thomas the ladies man and preschool madness

thomas has many girl _space_ friends and he loves to hold hands with them! :)
this is with little 11 month old kaitlyn at a lunch in september...

this is 10 month old lexy from our fall play date. so fashionably coordinated in brown and pink! in picture, it's funny to see the difference b/w the way she is dressed and thomas' blue on blue.

and a pic from a previous post, little 22 month old sara - his "older" girl friend :). apparently that blue on blue is my unconscious favorite, b/c it seems to show up in a lot of pics. now that i am looking at this pic again, it seems thomas is spacing out or distracted by something and sara has taken charge and is leading him forward...

it is so cute to see little people together, whether they are playing, sitting or standing, it is just plain cute.

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for the last 2 weeks, i have been a little obsessed with finding the best preschool for thomas, at the most reasonable cost. it has ranged from $150 to well over $1000/month. big range. the best ones so far have been the Christian based ones and city run preschools, good programs for the most reasonable amount of money. i have gone on 4 tours and have another 6 or so scheduled for the next 3 weeks. the tours are really the best way to see how the classrooms and teachers are. plus thomas loves seeing the classrooms too.

the most frustrating thing has been the age cutoff for attendance. many of them follow the public school district, which stipulates that you have to be 5 years old by Dec 2nd that school year in order to attend Kindergarden. i was going to have thomas start a 3 yr old class next sept 08, but a lot of them won't take him until sept 09. at least i have been finding that several of them have toddler programs (2.5 to 3.5 year age group) so that is what i am shooting for now.
at first i was really irked and determined to fight it and go through all the red tape/extra hassle to have him skip a grade but i have talked to a lot of people and am now thinking to leave him in his age group. so when he starts kindergarden in Sept 2011, he will be 5 yrs and 8 months old. several of the directors have told me that you really don't know until 3rd grade - that's when students really start to differentiate in terms of ability and intelligence. i am now thinking to wait until then to see what thomas can handle. we'll see...

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life is good with thomas, he is so cute and fun right now. still kicking myself for not having kids sooner. anyways, he loves to read ABC books, listen to and dance to music, watch other kids and swing at the playground. he is starting to really prefer the little elmo doll over his other plush toys. i finally found the small, soft, Gund Elmo at barnes & noble. we walked in a month ago, and there were elmo's all over the kids section. almost every kid in there was holding one. i knew we wouldn't leave without buying one. luckily it was only $12, not too bad.

his speaking ability has kind of exploded in the last 2 months. he went from 1 word to stringing 2-3 words. plus he talks a lot more in general, copying us word for word and singing random thomas-made-up songs. his pronunciation is so funny and at times unintelligible, but amazing to watch as he processes and advances.



we got this little 1 gig video/mp3 player last month. it is the only one we could find with a small built in speaker. so thomas can easily carry it and listen to the songs on it. william has loaded it up with all of thomas favorite video clips from youtube and sesame street. sometimes he won't let go of it. tonight, he was watching it as he fell asleep. his arms started to get tired, so william thought he was going to fall asleep. but instead, he turned on his side, and propped the player up against another pillow on his bed. so he could just lay there and watch. his little eyes struggling to stay open. so funny! you don't know whether to laugh or squash him.