Leon: “I want to go to preschool!”
Me: *holds Leon’s hand and contemplates how best to word my answer so as not to upset him* “Well buddy, there are a lot of sick people out right now, so we have to stay inside for a bit to stay safe.”
Leon: …
Me: …
Leon: “Mommy, watch this! I’m a robot, see?” *walks away making robot noises*

Leon: “Why do you have a new daddy?”

It took us a second to realize that he was referring to Minh shaving his facial hair!

I was wearing my “Tired as a Mother” shirt this morning, and Leon asked what the first word said. I said “tired,” so he looked at other words and said, “That spells, ‘Wake up!'”

Leon has been doing great lately. He can write his name and a few other letters, he’s learning phonics (“Pizza starts with P!”), and he can sign his ABCs as fast as I can sing them. His teacher is amused that he’s so enthralled with the alphabet; as soon as we walk in the room on Monday mornings, he’s craning his neck to see if the letter of the week was changed to what he predicted. He even tries to “read” based on context (“S-T-A-R-B-U-C-K-S! That spells ‘coffee’!”). 

He’s so sweet and goofy, and he apparently has a reputation at daycare for being pretty animated and lively. He’s got a few (girl) friends at daycare who talk about him often — one told her mom that he’s cute and one told her mom he’s her boyfriend. And after one boy had a particularly rough transition into preschool from being home with his grandma all day, I encouraged Leon to play with him. His mom came to us during the friendship party on Friday and invited Leon to his birthday party; she said he talks about Leon as soon as he wakes up in the morning!

After consulting with his pediatrician, we dismissed him from occupational therapy. He has been doing well with noises lately (which may or may not be due to OT?), and although he still gets upset occasionally, he can verbalize that he’s uncomfortable and needs his headphones, which we considered sufficient progress. He still asks to see Ms. Emily from time to time — but as for Minh and me, we don’t miss waking up early, driving over an hour in rush hour traffic, missing work, and paying $100 per session!

Leon: “Mommy, I need my pouch over there.”
Me: “That’s kind of bossy…”test
Leon: “I need my pouch over there.”
Me: “Do you know what ‘bossy’ means?”test
Leon: “Yeah. It means you go get my pouch.”

At 10:35 PM, roughly three hours after Leon’s bedtime…

Leon: “Why Daddy not sleeping? Daddy not following directions!”

Leon: *counting on his fingers*
Me: “What are you counting, buddy?”
Leon: “Numbers.”

Silly me.

Apparently my latest party trick is perplexedly pulling a wad of tissue out of my ear that my kid crammed in there and I forgot about. 🙃

Me: “Let’s go potty before we take a shower.”
Leon: “I want to pee in the shower!”
Me: “You can’t do that!”
Leon: “Daddy says so.”

🤔🤔🤔

Yesterday…

Leon, pointing to Minh’s beard: “Daddy, what’s this?”
Minh: “That’s my beard. I haven’t trimmed it in a while, have I?”
Leon: “It’s OK, Daddy.”

Today…

Leon, pointing to Minh’s clean-shaven chin: “Why you got a new one, Daddy?”