The Official 4 Year Old Pictures

Jackson is, by far, the cutest 4 year old ever!

We did discover that he was willing to pose for pictures if he was allowed to hold his pet guinea pig, Tom.

I can't believe how grown up he looks.


He may look like a little boy to you, but I still see my baby in him.

Although it's not your traditional portrait, this one is my absolute favorite.

4 Year Old Picture Challenges

OK, I'm a little late at posting these, but we've been really busy in the Allen house. As you may remember, we do our own photo shoot at home for Jack's birthdays. Sure, on his first birthday, we took him to have them done professionally, but thought it wasn't worth the money and instead decided to do them each year on our own. (That, and we're cheap.) It was working well, until this year. Jack was very opinionated on everything, from where he wanted to stand to what he wanted to wear, and he had plenty of complaints about the heat too. It was exhausting. I initially tried to do it on my own, and gave up. Stuart helped out a few days later, but it was no easier. We did the best we could, and got a few cute shots. (Only because I cropped most of them into head shots.) I'll post those later. In the meantime, here are the crazy ones.

He didn't want to stand the way I requested, and instead went with his own poses.

After a mild power struggle, he just got annoyed with me...

Changing clothes only made it worse...

He thought it was too hot on his feet, so I tried to sit him in the grass.

But soon he became distracted, then annoyed, and then he complained it was still too hot.

We moved to the shade...judge for yourself how well that turned out...

He really wanted to sit on the couch...which annoyed me.

So, we moved indoors.

As frustrated as I was at the time, I have to admit these are my favorites, because they show his true personality.

Breakfast in Bed

My boys are so spoiled...

Oh, and Jack is showing us how to do the pledge of allegiance that he learned in school.

Progress?

Well, we just finished our first full week in our new routine. I go to work, Jack goes to preschool, and Stuart does a great job of filling in all the gaps in our new schedule.

The good news is, Jack does NOT cry in the morning. He is also very happy when we pick him up at the end of the day. The bad news is that, apparently, he has either a minor or major meltdown mid-day...almost everyday. His teacher doesn't think it is about missing mommy and daddy as much as it just becomes too much for him. He has a hard time keeping his hands to himself and following along in the activities. So, he and I have been practicing at home. We practice verbalizing his frustration as opposed to crying. We talk about things like, saying, "I'm so frustrated," instead of crying, or putting his head down on his hands at the table when he doesn't feel like coloring. I am optimistic, but don't think we are going to see any overnight changes.

We also struggle with the fact that Jack cries when he wakes up and finds me gone. I'm not too worried since this won't be a normal thing. I have just been going in early to beat rush hour and to allow myself time to pick him up from school in the afternoons. Normally, I will work from home when I'm not travelling. (So, I guess those trips will be a challenge for poor Stuart.) I do try to tell Jack the night before when this will happen so he isn't blind-sided, and that helps a little bit.

Thursday morning, I had my first attempt at working from home. Jack was adamant that he couldn't go to school because he had the flu. He pointed out that he didn't want to get the other kids sick, so he should stay home. I told him to rest on the couch to see if he got better. He said he wasn't going to get better. I realized this might not end well, so I got dressed and kissed Jack good-bye. Stuart then distracted him while I went into our office and closed and locked the door. He never knew I was there when he left for school. (Stuart convinced him a vitamin would get rid of the flu...good thinking daddy!) Of course, that night Jack told me he had the flu again and could I please tell daddy not to take him to preschool? (I don't know why he thinks I am his best bet on this issue.) I told him to get some sleep and if he had the flu we definitely would not send him to school, but that I thought he would be better by morning. He said he didn't think he would be better, that he thought he would have the flu forever.

Stuart bribed, uh, I mean provided Jack with an incentive at the beginning of the week. He promised if he didn't cry and was good at preschool all week he could get the Lego alien space ship he wanted. So, we celebrated the end of the week, with a new gift for Jack. Of course, he changed his mind on what he wanted and we took a trip to Toys R Us where he picked out a new Star Wars spaceship and a Luke Skywalker action figure. He was thrilled. Once he found them, he didn't want to look around the store any longer...he wanted to pay for it and leave right away.

My favorite thing is that EVERY day when I pick him up from school, he squeals, "MOMMY!" and runs to me with his arms open wide for a hug. He then tells me, "You're my best best friend." In fact, one of the other mom's stopped me in the parking lot one afternoon to tell me that her son told her that Jack's best friend is his mom. It's not the same as getting to stay home with him every day, but it certainly makes me feel a heck of a lot better.

