Monday, March 18, 2013

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Wesley’s birthday lands over Spring Break this year, so school held his Montessori classroom celebration a bit early.

This is the idea behind the Montessori birthday celebration:

“Children are given a first impression of the relationship between Earth and the Sun and taught that a year is the amount of time it takes for Earth to circle the Sun once. Children are told the story of their lives, year by year, from birth to the present day. Using a globe for the ‘Earth’ and a candle for the ‘Sun’, a large circle drawn on the floor, and photos of the birthday child at different ages, we gather all around the circle. We put our candle in the center of the circle and light it. After learning how long it takes the globe we are carrying to circle the candle (Sun), we give the globe (Earth) to our birthday child and allow them to walk around the circle as we tell the story of their lives while stopping at the time on each of our pictures. [A child who is four will walk around the circle four times.] We end our celebration with singing and allowing the birthday child to blow out our [Sun] candle” (Source).

It was very special for Wesley and for me. His friends also seemed to enjoy it, and they happily sang to him in both English and Spanish – and then one of his teachers also sang “Happy Birthday” to him in Basque. It was really quite lovely.

Happy almost 4th Birthday my sweet wild sensitive boy.

 

 

Halloween, 2012

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I love Halloween, and I love this age Wesley’s at. 3 has been absolutely full of wonder and awe and laughs, and I can’t get enough of it. This was also the first year Wes picked his costumes all on his own, and on Halloween night, Craig joined in the fun:

For his school’s fall fest, the theme was “professionals,” and Wesley chose to go as a mail carrier, maybe because he knows how much I love checking the mail!

We prepared weeks in advance, too. Wesley decided he would make a card/letter for each of his school friends and teachers. I bought fold over cards for him, and he drew on the inside of each one and decorated the fronts with stickers. He sat at the keyboard with me as we typed up labels for the envelopes, and he was in charge of sticking on each label and a stamp, too, of course!

We stuffed his delivery bag full and he was so excited to deliver his special mail that day!

Cutest.Postman.Ever.

Wesley, Artist

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He spends a lot of time drawing (we keep sketch pads in the living room, in my purse, in the car). He loves stickers, too.

And tonight at bedtime, he informed us that when he grows up, he’s going to play an instrument (the trumpet) and continue to dance ballet. Our son, the artist.

Dancer

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Wesley attended a dance class yesterday afternoon, and, without a doubt, watching my son dance was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

 

 

(Oops, someone took a tumble there at the end, but she was okay!)

(Oh, I so wish I had caught that hug on tape!)

 

The clips don’t do the experience justice. Craig couldn’t be there to see it in person, but as soon as he saw the videos, he said, “he has to go back.” And he will.

Gaming

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I love that Wesley loves board games as much as we do. He can already (for the most part) follow the actual rules of the games, and he can definitely sit through various rounds of each one of them. We’ve been known to play a few different games all in a row, and yesterday alone we played our newest game five times. We are, however, still working on how to be a gracious loser. Sometimes he’s great at it – and will ask to play another round so that mama or daddy can also win – and other times it will crush him to lose and he’ll throw a fit. I think it must be the age, but he’s very interested in the concept of “winning” recently. It’s a work in progress. No matter. We’ll keep practicing by playing the games he currently loves, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Busytown, Chutes & Ladders, Memory, Candy Land, Cootie (a little less), and our newest addition, Bus Stop:

Party Animal

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I can see Wesley starting to come out of his shell. In the past, we mainly sat on the sidelines at parties or needed good chunks of time to warm up. But at the last birthday bash we attended, Wesley was a fully willing participant from the go, riding ponies, getting his face painted, taking a whack or two at the piñata. I don’t think he’s the least bit shy, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was an introvert. So it’s nice to see him being a party animal now and again.

That right there is my son, the paradox, my silly/serious boy, my tiger prince.