The protective big brother

When I get to school in the afternoons to pick up the boys, I usually go to Tyler’s room first because it takes a while to gather his things and put him in his car seat. Plus, all of the baby rooms (or rooms where the children are not walking yet) require staff and visitors to remove their shoes before entering the room. So, all of this is to say it is easier for me to get Tyler ready to go before picking up Andrew because otherwise Andrew wants to come into the baby room (which means taking off his shoes), play with the baby toys, etc. So, each day when I pick up Andrew I walk into his classroom with Tyler ready to go in his car seat. Andrew is normally waiting for me because his room has a large window that faces the sidewalk and the parking lot so he sees me pull up at school.

When a parent arrives into the classroom lots of children say hello and want to tell you what they have been up to – it is actually really cute. Well, if I thought the children were excited to see parents … they are even more excited to see babies! All of the kids run over when I come in with Tyler. They want to look at him, touch him, kiss him, etc. I usually have the car seat on one of the tables so he just out of reach so the kids can look but not touch. Well, yesterday when all of the children came over to see Tyler, Andrew proudly announced, “This is my baby Tyler!” When the children started getting too close for Andrew’s comfort, he first put up the sun shade on the car seat and then told the other kids not to touch Tyler OR Tyler’s toys (we have a little toy bar that attaches to the car seat so Tyler has something to look at in the car). He even told his friends to go sit down on the carpet (where they have circle time)! It was oh so sweet to see big brother being protective of his little brother. Of course, Andrew always gives Tyler kisses when he sees him in the afternoons before we head out, but he is clear to everyone else, “don’t touch!” Surprisingly, the other kids actually listened to Andrew and stopped trying to touch Tyler, although they did not go sit down on the carpet.

When it was time to leave, I told Andrew to say goodbye to his friends, which he does by saying, “Bye, Friends!” rather than saying goodbye to everyone individually and two of the children came over to give him a hug and kiss goodbye. The whole scene was just too precious!

In other news, we are STILL working on potty training Andrew. He has made some progress in the last week or so and he seems more interested in telling us when he needs to go potty, so we will see if actually stays interested. The good news is that a lot of the kids at school are recently potty trained now and I think that he wants to be a “big boy” and wear underpants like his friends. Crossing fingers that he figures it all out soon …

The photography class last night was ok, but not great. The problem with free classes is that all experience levels attend and the classes are geared to the lowest common denominator, so even though it was supposed to expand on last week’s class it was really more like a repeat of the same information. I have been reading so much about my camera and about using the manual side of the dial that I was actually ahead of the curve. I am going to stick with it though because I do pick up a thing or two each class and they are not a huge time commitment (and well, they are free!). Next week’s class is geared for Canon camera owners, so that should be a good one. I am considering taking an 8 week online course that has assignments that require you upload your work to be critiqued, etc. I think that will force me to practice some of the techniques that I have been reading about. Plus, the best way to get over the “fear” of something new is to jump in feet first so that it is no longer new! I am already starting to covet some accessories for my camera …