driver!

We spent the first half our our bike ride frantically searching for the ice cream lady, who Ollie spotted on the ferry boat over. We promised him ice cream when we got there, but then the ice cream lady took off before we even got off the boat. But luckily we found her and then there were two happy ice cream monsters.