On Wednesday, Stephen was promoted from pre-k to kindergarten.  Instead of a ceremony, the class had fun playing outside with water and bubbles, and sand tables.  I spent time with Stephen's class while they were having their little party, and I was able to stand back and just watch Stephen for a little while (before he decided that he wanted to hang out with me instead of his friends).  Stephen isn't always able to interact with the other kids the way that he seems to want, because he isn't always able to communicate with them well, but he is ALWAYS in the middle of the action!

 This is Mrs. D - she was an aide in the class this year, and she is just wonderful.  Stephen loves her so much, and I know she loves him too.

 Mrs. K was a student teacher last year, and then stayed on as an aide this year.  Right after this picture was taken, Stephen knocked her over trying to give her a big hug.

 Mrs. M has been Stephen's teacher since he started school when he turned 3.  He was originally placed in a different class for this school year, but ended up back with Mrs. M because the other class was all-day pre-k, which was not what we wanted.  She is moving on to a new job next year, which is very unfortunate for all of the preschoolers and pre-k students who will come in for years to come.  She is very special.

 Stephen also got promoted at swim class!!!  Next month, he will officially be a "Ray."  And as you can see, there is still much fun to be had in doing "head bobs" and holding one's breath under water.

This has been a pretty exciting week for our little bear.  I'm excited to see what else the summer holds for him!

Happy Mother's Day to Me?

My Mother's Day was not relaxing, or indulgent.  I spent my day performing the tasks that led to my being celebrated - mothering.  On Sunday, we had 4 friends over, and they, along with Erik, spent 11 hours (including a lunch break) building this:

As you can imagine, Stephen LOVES it!!!

We'll have a lot of fun for years to come with this beast of a playset.  Stephen is climbing up the ladder very well already, and it only took a couple of reminders for him to duck when going in and out of the doorways on the upper level.  This has been a great gift for me, too, because I LOVE seeing my boy so happy.

I finally gave in and downloaded Google Chrome so I could blog again.  I'm sorry I don't have a lot of pictures to share, but all of this PLAYING doesn't leave a lot of time for my paparazzi habit.  So I'll start with a cute picture of Stephen coming up for air at swim lessons.  The aquatics director said that as soon as Stephen is able to come up for air WHILE he's swimming, instead of just holding his breath, he can move up to the next class.  YAY!

 Yesterday, Erik was at graduation activities all day, so I'd been talking to Stephen about us going to the zoo.  He'd woken up a little early, so I was just letting him play until he decided he was ready to go.  I was reading the newspaper, and Stephen came over to me, and said, "gooooo zooooo." We are SO PROUD of our little buddy for not just using his voice, but for communicating SO WELL!

We spent most of our time in the children's zoo area.  Stephen didn't believe me that there was something in this exhibit.  We kept looking for it, but it was hard to see - I think it was a spider, if I recall correctly.

 Then we went to the petting zoo.  There were a few goats that were just insistent that they sit on benches and chairs.  Stephen sat down next to this guy, and gave him a good pat on the bottom.

 After the petting zoo, we decided to go on the zoo tram, which we'd never done before.  It was a nice, relaxing tour around the zoo, and we learned a little more about the exhibits that we'd never known before.  Our favorite thing to see was the baby giraffe with his parents - he was born in January this year, and is already over 7 feet tall!!

That's basically all we've been up to for now, but we'll have a lot of exciting adventures when Stephen gets out of school for the summer!