You are a big brother now! Baby Miriam was born on Monday, March 26th. You came over right after preschool to the hospital to meet her. You were so excited, and you kept saying, "She's so tiny! She's so tiny!" You wanted to hold her right away, and you loved it when she grabbed on to your finger. You stayed over at the apartment that night so that Dad could come back to the hospital. You came to visit on Tuesday afternoon, and then Miriam and I came home that evening. The first couple of nights were kind of chaotic, but we all managed to survive.
Everyone asks how you've been doing with having a new baby around, and I'm happy to say that you've been doing really well. You get a little frustrated sometimes because you want to play with her, and of course she's too little to play yet. You want to show her your toys and help us take care of her. You've been doing well being patient. I was waiting for you to hit the, "Take her back!" phase, but we haven't seen it so far.
You've even adjusted pretty well to not having me around for you all the time. You did have one night when you didn't want Dad to give you a bath, and you got very upset. I was talking to you afterwards, putting on your pjs, and I said, "You can let Dad help you do things. He's a really useful Dad." You said, "Like Thomas is a really useful engine."
I said, "That's right. Dad is good at lots of things."
You said, "He's good at drawing. And playing video games. And making breakfast."
It was pretty sweet. And ever since then, you've actually been a lot better about doing things with Dad as well as with me.
Overall, I think you've had a good first month of having a sibling. She hasn't seemed to wake you up at night, which is good. You're still sleeping in the crib, so we may have to work on that transition over the next few months, but I'm not worried about it.
I got to observe your classroom last week. It was interesting to see you interact with other kids and with your teacher. When you saw that I had come in, you said you wanted to observe with me, so Rachel had to distract you by showing you something to work on. It was good to see her demonstrate something to you; she goes through the steps very slowly and deliberately. It gave me some ideas on how I can give you directions better when we are doing something together. It was also good to see what the older children are working on. We've seen so many changes in you already since you started school, and it was fun to see what other skills you might learn while you're there. We've got you signed up for their summer program, but for three mornings a week instead of five. Grandma and Grandpa Lam decided they wanted some unscheduled days during the summer weeks. Hopefully we'll have a nice summer with good weather, so you can do fun things on your days off.
Speaking of nice weather this summer, I've been altering your shorts by adding an extra piece of elastic to the waistbands. When I got out your warm clothes last fall, I packed up your shorts for Cousin Ray, thinking that you'd be too big for them this summer. Instead, you haven't really gained any weight at all, so your waist is much to skinny for these 2T shorts. Your head, on the other hand, is getting too big for your 2T shirts, so once again your shirts will be a whole size bigger than your pants. Good thing we've gotten hand-me-downs in three different sizes, but unless you have some kind of growth spurt soon, we'll be working our way through them for the next four years.
You went to the dentist for the first time this month. I wasn't sure how thrilled you would be about some stranger poking around in your mouth, but you were the perfect patient. You opened wide when they asked you to, and you let them brush and floss and even do a fluoride treatment. I was pleased and impressed. It turns out your last two molars are a little late coming in, and the molars that you do have are really deep, like mine. Other than that, they didn't have any concerns about your teeth, so it was an easy appointment. Next time, they might try to take x-rays, which should appeal to your scientific nature, even if biting on weird plastic things doesn't appeal to your mouth.
So it's been a good month for us. Dad and I have been tired, of course, but your schedule hasn't changed so you've usually been in a good mood. Dad's been enjoying his new job still. You spent some days in Madison and Menominee, taking the camper up to the cottage. Lately you've been helping Dad do maintenance on the fish tanks, which you enjoy. We've also been watching the IMAX movie The Ring of Fire a bunch of times. I may have to find a cheap copy of it somewhere, just so I can finally get the next DVD on our Netflix queue. My cheesy romantic comedies are being held hostage by your love of volcanoes. Thank goodness I can still watch streaming videos over the internet. (If that particular sentence becomes as dated as Beta vs VHS, just try to remember that I wrote this in the stone age.)
Love,
Mom
Your birthday celebration at school (just to give you an idea of your classroom):