Preschool Days 3 & 4

Day 3 of preschool was hard for me, since it was also my first day of work. Stuart took Jack to school in the morning. I hated that I couldn't be there to help Jack with this transition. I was told he cried and screamed, but calmed down pretty soon. Luckily, everyone at my new job was wonderful. My boss isn't in AZ and was in meetings all day, so some of the local folks were showing me around and getting me acclimated. Around 1:30, the HR manager told me she knew it was a long day and I hadn't even had lunch yet, so I should just call it a day and go home. She said she knew I was worried about my little boy (yeah, I might have mentioned him a time or two...) She said they were all moms and understood and I should go home early. Although I am salaried, I didn't want to leave that early on my first day and went back to my office. She stopped by my office 10 minutes later and asked what I was still doing there and again told me to go home. I was so grateful and decided to do the rest of my work from home. I called Stuart and told him I would pick up Jack from preschool. Jack was thrilled. I was told he did cry for me a few times during the day, but they felt he would do better. As we were walking out the door to head home, he told me he liked school. Yes! However, as we were getting ready for bed, I asked him if he liked school and he said, "Yes....but, not really." Sheesh.

Day 4, I was planning to observe one of the clinics I support to get a better feel for their day to day work. After talking to the Operations Director, I found out she was going to be in the office early (it's a 24 hour clinic) so I made plans to go in at 6am...and I actually got in earlier. The plus side was the I could pick Jack up in the afternoon. The down side was that I had to leave the house before Jack woke up. This is a challenge because Jack only wants me to get him up in the morning. (Yes, we are lucky that Jack still doesn't get out of his bed in the middle of the night, or the morning, until we come and get him. No middle of the night surprise appearances in our room. It's nice.) But, even though Stuart will try to go get him in the morning, he refuses and demands mom. Stuart told me Jack cried for 30 minutes in the morning when he got up because I wasn't there. And, or course, Stuart had a challenge in taking him to school. Jack told Stuart, "I don't want to be 4 anymore...I want to be a little guy." Then, Jack told his dad he couldn't go to preschool because it was closed. He did his best to convince his dad of this. Stuart told him they would go check to see if it was closed. When they got to the school and went inside, no one was at the front desk and Jack said, "See, it's closed," and tried to leave. So again, tears ensued. Meanwhile, I am in a medical clinic, trying to pay attention, and feeling very anxious about Jack. Luckily, the director started sending me text message updates. She let me know that he stopped crying after 5 minutes and then was all smiles. She let me know when she caught him singing in the class. She even sent me a picture of him working with his teacher. Oh, I felt so much better. I had a nice talk with her and his teacher when I picked him up and felt so much better. In fact, it took a good 30 minutes to drag him out of the school because he didn't want to leave. We celebrated the end of the week by taking Jack to the Mellow Mushroom for dinner. He loves going to a restaurant and we never take him, so it was a nice treat.

We're still not sure about everything. We definitely love the school. We just know we might need to move him from the junior kindergarten class to the 3 day a week, half days, 4 year old class. Although, that will leave us with a day care scheduling nightmare, we will do that if it is better for Jack. So, we're going to give it another week before we make any decisions.
But, I am so proud of my little boy. He is do so well, all things considered. It's a big adjustment for all of us.

Preschool Day 2

Today sucked. Sorry, there is no nicer way to say that. As happy and eager as Jack was to leave the house and go to preschool, he got very shy when we got there. (It didn't help that his teacher was late and we spent the first 15 minutes in a different classroom.) He was clingy and kept telling me he didn't like preschool anymore and he wanted to leave. After 30 minutes, I said good-bye and walked away while his teacher kept him from running after me. He was crying so hard. I waited in the lobby for about 10 minutes, until the director assured me he had stopped crying, and was fine. I went home and cried, feeling awful. When I returned at the end of the day to pick him up, the director informed me he had hit someone. Great. Then, she said he cried for me several times throughout the day. Now, I'm feeling worse. She then told me he is quite the disruption in class. I could barely hold it together at that point. After that, it was just some additional information about how he kept taking his shoes off and could I please try running shoes instead of crocs...like I haven't tried that before, to no avail, and something about him continuing to think he could just leave the room whenever he wanted. She was nice about it, but I felt like crap. I tried to go and talk to his teacher for more details and maybe some suggestions, but she is a little standoffish so that didn't really make me feel any better.

