Please Excuse Me: Heartbreaker

When we ask Reid about recess he often tells us that he and his friends play a game called heartbreakers. We have no idea what it is or where it came from. Reid describes it as a chasing game where he and his buddy Matthew are each a heartbreaker and they chase all the kids who are on Tucker's team. For a while it sounded like Matthew was his only little friend, but slowly other kids kept joining the heartbreakers and chasing Tucker. Now they play a game called Vampire and Reid has officially joined Tucker's side of the game as a chase-ee.

Preschool sounds so complex, as I'm the kind of mom that's always worried about making sure every kid in his class feels safe and loved. Even though I am not the teacher and have not met all the students -- that teacher part of me just can't die. I want all little kids to feel safe and loved while they are at school. I'm trying to hep Reid learn to sit by different kids each day and include everyone in their recess play. I often ask him how he thinks certain situations make other kids feel.

More than anything, I just want my kids to be kind. I want them to have a compassionate heart. But now I'm getting away from the pictures I wanted to share. I have a couple of adorable shots of Reid that just have to go up on the blog.

Last Friday he had his 5-year-check up. If I ever find the sheet, I'll post his stats. But first let's talk about the adorable love notes two girls in his class sent home with him last week. There are hearts and holding hands, so maybe some of the girls he's been playing heartbreaker with are taking things a little too literally. There are 8 boys and 5 girls in his class, so assuming these little girls didn't make detailed drawings for each of the boys, our little Reid sure is beating the odds!

This morning he wanted to put together some notes for his friends. He made a special one for Livi and Porter (two girls), but the other notes were just frantic scribbles. Total he had about 8 pages ready to take to school. We had a big long talk about why he should either just take the two special notes or make enough notes for everyone. Plus, I was stressed this whole note passing thing was a nuisance to his teacher. Our whole conversation quickly escalated way out of hand. I finally just had to ask myself who owned the note problem (yes, I'm reading a parenting self help book right now). I realized it wasn't me, so I let him take the notes. When he came home he was excited to tell me he gave one to Aden, a boy he said had not gotten a special note last week. So maybe our heated discussion on how his classmates might feel when they don't get special notes wasn't completely lost on him.

Aside from my meddling in preschool drama, we are having a lot of fun at home when Reid's around. He's loving his new Lego sets. On his birthday he was given a set from Grandma and Gramdpa Szilagyi and another from Mom and Dad. He decided he enjoyed them so much he wanted to spend Grandma and Grandpa Bassett's birthday money on an additional set. He was pretty proud of himself as he carried them out of Target. Nell wasn't too happy she wasn't getting a new toy, but I appeased her with some Doc McStuffins Bandaids. She was on cloud nine -- that girl is easy to please!

The weather is still warm enough for lots of outdoor play. We were able to bag up all our front yard leaves on Sunday, so now they have to play in the backyard if they want leaves (which they do). Reid's pretty creative with our lawn tools. He's been busy building rocket ships and dog houses. I love the innovation!