It’s Tuesday, which means it’s time to share your parenting ups and downs of the week!
Our reader question today is about preparing your little one (and yourself) for preschool.
As always, your comments are welcome. We’re all in this together.
Ouch
—Raising a Vampire
We recently taught our 16-month-old the word “hurt” so he could tell us when his teeth hurt. This was a very successful endeavor. However, he now regularly looks me in the eyes, says “hurt mama,” and then bites me. At least he warns me, I guess?
New year, new friends
—B
Currently in the season of dealing with after-school activities. My now 5-year-old has a lot of ideas of what activities she wants to explore, and of course she wants to do them all with her friends. Managing her expectations of the activities she wants to do, the activities I’d like her to do, the ones that work with our schedule, and the activities the other parents want their children to do is the impossible Rubik’s Cube that I think all parents struggle with at this time of year. At one point my daughter was sobbing because I told her she was not going to be doing a class with her “best friend.” One day later, after many discussions about this, she calmly looked at me and said, “I don’t care if none of my friends are in my classes. I’ll make new friends.” I was so proud of her for coming to that conclusion. We reviewed her classes, including who of her friends were in them with her, and she was very happy with the outcomes.
Editor’s note: There is a lot in The Family Firm about how to think about the logistics (and priorities) around these extracurriculars!
Baby on board
—Reducing Emissions in Style
We recently sold one of our cars and replaced it with e-bikes. Our 17-month-old daughter has been loving it! She has actually always hated the car, so it’s been so fun to have a new mode of transportation to enjoy our hilly neighborhood. When the bike starts rolling, she says, “Yay!” and waves bye-bye to any neighbors (and cars, and dogs, and houses...) she sees as we ride away. She loves pulling up to daycare and immediately seeing her teachers and friends in the window. She even sees her favorite swings on our route and sometimes convinces us to stop by pointing and yelling “Swish! Swish!” It’s been a wonderful way to interact with our neighborhood. We do live in Seattle and got our bikes at the beginning of our mild, gorgeous summer, but we are getting ready to rain-gear up in the fall!
Now it’s time for this week’s reader question:
We are preparing for our little one to enter preschool. She’s been at home with us up until now, so it will be a big transition for everyone. Would love some tips and tricks from others (both for Mom and Dad and the little one).
—Kate C
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Preschool tip: make plans for what will happen when your kiddo is sick and can't go to school. Your kiddo will be sick a LOT. Who will stay home with them: you? Your partner (if you have one)? Other caregivers who are available? Last minute nanny service? What if you get a call at 1pm to pick them up? If you find out the night before they can't go, or if you wake up the morning of and their eye is full of goop and they look like they have a black eye from a fight (this happened to us this morning)? Talking about these things and making plans in advance has greatly reduced the stress of unknowns and "what ifs," plus the added benefit of it not just being mom (me) all of the time.
Any time we have a big change coming up with our 3 year old (starting preschool last year, getting a younger sibling, starting swim lessons, going to camp, doctors visit, etc) we tell bedtime stories in the weeks leading up to the change using her favorite stuffed animal as the main character. We talked through how “Fluffy Bunny” feels before his first day of school, how excited he is to wear his backpack and all the great friends he makes on his first day. It’s helped a ton to prep her ahead of these big changes and she regularly asks for more stories about her bunny now.