Call to Jon this morning:
me: Have you seen the headphones around?
Jon: I think I saw them hanging in the Christmas tree.
me: Oh, great, thanks – I can see them now.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Apple headphones look just like the our white Christmas light strings.
Possibly, he is just so used to everything in our house plugging in (and being compatible with Apple products), and he figured by attaching the headphones to the tree, it could listen to his iPad movies.
My wonderful sister was kind enough to gently remind me that we haven’t updated Mad’s site in a bit!
There have certainly been some changes in his life recently too. Most notably, Maddox is now in pre-school (or, more accurately, pre-pre-school) at the local Kindercare. And when I say local I mean literally 1.1 miles up the road.
It was very, very tough leaving the wonderful, loving person that Maddox had watching him since three months old. We were so lucky to have her be such an important part of Maddox’s development, but we knew eventually we would want to move him into a pre-school environment — the time just snuck up!
The first day went absolutely fine. In retrospect, that was because he had no idea we’d be leaving for the day, since on our previous two visits we just visited and then all left together. The next few drop-offs though he cried and wailed for his mom, so much so that Leanne ended up picking him up before his nap both times.
I took over drop-offs after, and it was just heart wrenching to drop him off while he was yelling for me saying “No preschool please” and “Please home!” and “Peanut butter!” (the latter being because he figured out if he said he wasn’t done eating, he’d never have to leave home!).
Today marked the first day without a single sad face or sound. In fact, he actually squirmed in my arms to be let down. Also for the past several days as soon as I walked in the room he would say “Had so much fun at preschool today!”
This was an interesting year for Halloween. Two nights before, we had a massive snowstorm, with not that much snow, but enough to bring down tree branches that left us without power for much of the weekend.
My parents were visiting, which meant we all wore multiple layers of clothing and, being without power, let Maddox dictate the activities for the day.
On Halloween itself, we had some friends over who had just moved to the area, also hoping that their kids would serve to inspire Maddox to get into the lion costume we had for him. He wouldn’t have any of that at first. Oddly enough though, he was very excited by the idea of painting his face!
He still wouldn’t get into his costume though. So we thought we’d head out with just the face paint. At that point, my smart wife asked Maddox if he wanted to put his “coat” on. Tada!
We then took Maddox around the neighborhood for about 45 minutes, and it was an absolute blast. There are some points when being a parent that are just the best feelings in the world, and walking around with him, gleefully holding his pumpkin up while he said trick-or-treat to every house and other person out there, was one of those moments.
Mads has always been casually interested in the games we play on our Apple devices and such, but nothing has entranced him more than World of Warcraft. It’s a game Leanne and I have been playing on and off (but mostly on) since 2004. We played it … a lot. In fact, we once were part of a group of people who signed on to collectively kill monsters Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 5:30pm to 12pm each night.
So it is really any surprise that we’ve passed on those genes to Maddox?
You only see a glimpse of it here, but Mads is doing this hilarious thing recently where when he says “soccer” he does this spasmy thing with his face and hands. It’s one of those things that I have no idea at all where he got it from.
