I also don’t like sand. Or dirt. Or paint. Or anything that involves any sort of liquid or particles. I’ll pick up toys all day without complaint, but I don’t want a vacuum or mop to be necessary for clean up. That’s what preschool is for.

It was nice to be able to give him my full attention during his break after a couple of months of letting him watch way too much TV while I worked all the time. It gave me a chance to feel like a good mom again (most days), but by the end I was definitely ready for him to go back. Monday was the first day of school. It was a little anticlimactic since he spent the entire summer there for camp (which is nearly indistinguishable from school). Still, it was exciting because he moved up to the older group this year.

The day started out with cheese danishes. I’d like to say this was a special treat for my special man on his first day, but actually I just wanted to try making danishes. They were easy and yummy.

He chose this stylish outfit for the occasion:

Yes, that’s his pajamas under his clothes. It’s a rare day that he doesn’t wear jammies under his outfit. He is a San Francisco native, so I guess he knows about layering.

Here he is at school:

The good news is, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m wrapping up my job, and I hope to emerge from my cave soon. I want to stop feeling so burned out. I want to reconnect with all my friends I’ve neglected. I want to blog.

The bad news is, while I’ve been busy and time has been flying by, my child is growing up and I haven’t written anything down. I do have photos, and I’ll get those up to share, but I’ve already forgotten all the funny things he did six months ago. Like hitting me all the time and telling me to go away when I wouldn’t give him his way. Wait, maybe I should try harder to forget that stuff. Let’s look to the future!

Am I back now? Not exactly. But I’m on my way.

See, when we remodeled our kitchen two years ago, I bagged up some food that I planned to donate. As usual, I procrastinated about dropping it off, and it ended up getting shoved into the garage with other kitchen paraphernalia to get it out of the way. Turns out, that food did get eaten after all. Yesterday after I dropped Falco off at preschool, I went into the garage to find an air pump for Matt’s birthday balloons and instead found empty, gnawed boxes of pasta and oatmeal and popcorn and the like. I started moving things, finding more rodent evidence, moving more things, until I had cleared out almost everything.

I actually saw the mouse three times during the cleaning process. (Let’s just say it’s one mouse and not a colony like in Ratatouille. Maybe two mice, a childless couple, would be OK.) I gave several warnings letting know the vagrant know that he was not welcome and should find a new home before the poison showed up. I got rid of every scrap of food and bedding and any other thing that would make the place hospitable for the little bugger, convinced that he would leave once the free food had run out.

This afternoon, Falco is getting ready for his nap and starts looking out his bedroom window into the garage window, saying he saw something. He goes on to say that he saw a mouse walking around. Then I remembered that I left the one remaining food source, grass seed, on top of the shelf under the window. After Falco is tucked in I go out to the garage, clap my hands to let Squeaky know I’m there, and the mouse walks out from under the grass seed and looks at me before running away! I leave to throw away the bags of seed, come back in to check for anything else I forgot, and when I glance over that little son of a gun is just sitting there looking at me. I tell him that I can see him and he gets out of sight, but not in much of a hurry.

He’s probably so fat from all the Pasta Roni that he can’t run. Or maybe he thinks we’re intentionally feeding him and he’s our pet. I’m not sure what to do at this point. Now that I’ve looked him in the eyes twice, I feel bad to try to kill him. I guess I could use a live trap and go release him miles from here, or I can just hope he leaves on his own now that all the food is gone. I don’t even want the pets I have; I certainly don’t need stray mice adopting me.

The good news is, I found the air pump.

Falco just finished his first week of preschool, and he adores it so far. From the minute we got there on the first day, he dove right in like he was at an amusement park. He isn’t upset when I leave, so it’s easy to kiss him goodbye and be on my way on my days off. (I drop him off three mornings and stay one morning each work because I’m a working parent.) The hardest part is getting him to leave when I pick him up.

I’m a little sad that he’s going to be three years old and is growing up so fast, but we were both ready for this. He has way too much energy to be contained, and there he can run and play and do art projects and get filthy for a few hours while I get a break a few mornings a week. It’s great that we chose a co-op because I’m still up in his business enough to make the separation easier (on me).

Oh, and did I mention that he gets filthy there? There is a huge playground/sand area, usually a painting project, and always a water table. Mix those with a child who constantly runs from one activity to the next, and you get wet clothes dragging in the dirt, sandy paint in hair, etc. I’m not one who’s fond of outdoors or getting dirty, but Falco is so happy that I don’t mind having to strip him at the door before he can come inside after school. I’ll leave you with this photo of his wet, sandy socks from his first day.

Today, Falco and I went with a crew of friends to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. It was my brilliant idea, and we were both pretty excited about it. The hour-long drive went well, and Falco was giddy when we got out of the car and he saw the enormous jelly bean out front. That was probably the happiest moment we had there.

We got inside, and it was a huge place with high ceilings and a million kinds of candy dispensers and loads of people and color everywhere. What started as a fun, exciting adventure quickly turned into an overstimulating, over-crowded hellscape for my child. After a half hour of waiting for the tour to start, he had deteriorated into a hitting, whining, squirming mess. I thought we just needed to get the tour (and fun) started to get the good times rolling, but he was well past the point of no return by the time we got our paper hats and made it upstairs for the tour.

By the time the (lame) tour started, he had already struck pretty much every adult and child in our party and would not stop whining about wanting a beverage and why was it taking so long and when could we go home, etc. About 10 minutes in (about an hour after arrival), I finally carried him out of there like a sack of potatoes and sat in the car with a crying kid until we both calmed down.

After our cronies made it out with free jelly beans in hand, we went to Westfield Mall and ate lunch at Chick-Fil-A, which made it all worth it. Falco had pulled himself together by lunchtime, and good times were had by all. (I need to go email Mr. Chick-Fil-A right now and beg for a San Francisco location.)

Moral of the story: If your kid gets frustrated and overstimulated and mean in crowded indoor spaces, don’t take him to busy factory tours. Also, Chick-Fil-A makes delicious chicken sandwiches.

I’m ecstatic to report that my worries about Falco being done with naps were unfounded. I think he skipped his naps on three nonconsecutive days, and now he’s back to sleeping for a solid 2-3 hours every afternoon. As my sister recently said, naps are like sweet little gifts (for which I am very grateful).

It’s not that I don’t enjoy his company, but he moves and talks constantly, which wears me out. Of course I relish hearing him talk, but he’s not just talking; he’s asking. Asking me to hand him things, asking to do everything his way, asking the same questions over and over, asking questions with obvious answers. When the incessant asking is combined with whining, by lunchtime I’m nearly over the edge.

He’s sleeping now, and I am rejuvenating and looking forward to seeing him again when he wakes up. Then he can squirm and jump and run and talk and ask and whine for a couple more hours until bedtime.