To my readers without live journals - please feel free to write. You can post an "anonymous" comment, but please tag them with your name so I know who you are!

Tuesday night was C Raz's daycare Halloween party. It is a cute event. They have different crafts or activities in each of the rooms, as well as some candy and some other yummy snacks. The main event, however, is the magician, who the children call Dumbledore. C Raz had a lot of fun - his favorites were getting his face painted, eating gummy worms and petting the magician's rabbit. The one downer about this event was they passed out glow-in-the-dark safety whistles...which many of the older children then annoyed the rest of the attendees by blowing way too much the rest of the evening.



"Dumbledore" uses distraction and slight of hand.


( Say Hocus Pocus and click here for more photos.... )

More penguin fun tomorrow!

(That's the Jaws theme song.)

I had to pick up Colin from daycare early today because he had bitten other children three times. Three is the limit before they are bumped for the day. By the time I picked him up, he was at four.

His instances of biting had gone down, but recently have been increasing again. I discovered today that a certain child, who seems to be his favorite nibble, recently has been transitioning into his classroom. The last time Colin had a major biting problem, this child was also in his class.

I'm not sure what it is about this other child. Attention jealousy? Conflict? There definitely seems to be a connection.

When we were headed into daycare on Friday, Colin decided that he needed to bring his doggie in with him. As I was grabbing it for him, he scavenged a purple ice cream scoop from the floor of the car (left there by Colin from a previous drumstick experience), and brought that in, too.

Headed through the lobby, we saw Ms. Carly. After she and I finished laughing about the scooper, she asked what Colin's dog is named. I said "he doesn't really have a name." Somehow she heard "Steve" from that...and now that has stuck.

So...add that to Colin's current french linguistic tendency. The last couple of weeks, it sounds like he has been adding "le" or "la" in front of his nouns. Things are le ball, le baba, le dawg, la mnah, etc.

And there you have....Steve Le Dog!

Another cool thing about the Toddler A room is that they do a lot of art projects with the children. Just this week Colin's Roller Print, Colin's Texture Art and Colin's Truck Track Art (titles per the teacher, not me) were awaiting me in his cubby. Colin's Big and Little Animals is on display in the classroom. As the collection grows, I am sure I can pass some on to decorate the refrigerators of interested grandparents, aunties and friends.

The photos here are what I view as Colin's first art project - and one he created himself, no help from a teacher, nonetheless. I had dumped the end of a box of Joe's O's (Trader Joe's extra apostrophe, not mine) on his highchair tray, and then went to prepare his lunch. Andy discovered his little design first and called me over. I was so proud and felt he had nice use of shapes and repetition.

Note: As you can tell by the hair, this is a few months back. Just trying to catch up on some older pix. Christmas coming soon to a Live Journal near you!

Today was the beginning of big boy week.

This morning we went to get Colin's One Year photos taken (ahem, okay, 14 months). Afterward he got his first haircut. Sob sob, those precious curls! I told mom this would be happening today, and the sound that came through the phone sounded like a wounded moose.

We went to Carnival Cuts, which I generally find pretty cheesy, but figure they must be good with wiggly little boys who won't even put up with getting their bangs trimmed, because first cuts are their bread and butter.

( Scenes of the torture... )

Monday, Colin starts in Toddler Room A. He has been transitioning over there during the past couple of weeks. It's a much bigger change than when he moved from the Infant Room to the Mobile Infant Room, which have basically an identical routine. He will now nap on a cot instead of in a crib, eat at a little table in a little chair rather than in a high chair and get to go outside and play for recess on days that don't prohibit it.