Don't Forget Carrot In My Chicken Soup

It’s official—Matthew is now registered for Junior Kindergarten (JK) and will start next fall. We ended up enrolling him in the public school system, as opposed to other options like Catholic or Montessori. The reason is that I thought it would be hard on him to go full-time for five days, so I opted for the public system where they still have two or three alternating days per week. Okay, I’ll admit, it would be hard for me to let him go too.

On Monday this week, we delivered the last piece of paperwork to the school. Matthew is eligible for the school bus, but I thought we’d test out how far we’ll need to walk. Yes, I’m going to walk with him.

It took us 20 minutes to walk with Matthew sitting in the wagon. I think we can do it.

On the way home, we stopped by the playground. Matthew loves kids his age and isn’t afraid to talk and play. As soon as we arrived, he engaged with a boy a little older than him and a girl about his age, who were siblings.

He raced them into the play tunnel, up the stairs, and slid down the double slide with the girl. He loved the fact that they slid together. Afterward, the girl went to play somewhere else, and the boy went back into the tunnel.

Oh, it was a lot of fun for Matthew, so he decided to direct the play.

"Hey, boy, you stay in the tunnel, and I’ll go get my friend," he said to the boy.

"Hey, your friend is my sister!" the boy yelled from the tunnel.

"Okay then, I’ll get your sister," Matthew waved at him.

"Hey, girl, do you want to come and go up the tunnel and slide?" he asked her.

"I want to play on the ropes," she replied.

"Okay then, let’s play ropes," Matthew answered, abandoning the boy.

Well, the rope game didn’t last very long, as the mother of the boy and the girl called them to go home. The girl stayed behind and almost cried, not wanting to leave. The mother and the boy were leaving the playground.

"Hey, boy, you forgot your sister!" Matthew yelled after him.

"Matthew, don’t worry, they know," I replied.

Today, I told Matthew he would be having chicken soup for lunch.

"Okay, Mom, and don’t forget the carrot," he replied.

I just hope that all the demands from this three-year-old don’t grow proportionally, but I will definitely miss him when he goes to school.

Too Much Growing Up

How can Matthew forget about something we took away from him? Everywhere he looks—on the internet, in stores, and newspapers—there’s the Nintendo DS.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to our local mall, Upper Canada Mall. They have a few little attractions—a playground, rides, and spinning wheel games.

When we arrived at the amusement area, I could immediately see Matthew’s eyes widen. He noticed that the Nintendo DS was one of the prizes in the spinning wheel machine.

"Mommy, get this, get this, the Nintendo DS!" he got excited.

"Matthew, we don’t know if we can win it," I replied.

"Mommy, win this, win this!" he kept asking.

"Okay, let’s see," I said, taking some cash for three tries to accumulate points for the prize.

While I was spinning the wheel, Matthew cheered me on, jumping around and pointing at the game console. "Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS!" he yelled. Yes, yelling. Luckily, there were no spectators.

Well, we didn’t win the Nintendo DS, but we did get a soccer-ball key chain.

I tell you, the marketing strategies for toys and video games are not helping me.

Later that day, we went home, and Matthew took his regular nap. When he woke up, he started asking again about the Nintendo DS.

"Mommy, can I get the Nintendo DS?" he asked as soon as he woke up. Talking about persistence.

"No, Matthew, not yet. You need to be a big boy, like 5 or 6 years old," I told him again for the millionth time.

"But Mommy, I’m 3 years old, and 5 years old is too much growing up!" he replied.

I smiled.