sigh. growing up.

I finally found a preschool for Luke last week especially thanks to my friend Katie. It is perfect. Teachers are all real, certified teachers. The classrooms are huge with climbers and dramatic play and water tables and sensory toys and one way mirrors so we can see in without Luke seeing us. They are NAEYC accredited* and don't do time out. (I don't have a problem with time out in theory, and we have started using it at home when we have to. I don't like preschools/daycares that use it because it is often applied too liberally for normal kid things when it's allowed...like one school I visited, I heard the teacher of the 3 and 4 year olds yell "next person who tattles is getting time out!" when she didn't know I was there. Tattling is annoying, but that's a really dumb reason to put a kid in time out.)  No televisions. They have an awesome outdoor playground and an indoor playground as well. The teachers were all interacting with the kids. It was perfect, perfect, perfect. The rates were the same as some of the other places I have visited, and we got the last 3-hour program spot. Luke will be going Tues/Thurs starting in the fall.

*NAEYC accreditation is one of the highest accreditations for preschools/daycares, it usually is only found at places that are pretty expensive or get funding from other places too..like community college daycare has it, military base daycares have it, etc. I worked at a CDC when our accreditation was up for renewal, it is VERY VERY thorough, they spend several days combing through the center and they spend a ton of time in every room observing randomly through the day. Stuff like time-out is not allowed, and it can get annoyingly nitpicky like I had to change the font on the cubby names because the font style was not one of the 2 approved styles...

Anyway. I know Luke is going to love it. I can't believe he's big enough to be in a preschool program already, but every day he surprises me with how much he already knows and can do.

And Matthew is working on sitting up independently. He loves watching his big brother and laughs and babbles to Luke often through the day. He gets this gleam in his eye and huge grin every time he watches him, it's going to be trouble, I am sure. We finally brought up the exersaucer for him. I have been putting it off because 1)we have way too much baby/kid crap up here already-just looking around from where I sit now we have the swing, pack n play, rock n play, Luke's race car track that's 3 ft tall, Luke's chair, and a ton of toys and books...and now the exersaucer too. Yippee. 2) I am in denial that Matthew is big enough/old enough/ stable enough to be in it already. Oh my gosh, though, he LOVES it. Luke likes playing with the toys on it too and has climbed in (when it was unoccupied), several times now.  So yeah, even our little guy is growing up way, way too fast.