Preschoolers Use Forks

It's been about a month since Bry started preschool. It's been one big awe fest (mostly for Steve and I). Each day, we get an email from Bry's teachers outlining the day's activities. I've been carefully archiving these, though I'm not entirely sure why. Perhaps when Bry is 16 he'll want to know how on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, his preschool class had a dance party, rockin' out to "The Freeze" and "The Beanbag." When we ask Bry what on earth "The Beanbag" is, he responds in a sing-songy shriek, "I don't know!" his voice pitching up and down like a ship on the high seas.

Already, he's perfecting the art of teenage ironic ignorance, minus the irony (for now).

The random snippets about his days that he does share spontaneously are almost always convoluted bits of information littered with exclamation points: "Preschoolers use forks! But sometimes they eat finger foods! And sometimes they use spoons!" I can't help but find the way he speaks about himself and his preschool compatriots in the third person endearing.

All in all, Bry seems happy enough with school. Some days he doesn't want to leave, because he's so engaged in digging/driving/splashing/creating/being. A couple of weeks ago he soberly told Steve something along the lines of, "Before, I didn't like it when you went to work. But now I like it when you go to work, because I like to go to school." We smiled, and sighed with relief. All is well. Whew.

School

I don't have enough time to do justice to Bry's first week of preschool, so I'll just throw some pictures and sentences out and see what comes of it. Last year, I started the tradition of first day of school pictures, a practice which is sure to grate on Bry by the time he gets to junior high, but for now, is fun. This is what he looked like on his first day last year:


And this year:

I'm tolerating this picture thing, for now.

But I'm not gonna sit still for you.

He's like, a whole year older and everything.

So far, a week into things, all appears to be well. He cried a couple of days when Steve dropped him off, but according to his teachers, he's been coming out of his shell bit by bit. They told us about how he played on the "train" at Van Cleve Park, shouting out destinations, while a classmate, Colin, provided the soundtrack: "Toot toot!" and about how he updated everyone on the trucks that visited our block following the tornado last week. He was engrossed in a round of "If You're Happy and You Know It!" one day when Steve picked him up. We brought parsley from our garden for Miguel, the class guinea pig, whom Bry sometimes mistakenly calls a "guinea bunny."

Our kiddo, a preschooler. It still boggles the mind.

Whistleblower

Yesterday, Steve, Bry, and I took an impromptu trip to the Minneapolis Central Library via: (1) the light rail and (2) Au Bon Pain. The light rail was a major hit, though Bry insisted that it had a steam engine. The library was a veritable treasure trove of truck-related books, of which we brought home more than our share.

Lunch at Au Bon Pain was nice too. Steve and I polished off our sandwiches at a semi-normal pace, and then waited for Bry to gnaw through his egg and bacon bagel for approximately the next 80 hours. He is a sloooooow eater.

So Steve and I were waiting, amusing ourselves by commenting on the younger, hipper, more fashionably dressed crowd that congregates at lunch joints downtown. In the one .05 second window during which neither of us had our eyes on Bry, we were snapped out of our reveries by a sharp TWEEEEEET!

See that cord around his neck? Just before we left on our outing, Bry spotted an errant whistle, nestled amidst the mound of camping flotsam and jetsam waiting to be put away after our recent canoe trip. I tweeted it for him once, he loved it, and wandered around the house for several minutes, mostly slobbering into it, but occasionally producing a little tweet-tweet.

During lunch, either Bry did not feel that Steve and I were paying adequate attention to him, or he felt we were just a little too relaxed. At any rate, during the aforementioned brief window of not monitoring his every move (he was seriously taking forever to eat that bagel), Bry drew the whistle to his lips and produced an earsplitting TWEEEEET! that stopped every single conversation in that restaurant dead. I was too mortified to look around very much, but Steve reassured the other patrons and the restaurant staff that all was well. According to Steve, after the onlookers realized it was Bry who had blown the whistle, they were all smiles.

After he got over the initial upset of thinking that he had done something wrong, Bry was all smiles too, saying, "That was a good little joke."

Sunrise, Sunset: The Sequel

The summer is rapidly coming to a close. I'll be starting my internship (and hopefully my final year of this godforsaken doctorate), and Bry will be starting preschool on Monday.

Yup, preschool. (Insert some version of: Noooo! Mah preshus baybee is getting old! here). Last week, Steve, Bry, and I schlepped over to the U of M childcare center to do an "intake" meeting before Bry starts preschool. Five minutes into the meeting with his teacher, I knew we were in trouble. The signs that Bry is once again growing up faster than it feels like he's supposed to were all there. Bry played in his new classroom, while Steve and I were inundated with paperwork with titles like, "Dress for Success" (outlining age-appropriate clothing) and "All About Me" (a document for us to complete with Bry that discusses, among other things, his favorite color (blue), and if he had any wish, what he would wish for (pasta and fruit)). We were also handed a 30-page thick "curriculum" that demonstrated to us just how far behind we've been letting Bry slide this summer.

I kid.

But there were moments when Emilie, Bry's new teacher was talking, and Steve and I glanced sideways at each other, wondering if we hadn't accidentally signed Bry up for the 7th grade, instead of having him join the "younger preschooler" set. Mentions of things like social exclusion, teasing, overuse of "potty language," "increased independence," and place cards at breakfast, snack, and lunch (so teachers can control who sits by whom) set Steve and I reeling.

