Green FTW!

Hello from a decidedly more relaxed, less panicky state of mind. That last post was, as advertised, a vent, and it did it's job - helped me get all my angst out so I could start the next day with a fresher attitude. But thank you everyone for the reassurance and kind comments. We are all doing well, and things are looking up - we've just had a wonderful weekend, and take a little look at Finn's behavior chart for the week:

Started off quite poor (hence the vent), but finished with lots of green circles all around! We are tracking the color he gets when he's at school, and then also giving him another circle depending on his behavior at home after school (on the weekends, we just kind of divide the day in half). That's why he has two circles for every day - we are trying to reinforce the school's system (and encourage good behavior at home, of course). Finn has been insisting and insisting and insisting that he CANNOT get a green circle - the best he would try for is a yellow (yes, there are yellow circles, too, for the "so-so" crowd). Hopefully the latter part of this week has convinced him that he can, indeed, behave well enough to get a green circle. And it's given us lots of opportunity for positive reinforcement.

Not sure if this is coincidence or not, but the green circles made their appearance the same day that I called the daycare director and asked her for some suggestions on how to deal with Finn's napping abhorration. For now, Finn's teacher is going to let him look at books on his mat while the other kids sleep. This is a bit tricky, as it's possible the other kids will see him doing this, and try to get out of napping, too. And there is still potential for Finn to create a ruckus, as he doesn't necessarily have the attention span to flip through books for a couple of hours, what with his inability to actually read yet, his innate desire to be active as many hours of the day as possible, etc. But it's an improvement, I think, and when the center's summer camp opens in three weeks, he'll be able to go hang out with the camp kids during nap time, avoiding the situation entirely.

Then we just have to figure out how to deal with nap time once again when summer is over. But we are thinking of moving daycare centers by the fall, anyway (for several reasons, several of which are logistical and meant to set us up for the next year when he attends kindergarten), so who knows what the situation will be by then.

M. is out of town for the next couple of days, and I need to get myself to sleep so I can power through the morning rush without him. I'll wrap this up with a few new photos - good night!

Finn was wearing boxer briefs last weekend, so he had M. wrap his hands with blankets to look like boxing gloves.

And then he boxed.

We went to an event at the NASA Goddard center last weekend, and had to park and take a shuttle to the campus. The shuttle was a school bus, and it was Finn's second time on a school bus - but he doesn't remember the first. So he was very excited.

The outing took place right after swim lessons and during nap time. So Lucy slept (on me) through her first bus ride. She was pretty confused when she woke up after the drop off. But she did manage to stay awake during the return trip.

The next few pictures were taken yesterday: