The student, the stand and plastic cups

Many look forward to the New Year as it brings along new hope and new beginnings. For others it could mean new environment and new people in their lives. For Isaac this year will surely bring many new and exciting changes for him.

For starter he will be officially going to Nursery 1 in exactly one week’s time. Till now I am still very nervous on this behalf. I am preparing myself for his teary eyes and maybe even wails. I remembered asking a reader how did she cope sending both her daughters to school last year and she said the best thing to do is for us to simply drop them off and go for our own cuppa and be back in time to pick him up later. This is the same advice given by the Principal. She claims it is better for the child in the long run and will help him/her settle in much faster. So this is exactly what we will do. We made up our mind during the ‘meet-the-parents’ session and there is no turning back now.

People have been asking me if I have prepared Isaac for school but besides telling him I am not sure what else is there to do. I’m rather certain he does not even grasp the concept of school yet. The closest thing to school for him was the weekly enrichment class that he attended. All I can do now is perhaps to let him get used to his school bag. We were told by his form teacher to help him identify his school bag for all the kids are carrying the bags. To achieve this we have decided to add a couple of the Mickey Mouse (his favourite cartoon character for now) pin and tag on his bag.

Below are some pictures of him in his school uniform.

Yes the pants look a little to big but they are already the smallest!

Now even the shirt looks big!

Looks better sitting down, I think.

Finally a close up on his cheekyness

I really like his smile on this picture. Very natural.

I heard that it is usually harder for the fathers to let go when it comes to things like this. Is this true? The Mrs seems pretty relaxed about the whole thing so far. I believe Sunday will be a sleepless night for me.

Meanwhile the twins are making good progress of their own. They have just turned 11 months yesterday and Luke is defying all the saying about girls being faster. Up till now he is usually about a couple of weeks ahead of Hayley in terms of development.

He started to sit up first before Hayley can sit on her own a week of two later. Luke is also the first to crawl and is still crawling faster and steadier than Hayley. These days Luke is showing signs that he is ready to make his own stand, literally. He is able to stand unassisted for about 5 seconds or so. He usually helps himself up with our bed and then let go before falling on his bum. Hayley while standing assisted doesn’t look too keen on making her own stand yet.

Looking at them now we are gearing up for the chaos that they will bring once they are able to walk and run. As it is we are having a hard time caring for them alone when they decide to crawl in the opposite direction while Isaac is happily running around and climbing up and down. I do not believe anything in the world can truly prepare for what we are about to face.

I told the Mrs a couple of weeks ago that we may have to forgo eating out for the next 2 to 3 years if Isaac’s current behaviour is anything to go by. While it is easier to sit him down in the highchair when we eat, his patience will not last long.

There are usually a few things that we can do to distract him. Perhaps this might come in handy for you too.

We start off by letting him have his own cutleries and place some food on his plate and let him have his way with it. Half the times he will be succeed in feeding himself while other times we will see him spilling the food on the floor or on himself.

Once he has had enough of the food he will want to get off or will target our ice water or whatever cold drinks we have on the table. These days we have to resort to telling the waitresses not to bring us our ice water until we tell them to. Isaac has developed the habit of pouring water from one cup to another. We have resorted to bringing small plastic cups (those that the restaurants give out for ice water) out so that he can last that much longer in the highchair while we gobble down our food. The end result for his is usually Isaac wetting himself with the water in the cups.