More Start-Ups

After a really nice Labor Day weekend, we've had another week of firsts.

David started preschool, and it went swimmingly. He's going three mornings a week, and his room is right across the hall from last year. His new teachers said their goal is to get kids to love school and love learning, and that research shows that if kids learn to love school in preschool, they will love school long term. I think that is a fabulous mission, and they seem to be really good at achieving it.

 

 

David only got nervous for a second as we were waiting outside of his classroom door, but then he waltzed right in and gave his teachers hugs. When I picked him up, he was all smiles, telling me all kinds of things he did that day, excited to go back tomorrow. His teacher said, "such a sweet boy," as she handed him over, and I couldn't agree more. He is such a kind soul. I love him so much.

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Then I did something really embarrassing that afternoon. I sat down on the couch to read at 2:45. Both boys had fallen asleep, but they are always up by 3. Always. I'm supposed to pick Katy up at 3:30. All the sudden, I opened my eyes and it was 3:38. Silence from the boys. I shrieked. Good thing it's a 30 second drive to the school. She was waiting in the office and I was too embarrassed to say that I fell asleep (they'd be thinking: "must be nice, some of us have to WORK"), so I didn't explain. When I got home I felt a little better listening to the voicemail they left while I was gone, "It's only 3:40, but you are always on time, so we're a little concerned." Okay, well at least I have a reputation for being on time, hopefully I didn't ruin it. (David slept for 3 hours - preschool must have wiped him out.)

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Katy had a big day yesterday, too. The first of each month, each child in her class who hasn't had their "magnet moved" (for misbehaving...moved from green to yellow to red, etc) in the previous month gets to be "star student." This was a nice warm up since it was only half a month. She and almost half of her class got to wear a star necklace all day, carry around a stuffed animal that they picked out, have lunch with the teacher (hilarious that this is a reward!), and pick out a prize (Happy Meal variety) to take home. She was beaming. She told me her goal is to become Star student for the whole YEAR, because then there's a big prize. Lord help us if she doesn't make it, she doesn't handle failure well.

That same day she had her first soccer game of the new season/new team. She's been a little sad during practices because she says she misses her old team, where Daddy was coach, there were more girls, and they had a better team name (IHHO). So I was relieved that she really enjoyed her first game, giving her best effort and getting excited when they did well (which wasn't often, they played a killer team).  I will be curious to see if she still wants to play in the spring. She still has to be on co-ed at this age, and the boys are just taller and faster than her. She would be a good player if she could keep up with them, but her size limits her. I hope she doesn't get discouraged.

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So with our new schedule, Luke and I have 3 mornings a week - just the two of us! It's really nice, his demeanor is different when he's the only kid. It's fun to see how much older he seems when he's the only one. I signed him up for a little toddler tumbling class on one of the mornings, just because we never do anything for HIM. We went this morning and he loved it. It was a little challenging to get him to follow the teacher's directions, wait his turn in line, and do things when he was supposed to do them, but the teacher is very relaxed, so it was fine. And you could just tell that he was SO proud of himself, having his own class, his own "thing." He showed David the stamps on his hands as soon as we picked him up. So cute.