on the resilience of children

well, in case you all weren't aware - my son COMPLETELY amazes me. yep. TRULY. what inspires such praises?

well, eric and i have been avoiding ezra napping at parents' day out (pdo). although we have been paying for two full days of pdo on tues/thurs (@ a sickeningly cheap rate of $15/day), we only took ezra for the first 3 hours ... 9am - noon, basically, because we were afraid he would not nap after lunch in a room full of 11 other little kiddos and 2 teachers. well, as i prepare to return to work full time (God-willing!) when i graduate in may, we thought that we might need to start that transition now. furthermore, this semester i am taking 9 hours again, and i just need more time to study and get work done, so we finally bit the bullet. we did so, however, with great anxiety and hesitation as many of our other friends' children did not sleep at pdo - for like months at a time. so we did not eagerly begin this journey - uncertain how long it would take ezra to learn to sleep at pdo.

we were going to try his first nap @ pdo last week ... only, sigh - he chipped his tooth, and he and i spent most of the afternoon in the dentist's office playing choo choo trains and getting his tooth shaved down. so yesterday was the BIG day.

noon hit. i did not go to get sweet little pee pie. daddio was teaching. mammio went to her mlk luncheon. i sat there sweating it out the whole time - thinking of the havoc my poor son must be wreaking on all the other children who were trying to sleep and on the even poorer teachers trying to get them all to sleep. 2:30 rolls around. i walk into ezra's classroom expecting to see a strung out, entirely sleep deprived child ... only he was NOT ...

he was happy.
chipper.
running around.
delighted and playing.

i asked ms. mindy & ms. jessica how it went? (drum roll please) ...

he slept like a little champ! for almost an hour and a half - didn't even fuss or whimper going down. just laid down on his sweet little mat in ms. mindy's circle as she patted his little bum and the whole class (HILARIOUS!) listened to ezra's noise maker - only ms. mindy didn't remember the correct noise, and instead of waterfall, she had put it on "rain forest." she said that ezra kept saying "birdies" as he was falling asleep. :) yes, they were in a jungle.

man, what the heck were mommy & daddy sweating??? our boy showed us, didn't he? we were both so shocked and relieved!! now this means i have more time to study thursday afternoons ... which i need SO much this semester. yet again, our easy-going, laid-back, sweet, sweet boy is living up to his name's meaning ... "helpful."

before we left, ms. mindy & ms. jessica also couldn't believe how much ezra is talking and how smart he is! :) they said he was already "pre-school ready" b/c he knows all his colors, can sing his ABCs, and knows lots of his letters! and he's not even 2 yet! they even showed me this toy and told me how he pointed out the "H" in it, and they couldn't believe it. of course this made my mommy's heart soar ... :) since ezra is our first, we don't really know what is on track/advanced or not ... so it's always such a nice treat when other people rave about our kiddo and make him sound good for us ... then we don't feel quite so parentally narcissistic. :)

ps - happy 62 g'ampa!!! we love you!!! oxoxoxo