Preschool

I can't even believe I just typed that out as the title of this post. It hurts my heart.

In less than 2 and a half months, my baby boy will be turning three! Jacob has been in the state's Early Intervention program since he was discharged from the hospital in July of 2008. The Early Intervention program works with children to get them caught up with their peers. This was a big undertaking in the beginning since Jacob came home when he was 4 months old, but his adjusted age was only 10 days old. It is impossible to get a 10 day old on par with a 4 month old, but the idea of EI is to help them get where they need to be for at least their adjusted age until they can catch up (usually by age 2 or 3) with their peers.

Once the child turns 3, they are discharged from the state run EI program and turned over to the public school system if they are still in need of services. This allows the child to enter preschool the day they turn 3 instead of starting the September after they turn three so they don't lose any skills or fall further behind. Since Jacob still have a very significant speech delay we are fortunate that he qualifies for the public school preschool program.

We recently met with the Director of the preschool here in town and she gave us a rundown of a what a typical day would be like for Jacob. It sounds pretty similar to the play group Jacob currently attends every Wednesday for EI and he absolutely LOVES going to group so I think we will have a very easy transition.

The classes have approximately 15 children in them and include 6-8 students like Jacob who are need of services and 6-8 "typical" peers. Jacob is very social and independent just like his Mama (must be because we are both first born) and I have no concerns whatsoever about him going. The only thing that does concern me is since we are further South in town, instead of going to the actual preschool which is a building only for preschool students, he will most likely be attending one of two satellite classrooms in a local elementary school. I am a little concerned with him entering an environment with 5th graders, but I am hoping the preschoolers are segregated enough so he will not come in contact with them at any point during the day. It is only for 2.5 hours in the morning and I drop him off and pick him up.

Jacob has his semi-annual NICU follow-up clinic (as part of the study we enrolled him in when he was born) this Tuesday. I am interested to see the gains he has made in the past 6 months. Overall, I am amazed at how far my 1 pound 7 ounce boy has come. The only way you would know he was born so early is his size (he is still short and a lightweight!) and his speech delay. The only delay he has left to conquer is the speech and I am hoping the services he receives during the day at school will help get him caught up. He has 2 and 1/4 years to get caught up before we transition to Kindergarten (please hold on while I DIE at the thought of my child going to Kindergarten) so we will get him where he needs to be!

I will have an update later this week about his NICU follow-up clinic and later this month Gracie will be turning 18 months so I will have a post all about her and what she has been up to lately. This girl is quite the talker! I am hoping some of it rubs off on her big brother. :)

Birthday Party Planning Time!!!

I have been forcing myself to wait until 2011 to start planning Jacob's third birthday party since he won't actually BE three until 2011. Truth is I started googling ideas back in October. I have so much fun planning the kids parties and coming up with the perfect theme. I figure I only have a few years to pick everything out myself because before long they will have their own opinions on what they want.

The theme for Jacob's party this year was easy. Toy Story. The boy is OBSESSED! He had never watched a movie until he broke his leg and since he was stuck in a cast for 7 weeks in a semi-sitting position pretty much all he did was watch movies for those long 7 weeks. While we were in the hospital the gifts started pouring in. He received countless DVD's including Elmo, Curious George, Mary Poppins, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, Dora the Explorer and Toy Story and Toy Story 2. We also own every single Disney DVD that has ever been released from the "vault" and a handful of Pixar movies including Monsters, Inc. so I figured we would be good to go. I put in Monsters, Inc. and he watched 10 minutes and then started to cry. I put in Finding Nemo and 10 minutes later there were tears. I put in Curious George and I don't think he even lasted 10 minutes before the water works started. We finally tried Toy Story and he was hooked. Not only did he watch the entire movie, but as soon as the movie ended he started yelling, "Wooody! Woody!". We learned real fast that "Woody!" meant "Play it again!". He must have watched that movie 100 times before we finally convinced him that Toy Story 2 had Woody in it as well and was just as good. He has now seen both Toy Story and Toy Story 2 at least 150 times. He knows almost every word in the movie.

Needless to say, when I started brainstorming ideas for his party (shortly after Grace turned one in July....I kid you not) Toy Story was number one on the list!

I have been scouring the web looking for cool Toy Story ideas and I have found quite a few I wanted to share with you.

I did cookie favors for Grace's birthday since her first birthday was mostly adults anyway. For Jacob's birthday, I have decided to do goody bags for the kids and I found these adorable green alien bags on Etsy. As soon as I found them I had to have them! Mainly because I have decided to do cupcakes again since Grace's Watermelon Picnic themes cupcakes went over so well. You can click here to see her cupcakes. For Jacob's party, I am going to do the alien cupcakes I found here. They look relatively easy and go perfect with the theme and favor bags. I also found these cool cupcake wrappers just to add some more Toy Story flair to the party. I found a Junk Food tee at babyGap that has the Toy Story cast and aliens on it and we bought it so he can wear it to his party. He has already worn it a handful of times and I am hoping it still fits come March. This boy is eating all.the.time and growing like a weed (finally!).

Those are the ideas I am sharing so far, but I am also in the process of creating an invitation and searching the Target $1 bins for cool finds to throw in the goody bags.

We are going to have so much fun with this party and I can't wait for his birthday to get here. I can't wait to see his little face when it all comes together!

2010 in Review

Looking back through all of my pictures so I could write this post, I was amazed at the number of things that happened this year. The first picture I came across in my album was a picture of a 6 month old Grace. I can't believe she was ever that small in 2010. It feels like a lifetime ago that she was an immobile baby! I am so used to her walking, running, talking, etc. We definitely have so much to be thankful for and I am looking forward to all that 2011 has in store for our little family.

Without further adieu I give you 2010 - A Review in Pictures:

We started the year off in January with a 6 month old and a 22 month old! Grace tried solids for the first time, but was not a fan of rice cereal!





In March, we celebrated a certain little chicken wing's second birthday!





In April, we took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and headed into Boston for an afternoon at the Aquarium and we explored the North End. We also took a walk through the Common and Public Garden.





In May, we took a road trip out to Pennsylvania and stayed at Sesame Place for a few days.





We spent our days in June at the playground, eating ice cream and playing in our pool in the back yard.






Gracie turned one in July and we celebrated with a Watermelon Picnic themed birthday party.






Pretty much the entire month of August was spent dealing with the aftermath of Jacob breaking his leg. An event I don't hope to revisit in coming years! :(




September was the month Jacob got his cast off and we spent one weekend at the Bourne Scallop Fest. We had fried dough, rode the ferris wheel and train and listened to the Toe Jam Puppet Band!






We went apple picking at the beginning of October and wrapped up the month with a trip to the Pumpkin Patch!







There are basically no pictures from November and December since at least one of us has been sick every week since Veteran's Day. It has been a rough couple of months, but we are hoping for good health to kick off the New Year!

Happy New Year to all our friends, family and readers! May 2011 bring you and your family many blessings!