Curious Miles

Miles has been pretty busy, staring at his pages of The Complete Adventures of Curious George. As he turns the pages, he describes what he sees on each page and for the most part, recalls what the words on the pages say from memory. It's amazing how much he retains when we read to him. He likes us to substitute George's names for his name, Curious Miles. He really identifies with this monkey. Maybe because George is off the hook or maybe it's because he's brown. Shoot, I love these stories myself. So to satisfy his curiosity, we have been having our own Curious Miles adventures.

To satisfy his insect fascination, we reused some old spaghetti sauce jars and made a "bug home for good bugs" (bad bugs to him are mosquitoes and spiders that bite) as he called it. He collected leaves and flowers and pulled out Nemo's (his gold fish) net to use as a bug catcher.


He was hoping to catch butterflies and ladybugs but was just as content to find rollie pollies. It ended up being a neighborhood activity. The kids in our area were so helpful and all got together to dig for rollie pollies and show Miles how they found them.

That's one of the great things about this neighborhood. I mean, it's no San Francisco (and we really miss living there), but the cool thing about the AC is that there are kids that still play outside til dawn, ride bikes, hang out in the park, play football on the street, etc. It's reminiscent of our childhood so it's great that Miles is out and about.

Another activity Miles has been enjoying is role playing. This week, he says he wants to be a scientist when he grows up. I couldn't think of too many kid-friendly science experiments that we could do at home, except for the vinegar x baking soda reaction. So anyway, Miles was just as excited to pour the ingredients into cups. He wanted to see what would happen when we mixed different liquids into baking soda. So, he wanted to test out water as well as the vinegar. He got a kick out of seeing the vinegar mixture overflow from the cup. And when I compared it to how lava flows out the volcano, he was in awe, "oooooh, lava...." When he mixed the water with the baking soda, he looked bummed that it didn't give off a reaction, "aw, it's just cloudy, vinegar is cooler." So ofcourse, we had to keep doing the vinegar x baking soda thing until he was satisfied with watching it overflow. My kitchen smells like vinegar.




Yesterday, I had my semsester parent-teacher conference at his preschool. It's really great to learn about how he's learning and developing at school and also ways in which we can help him at home. He's doing really great, developing strong bonds with his friends, Amir and Deonte. He is also counting to 13, doing good with potty training, and able to articulate his feelings when he gets upset or sad about things at school. His teacher also commented on how he is a perfectionist. Not that she said it was a bad thing-just that it was probably a part of the reason why he tends to get frustrated at school (I thought of him being more particular than anything else! haha) But I have always been aware of how, since he was a baby, had a problem with getting dirt on his clothes, liked his blanket covering all edges of his bed, stacked his toys a certain way. And after we do things for him when he asks for help or needs help, he'll say, "Not like that!" and get pretty irritated with us if we don't do things a certain way for him. I've just learned to take care of this perfectionist the way he liked it since he was a baby. Honestly, reading his cues since birth has been my guide to caring for him and making adjustments up until now at 3--he tells me (hey, who's the teacher here!?) Maybe he gets it from me. I get it from my dad. I should have mentioned this bit to his teacher: we are genetically coded to be this way. So anyway our meeting was good and I gained some insight on ways to encourage him to "go outside the box" a bit and am motivated to help him ease up! His teachers are a great resource! Not just because they are child development specialists but because they are also mothers. I'm really thankful for the Child Development Center. Again, this ain't SF, but it is the hook up! I need to pick up those books by the "ooey gooey" lady who's mantra for parents, teachers & kids is along the lines of "you learn by getting messy!"

After the meeting, Miles had an idea of what he wanted to do, "How bout, I get a haircut." He loves his barber, who happens to be his ninang Erica's cousin. She did a good job of lining & fading him up. I told Justin that he should go see her! Peep game: