October Part One: A Few Preschool Events

In October, Jack's preschool class took a field trip to the local fire station that my parents and I had taken the boys to this summer.  The preschool director said that Sammy and I could tag along and also gave my mom and Luke permission to join us as well!  We threw the babies in the stroller and followed the kids as they paired up to walk to the fire station.  I was a little nervous about Jack walking while holding another child's hand, though.  Since he is incredibly clumsy and has no awareness of how strong he actually is, he tends to accidentally knock/yank down kids when he holds their hand.  I was pleased, though, when I saw who they paired him with! His teachers are so smart to pair the clumsiest child in the world with the most coordinated child in the world (seriously- you should see this little boy zipping around on a two-wheeler like he was born on one)!  Jack fell down a couple times, but his little friend managed to keep his footing without letting go of Jack's hand even once!

Mr. David leading the kids in their stretches before they go on their walk

 

An example of how Jack usually ends up knocking kids down, and how impressive it was that his friend didn't fall down!

The kids had a great time at the fire station!  They got to learn and do a lot of stuff.  It was very apparent, though, that Jack is very comfortable in fire stations.  During the tour, Jack answered a lot of the questions and then followed them up by giving his own quiz to the firefighters... finally they said to him "Maybe you should be leading the tour!"  Yeah, I have that kid.

 

 

 

 

The kids lined up to take a group photo right before we left, but I had my close lens on so I couldn't get the whole group... this was the best I could do:

 

A few days after the firestation field trip was the Trike-A-Thon!  Jack did a great job... I think the pressure was getting to him because when we got there to root him on (they were a little ahead of schedule so we didn't make it until after they started), I noticed that he looked a little bit stressed and like he was trying to hold back tears.  As soon as he saw us, though, he perked right up!  I sent Dave out onto the track to jog alongside him and make sure that everything was okay, and that helped to relax Jack even more and from that point the smile never left his face!  Sam had a great time cheering Jack on, too!  He loved chanting "Go, Jack Jack, Go!" every time Jack came around the track!  I think Jack's favorite part, though, were the fans that were misting water to cool off the bike riders!  After the Trike-A-Thon the kids got to enjoy some Jamba Juice (Dave and I each got one, too... we love Jamba Juice!) and/or Capri-Sun, and then we headed home to let Jack finish his day at preschool.

 

 

 

The third preschool event was a trip to the pumpkin patch!  My mom was on vacation that week, so she wasn't able to join us with Luke... but Amy got to join us with Luke instead!  Jack was pretty excited that Auntie Mimi got to come, and he was even more excited that we got to go to our favorite pumpkin patch for the third year in a row!  I think the thing that he was most excited about, though, was the fact that we got to ride on a bus!  He very excitedly told his teacher that this was his first time on a bus... and Sam and Luke were very excited about it, too!

  

The first thing we did when getting to the pumpkin patch and getting our tickets was head over to tractor for a ride over to the petting zoo!  Of course, this was Sam's favorite part of the trip to the pumpkin patch... my little animal lover!  He was very excitedly looking at all the goats, getting down to their level and talking to all of them like they could understand what he was talking about.  He even picked up a piece of hay and tried to feed one of them.  Jack had fun in there, too- he and his two little friends followed each other around and had a great time petting the animals.

 

 

Then we hopped back on the tractor and made our way back to the main part of the farm/patch to check out the corn maze!  Of course we made it to the center with ease, the whole group of us, and made our way out again in much the same manner.

 

 

After that we took a bathroom break (lots of 3-4 year old bladders means a long bathroom break!), and we played on the hay bales while we were waiting.  Sam of course wanted to join the rest of the kids, and the girls were thrilled that my "baby" wanted to join in!  I think Sam is the most popular kid in Jack's class sometimes ;) 

 

After the bathroom break we headed over to the veggie patch!  I was really excited because this was something he hadn't gotten to do there before, and I was looking forward to Jack being able to pull the veggies right from the ground!  The kids had specific instructions, there were four kinds of veggies, and they were to get four of each kind.  Jack had his instructions memorized "I need four radishes and four green beans and four onions and four carrots, but I don't want to eat them so I will give them to daddy."  First up were the radishes, and unfortunately, he didn't quite understand what I meant when I said that radishes grow under the ground.  It was so funny to see him sit and stare at the plants and poke at the leaves and look around them, but not actually pull any radishes up.  I saw him looking at the kids next to him, who were triumphantly holding their radishes in the air, and then he would look through the plants in front of him again with a disappointedly confused look on his face.  Finally enough kids were done finding their radishes and had moved so I could come up next to him, where he told me "But mom, I just don't see any radishes!"  I saw the light dawn when I moved aside the green plants and pointed to the red bulbs that were protruding very slightly from the ground and I loved the triumphant noise he made when he shouted "OH!  They grow under the ground just like you said, mom!" He was thrilled to finally find them!

I told him that carrots would be the same way and onions would be the same way (boy did those onions smell good!), and he had a lot of fun picking those veggies along with his friends!

 

And then it was finally time to pick out a pumpkin!  Jack found the one he wanted right away, and though he is quite strong and certainly would have been able to follow the rules of "the child must be able to carry his own pumpkin out the door", he decided to choose a smaller one when I showed him how far away the door actually was ;)  I hadn't bought Sam a ticket to get any of the veggies, and he really didn't notice that he didn't get any.  He was just having so much fun checking out the pumpkins and trying to pick up the big ones that I don't think it even occurred to him that he was the only kid that didn't get to keep one.  

 

 

 

After the kids all picked out their pumpkins, we headed back to the bus to drop off the veggies and pick up their lunches.  Jack took that opportunity to teach Sam about our bus

And then we headed back to have lunch on the hay bales!

 

Finally it was time to give Jack's allergies some relief and hop back on the bus for the ride home!  Half the kids were so exhausted that they fell asleep (not Jack, of course, who hasn't napped since he was 2), and all of the adults were wishing they could fall asleep!  It was a great day at the pumpkin patch!