Bedtime troubles

There was a problem at bedtime tonight. Noah wanted the door open and Snoopy, which is a stuffed dog that looks nothing like snoopy, wanted it closed. Noah was pretty concerned with my solution, keep the door  open because snoopy can't argue. Noah thought it was not fair to snoopy. Eventually, he acquiesced and snoopy and the boy are now asleep. 

yelled and sleeped

I thought Noah was asleep today and he started calling out, "I just remembered something. Come in come in. I just remembered something and I have to tell you". I went in and he said, "I just remembered that a person yelled and sleeped and yelled and sleeped and yelled and sleeped." And then I left and he went to sleep.

childcare plan, as of lately

noah	monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday	friday
morning	school	school	school	school	school
afternoon	helena (sitter) and at 4:00 matt (therapist)	tanlly across the street while i’m with barbara and aviva	helena	me until matt comes at 4	tanlly across the street, then matt at 4:00

aviva	monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday	friday
morning	celina/uma	celina/uma	celina/uma	fam?	fam
afternoon	celina/uma	me, barbara (therapist)	celina/uma	una (sitter)	tanlly across the street

me	monday	tuesday	wednesday	thursday	friday
morning	free time between dropoffs and pick ups	drop offs and pick ups and volunteer at le conte elementary	free time between dropoffs and pick ups	free time between dropoffs and pick ups	free time between dropoffs and pick ups
afternoon	home at 4 but free until then	home at 4, at 1:30 meet barbara (therapist) for/with aviva	home at 4 and free until then	volunteer with books for wider horizons	free time 1:00 until 4:00

This has been the plan lately, but there are changes all the time. Instead of Celina/Uma, (who will be with Aviva for the next couple weeks) there used to be Teresa, and then Estela. After Mexico, there will be a different plan. Noah started working with the ABA therapist, Matt, about a month ago. Noah's new school has same hours as last school - 9-1:00. But I need a car to pick him up and drop him off, until I get used to my new bike, which now has pumped up tires (they were flat when I got the bike). (I returned Cynthia's bike that I borrowed for several months.)  Helena picks up Noah twice a week, and walks home with him (about a mile). Celina watches Aviva 3 days and it's close to Noah's school, so I drive there. 

There are changes obviously when the kids are sick, or a sitter is sick, or it's a holiday. And when we go to Mexico in a couple weeks, we'll have a different plan there and afterwards. Celina can't continue so we're looking for someone else.

When we have something we need a sitter for, like a dinner plan or a party w/o kids, or a concert we'll attend, we find sitters. We have 4 different sitters who are in high school, and 2 college students. They can usually fill in the times we need, but I need to ask by email and also text, because some of the sitters don't check their email.

It looks here like I have a lot of free time. It doesn't feel like it, because I need to arrange sitters for future times, and I also need to do a half-ass job of cleaning up and doing laundry and groceries and whatnot. But I did apply to school and I'll start at the end of January. Also I'm volunteering one morning a week and one afternoon a week with kids' books stuff.

Walker/Talker

Aviva is very much not a baby now, though I've been thinking that for awhile now. But it's especially clear. She can walk backwards. She likes to walk and hold hands, and she likes to give kisses. Lots of kisses, sometimes with an open mouth, and she grabs your face so she can put the kiss on your cheek or your lips. Or, she'll put out her bottom lip and stick out her chin, and that means she's ready to give you a kiss. She gives pets: she pets your cheek or your shoulder or arm. Peek-a-boo is all the rage. And she tells us "up me" when she want to be picked up.  

Noah's new school

This is the first week Noah is at his new school. He likes it a lot and after we visited once, he liked to tell people about it. He was telling walkers-by, and the people at the grocery store all about it. His sweatshirt will go in a cubby instead of on a hook! They have a plastic pretend coffee maker with a pretend blender, too! And today it was someone's birthday, so we had a cupcake AND half a cookie!! So far, so good.

This is lullaby that Noah made up, and you can sing it to yourself if you want. It goes like this:
Did you seen
the ghost on the train?
It makes the train
stay on the track.

He also likes to make pretend ice cream, and yesterday the flavors were purple banana. The cake flavor is vanilla. A popular flavor is chocolate with a star. But they ran out of that one yesterday.

The window in his room has to be closed at night because he doesn't want "creatures from the forest" to come inside. We think the creatures might be crickets...