Later, when we got the tour of the classroom, we found out that Bry will have access to all manner of toys, like scooping beads in the sensory table, funky pyramidal blocks, and get this - paint - whenever he wants. Again, Steve and I glanced at each other and were all, "Are you sure that's a good idea?" The preschool playground sported a gigantic climbing structure, a DIY "treehouse" fashioned out of sticks tied to a platform, enormous sand pits, a box of dirt whose sole purpose is to be turned into mud, and an honest-to-goodness bike lane. All of the paved paths winding through the playground had arrows indicating the correct flow of traffic (an upgrade after one too many tricycle collisions). The teachers flood the slide with the hose on hot days so the kids can have a "water slide." There is a class pet, Miguel, a slightly overweight guinea pig. The kids go on field trips - to the city wading pool across the street, a neighborhood grocery store, and the nearby "train bridge."

Sounds like a heck of a good time, doesn't it? It almost seemed as if Emilie was trying to offset the heartache of things like social exclusion and teasing by waving her hands and exclaiming LOOK AT ALL THE FUN STUFF WE DO HERE! Steve and I were not fooled. Sure, we think Bry is going to love about 98% of preschool. But thoughts that other kids might be mean, or that Bry might have his feelings hurt were excruciating. The ongoing realization that Bry is growing up and away made both Steve and I ache, and long to keep him little, just a little bit longer.

Bryson Sings the ABCs and Other Classics

Yes, another video from Dad. If you're wondering about Bry's bizarre facial expressions during the second segment of the video, it's because he was watching himself in the viewfinder and apparently found his movements entertaining. Enjoy!

Wintertime with Bry

Yes, an odd title for July. This is Steve (the Dad). I've finally finished sifting through all the footage we took this winter and put together this video. Please forgive my lack of timeliness. Enjoy!

Corpus Scientia*

Editor's Note: I wrote this last November, and seem to have forgotten to publish it. Actually, it seems that I forgot to finish it, but figured what the hey, I'd publish it now anyways. Unfinished. Because that's how I roll.

Sometimes it's interesting to observe Bryson through others' eyes. This past weekend, we all went to Bryson's Aunt Sheila and Uncle Mike's wedding, where we got to visit with a lot of Steve's family whom we don't see often. Bryson also spent a significant amount of time with his Nana and Gong-Gong, who worked overtime to: (1) cart Bry to and from the wedding; (2) keep him quiet and seated at the church; (3) oversee his dinner at the reception; and (4) take on the unenviable job of wrestling overstimulated and overtired Bry into his pajamas and bed later that night, while Steve and I partied as if we were neither sleep-deprived, nor too old to remember how to party. (Note: Said partying ended at about 9:30 pm. We are old.)

The upshot of that rambly paragraph is that we interacted with a lot of people who gave us the 30-second rundown of their thoughts vis a vis our son. I think I can safely summarize the vast majority of outside opinions as follows: Bryson is cute. Now, as his parents, we are of course quick to agree with this assessment, if only because we figure it must reflect positively on us, what with the genetics involved in generating his good looks and all. To be fair, people did offer other descriptors for Bryson beyond "cute," including well behaved, cheerful, charming, and bigger. To which I responded (internally), ha ha ha ha, for the most part, yes, and duh, respectively.

Perhaps more interesting (and more to the point of this whole post) were the observations shared by both sets of Bryson's grandparents, namely that Bry seems to be a pretty knowlegeable guy, who is more than willing to share his wisdom with others. Repeatedly, if need be, and with very proper diction.

This is another point on which Steve and I concur, as proud parents are bound to. Reflecting on this weekend got me thinking about the bigger picture, though. Sit down, because I'm about to get all philosophical (which is never a good idea when I'm tired, and probably never a good idea no matter what, but here goes anyways). I started to think about how Bryson came into this world with essentially no knowledge.** From day one he's been learning nonstop. And maybe there was a time, early on, when Steve and I were aware of the entirety of Bry's body of knowledge. Mostly because we had taught a lot of it to him, or we had at least provided language for experiences that he grasped only through his senses. To be fair, this belief is probably more parental grandiosity than anything else. Because of course we couldn't ever have been aware of everything that Bry knew. From the moment he entered the world, he's been creating his own interpretations of what he senses. But at least there was a time when it seemed like what he knew was circumscribed. He knew our faces, the sounds of our voices, what it felt like to be held, and the smell of milk. He was instantly drawn to the black and white images we put next to his changing table, and learned to tune in to moving objects. I imagine his universe was a pretty small place.

Since those early days, the scope of his understanding seems to have expanded exponentially. What is most striking to me is that he can communicate a lot of what he knows, but the extent of what he can share must be miniscule in comparison to what he knows that is beyond words, at least for now.

What a funny, strange, amazing, indescribable thing, this watching a person become his own person.

*Body of Knowledge. Everything sounds cooler in Latin, yes?

**A recent workshop I went to suggested that an infant's first memory is based on his or her parents' collective unconscious. That was a little out there, even for me.