I talked to Jack about it on the way home. When we got in the house, I looked at his papers and asked if he practiced writing his name...he said he didn't know how. I feel like I threw him into an environment that is too much for him. I still like the school, and the director, but when I got my job offer, he moved from a very active environment, to a CLASSROOM. He is now the youngest kid in his class...he's never been to preschool before...and even though he has gotten much better, he is still an active boy. I don't want him to be miserable and I feel terrible right now. On top of it all, I have my first day of work tomorrow, so Stuart has to take him and pick him up. I hate it when he is hurting and just want to find a way to make it stop. Stuart wants me to give it 2 weeks before we make a change because I am too emotional to be rationale, but I can't help it. He's my baby! I've cried so much today, my eyes are going to be swollen for my first day at work tomorrow.

Stuart didn't want me to write about this yet because it is too raw and I am too stressed about my new job. But, I thought getting it out would help.

This pic is from a few days ago, Jack was playing doctor on himself. Notice the bandage on his ear, the modified stethoscope for breathing medicine and the foot brace. I love my creative boy. I just want him to be happy. I hope it gets better.

First Day of School

Jack started school today. He was so excited. Stuart took the morning off so we could all go together.

He looks so grown-up standing outside of the school.

When we got to Jack's classroom, he got very shy. He did not want us to leave. School started at 8:30am, and we hung out for awhile.

Here he is showing the teacher that he is 4 years old.

As we neared 9am, we said our good-byes. Jack started to cry. Hard. So, of course, I cried. We left him in his class, with the director helping hold him back as we left. He began to wail. I'm a wreck by this point and Stuart and I go and sit in the lobby of the school and I cry. We can still hear him screaming. One of our neighbors who was dropping off her daughter in the 3 year old class tried to help, so she brought her Cara over to say hello. She thought a familiar face might help. It didn't work. Meanwhile, Stuart and I are still in the lobby listening to Jack cry hysterically. Apparently, Jack was stronger than the director and made a dash for the door to the lobby to look for us. The director asked if I could stay, I agreed. Stuart left to go to work...and I told him I would call when it was clear for me to leave...stupid of us to bring only one car.

At first Jack clung to me, but eventually we convinced him to join the fun. The more involved he got, the more I stepped away, until I was just watching from the doorway. I thought snack-time would be the perfect time to leave. As they moved to the lunch room for snack, Jack grabbed me from the door to make sure I came with him. As they began to eat, I told him I was going to leave. His eyes began to well up with tears again. Luckily, he has an awesome teacher. She called him over to tell him a secret. After she told him, of course, he came and told me...they were going to make a surprise present for their parents today. Jack asked what the surprise was, she cleverly said she couldn't tell him while I was there because then it wouldn't be a surprise. That is when I jumped in and said if he wanted to stay and find out what the surprise was, he would have to tell me "good-bye" and "see you later." He promptly said "good-bye mom...see you later" and then gave me a hug. I left without looking back and called Stuart when I got to the lobby. It was after 10am.

The director and teacher assured me he was fine the rest of the day. What a day! When I picked Jack up at 2:30pm, he excitedly told me about his day. We then went home and had ice cream.

He does say that he wants to go back. I guess that is a good sign.

P.S. While I was there, one little girl fell and hurt her knee. She came and showed me her injury. Jack promptly knelt down and kissed her knee to make it better. Man, I love this kid!

Zoo Day

Thursday, we went to the zoo. It was HOT. I'm not sure exactly how hot, but I know it was over 110 degrees. I normally don't go to the zoo in the summer, but knowing that I was going back to work soon, I wanted to get in as much fun as I could with Jack. Our neighbors had some extra passes and invited us. We thought if we went extra early, it wouldn't be so bad. We were wrong. We were melting, but the kids loved it and that's what really counts.

We didn't do our normal activities, because it was so hot, we wanted to rush through quickly. Also, many of the animals were hiding from the heat. But, we have to make time to ride the tractors.


And go to the petting zoo. Jack really wishes all the exhibits were hands on...

Jack and his friend Jamie had lots of fun!

We had to stop for something cold before we got heat stroke. Jack decided he needed to drink his Icee and my frozen lemonade together. I think he may be a genius.

It's more fun if you drink something that makes your tongue a funny color.

Although we skipped some of our favorites, we did do 2 new things. We rode the train and the carousal. Both were firsts for Jack.

The second the carousal started up, Jack's face lit up with such joy, I will never forget it. I need to strive to create that look of joy more often. I live for that!

He did fall in the pond once, while trying to get closer to the turtles. I should have anticipated that. He really loves turtles. Luckily, it was at a shallow part where I could pull him out without jumping in myself. And, we had his swimsuit with us, so we changed into that.

I love days with my boy.