Fun weekend

Saturday morning we went to soccer, where I somehow knocked Nate down flat on his face (in astroturf) TWICE! I promise it wasn't on purpose. He still has 3 scratches on his nose. But he did have fun playing a game where they ran down the field, kicked a goal, yelled "GOAL" and then did a little dance. :) I have to say that Nate had the best victory dance of the entire 2 year old class.

That evening we had a little get together for Blake's 30th birthday!! We had some friends over we hadn't seen in awhile and ate some good food and great cake. Nate especially loved the cake. He had a small piece of his own and then said, "cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake ..." incessantly until I gave him some of my piece. I think he ate more than I did. I finally had to take it away from him, and he was so upset. When I was putting him to bed, he was still talking about cake, so I told him to dream about cake. The next morning I heard him on the monitor talking about cake as soon as he woke up. :)

Our friends Jenny and Kevin went to church with us Sunday morning, which was nice. When I picked Nate up from Sunday School, the teacher told me that they had a 12 year old boy volunteering in the classroom that morning, and he had made it his personal project to carry Nate all over the room wherever he wanted to go. Ha! I'm sure Nate just ate that up. The boy carried Nate out to us and said, "It was a PLEASURE taking care of Nate today!" I thanked him for taking such good care of him. He asked what happened to Nate's back, and I told him that Nate had surgery on his back because he has something called spina bifida. The boy said, "I will keep Nate in my prayers." How sweet is that! I hope Nate turns out to be such a caring kid.

The fun continued yesterday evening at Nate's friend Brock's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese! Nate had just woken up from a nap when we went, and he was completely overwhelmed by all the kids and games and flashing lights--I was overwhelmed myself, so I don't blame him--but he warmed up to it after a while. I told him that Chucky, a big mouse, would come out and dance after they sang happy birthday ... to warn him because Nate is not a fan of people in big costumes! Well, we didn't even get that far. Nate also freaks a little when anyone sings happy birthday (how weird is that!) so I just had to take him to the other side of the room where he could observe from afar. After we got him playing skee ball and he got to eat more cake, he was having a great time!

Today I took him to his playgroup, and as soon as we pulled into the parking lot, he started saying, "I fell backwards, fell backwards, fell backwards." Aww, that really stuck in his head from last week. After much coaxing, he refused to walk up the sidewalk so I had to carry him in the building. Then we found out because of conferences, his class was meeting in a different classroom, which totally threw off him and his two classmates. He almost wouldn't even go in the room. It's funny how kids get so used to a routine. But he did fine in there.

While I was there, the director of Carriage House (the place where Nate goes for playgroup) was talking to Nate and asked me where he was going for preschool next year. I told her we were looking at all of our options right now. She said they'd love to have him come there--in addition to the developmental playgroups, they have a preschool and a special preschool for autistic children. I told her my concern was that I knew they did 4 half days a week for 3 year olds, and I really only wanted him in school for 2 or 3 half days a week. I just think 4 days will be too much for him and for all of us with a new baby in the house by then. Not to mention, 4 days is way out of our budget. She said for Nate they would make an exception and do 2 days. There will be another kid that goes 2 days also, so they could do the same schedule. She told me they have classes of 14 kids, and four of those kids are special needs (could be physical delays, Down syndrome, speech delays, some highly functioning autistic, etc.), and there are 3 adults in every classroom. I will be taking a tour of one other similar preschool in town in a couple of weeks, and we'll make a decision then. But since we know our insurance will cover therapy, we no longer have to think about sending him to public preschool (they probably wouldn't offer therapy anyway), so we're looking at private ones. I think he'd do great at either, and he will REALLY like it.

Tomorrow Nate will have his first dentist appointment, so keep us in your prayers! It's NOT going to be fun for him, me, or his dentist. :)