Preschool Week of 1/6

This was a, um, "challenging" week... We started off great. We went to a cabin in the mountains for the New Year. Crumpet had a phenomenal time playing with tons of cousins. We accomplished lots of school work. There are no real pictures, except this one:
One of our carrot tops from last week's plant experiments grew! Pretty amazing...

Most of what we did was review. We completed quite a few Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready projects. We checked out 23 books from the library, read and re-enacted several of them. Crumpet memorizes stories word for word, chooses a character, and then we act out the book. He has always done this, and it's pretty neat to watch. We played a lot of games involving letter sounds, and the concept has really clicked with him. Crumpet officially started karate in the big classroom with all of the 3 and 4 year olds. I cannot tell you how badly this started, but by the end of class, the instructors managed to get him out on the floor, and he enjoyed at least some of it.

The 3 things that have made me consider heading off to live in a cave this week are:
1) Crumpet keeps waking up at 3 or 4 am. I am not a pleasant person when I get up at this hour, and by the end of the day, either is Crumpet.

2) He has conjunctivitis, and he screams and gets hysterical about getting drops in his eyes. 3 joyous times a day... It's a good thing I have experience working with animals because I know some good restraint techniques, and I know how to avoid getting bitten by wild things...

3) We are finally potty training. For the second time. Crumpet was potty trained last year at this time. And then he decided he didn't like it, and refused to use the toilet anymore. He screams and gets hysterical (lots of that around here right now...) when he gets near a toilet. This week, I announced that he would no longer wear diapers. For 2 days, he did great. Then, he fell apart again, and it has been a battle to continue. I know that a battle of the wills is a bad way to accomplish this, but clearly he is capable of being potty trained, and it is just stubborness on his part. I can be stubborn too, though, and I refuse to spend 3 months traveling and changing a 4 year old's dirty diapers in a tiny airplane bathroom. So he will be potty trained by April. Or he will break me. I really don't know which way this will end up... Sigh.
Poor Crumpet - boogery eyes and attacked by a coffee table... Bad week.

But still we had some fun...