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Lessons Learned

8 Aug

The first day of Kindergarten is now logged in Nate’s red “Homework Folder” with a smiley face in the no sticks pulled column. He said his teacher told him he would have to pull a stick if he didn’t stay seated on his purple square at one point in the day. I’m so proud of him for choosing that square over the stick. Some other lessons learned:

  • He learned what it was like to walk to the bus stop and ride the big yellow school bus like he’s watched his sister do for the past three years. He loved it.
  • He learned about coloring and painting. That was the first thing he told me when I asked him about his day. He apparently colored a skunk – he didn’t elaborate. (Turns out, it was actually a raccoon.)
  • He learned that next year is 2012. Andrew asked him who taught him that and he told us his teacher did. Andrew reacted to that with a supportive “your teacher is pretty smart.” Nate took it further. “Yep! She’s smarter than momma and Nia and me and daddy!” Well, there it is.
  • He learned that some people just don’t know how to play a game called Sharks and Minnows at after school. “I kept tagging them out but they wouldn’t sit out. I told them, ‘I tagged you. I tagged you. I tagged you.'” We assured him it will be ok. Don’t worry about it.
  • I learned that Nia is a loving caregiver even when mommy and daddy aren’t looking. She told me she had Nate sit by the window of the school bus and in between her and her friend on the after school bus so that he wouldn’t fall out in the aisle. I also caught her holding his hand as they walked to the bus stop. Sweetie.
  • We learned that Nate really enjoys his homework. He wanted to read his book over and over and he was so proud of himself when he got the words right. I cherish that I was able to capture his joy in this picture:

Happy Reader

I’m so happy our little buddy had a great first day. I hope to see those smiles and the excitement continue through the school year. And I certainly won’t object to more smiley faces in that no sticks pulled column…

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New School Year Odds and Ends

7 Aug

Some things I want to remember about the new school year that starts tomorrow-

Odds:

Nia is one of only six girls in her class. There are 17 boys. Seems odd to me but we’ll see.

I had to google what the school breakfast is for the first day. I have never heard of a “frudel” before. I suppose it’s good the kids are introduced to new foods.

Speaking of breakfast, we will be paying for Nate to have a daily “second breakfast” because he will eat at home and then may want to eat again when the rest of his class does. Second breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

This is not so much odd but more special to me – Andrew told me to sign him up for the PTO when I sign myself up. Just thought it was cool that he wants to help/be involved like that.

Ends:

I’ve completed the same paperwork information for each child three times. If you count the same info that I filled out in the previous years, you need to multiply that amount by four. (I need to go back to school to solve that math problem and know how to answer some of the questions on the form.)

Both Nia and Nate had three shopping bags each of school supplies to take to their classrooms. We brought it to open house because it was too heavy for any one adult to carry let alone Nia or Nate.

Andrew informed Nate that we want him to wear nice pants for three days of the week and his fast pants for the two gym days. Nate is not a fan of this mommy/daddy dress code rule…

I know I’m forgetting something.

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2021 and 2024

4 Aug

Class of 2021

It was just three years ago that Nia got hers. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise. A quick math problem in my head would’ve given me the four numbers. But it just didn’t hit me until her Kindergarten Open House when the child small t-shirt was handed to us. Class of 2021.

Fast forward three years. Another Kindergarten Open House. Another shirt. Another shocker and heart squeezer to see a similar set of four numbers for Nate.

Class of 2024.

Our baby boy is about to begin his journey in big kid school and I’m going through all of those emotions so many parents do. The same emotions I felt with Nia during those first few weeks (months) of her boarding the school bus. I tell myself, we already did this. 2021, remember? Now look at Bean. She’s not even phased about starting Third Grade and neither am I.

Ready to Learn!

You got this. Nate’s got it. He’s going to be fine. We’ll take it day by day. There will be challenges and there will be great days. He has Nia there now at school and after school with him. She watches out for him. He’ll be fine. He’s excited about starting big kid school, although he keeps reminding us, “I’m still 5 years old.” He’s a smartie. He’ll be fine. His teachers seem wonderful. He’ll be fine. He already practiced how he’s going to sit and be a good listener. (He wasn’t even blinking. So intense.) Again, fine.

And then, just when I think I’m going to out-argue my “fines,” I remember the little school mascot dragon footprints that are leading the way from the school bus drop off to the Pre-K and Kindergarten hall. He has fun feet to guide him. Fine.

Follow the Dragon Feet

Sweet boy. I’m so in love with your personality and passion for wanting to succeed. You will follow those footprints like no one else. And I believe, when you feel ready enough, you will make some of your own for others to follow. As long as you don’t lead them to the timeout chair, we’ll be – yes – fine.

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Pet Peeve Vent

20 Jul

I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a lot of pet peeves. There are quite a few things that irk me. One of my favorite annoyances triggers my brain to automatically say to itself, “No. Lie to me…” when someone says, “To tell you the truth,” or “To be honest with you.” Why do you need to prepare me that you’re going to tell me the truth? Do you usually lie about things?

I could go on and on and sound way more persnickety and like I never say or do anything wrong but I don’t want to reveal all my peeves, imperfections and snarkiness in one post. The main peeve of this post involves a letter of the alphabet. It’s an innocent letter actually. I’m fairly certain that it never intended to inflame my nerves whenever I see it (mis)used in this certain way. It’s just a letter after all. A simple letter. The last letter. The letter Z.

Again, Z by itself is just peachy. It’s when people start adding it to words relating to educational facilities for children that makes me want to copy-edit their signs with a red pen.

I will never be able to comfortably choose a school that uses the Z instead of an S for one of the kids. They make their living/business off teaching young minds ABCs and how to spell. Also, I often wonder if they would hire a teacher who wrote a word on the application with a Z instead of an S? “My skillz include…” Why wouldn’t they hire that person? They set the standard with the giant sign out in front of the building.

I must add that I really don’t mind the use of Z instead of S in casual conversations/situations. In fact, I once called myself Nikki Sweetz when writing a sex column in college. (One of my cooler accomplishments in life.) This Z peeve solely surrounds educational facilities. You know, schoolz and stuff.

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What’s this say? And this?

7 Jun

We’ve been treating Nate like he’s doing incredible tricks each time he reads something that surprises us. He’ll read the tv’s channel guide, amazing us with the reaction of, “Nate! How did you know that, buddy?! What’s this one say?” He won’t always know the others we are asking about but he will try to figure out the words, learning them in the process.

He even started to read a book he was just browsing through at a store recently. He opened it and read the first sentence, “I want to go.” Our reaction, of course, “Nate! That’s so great buddy!”

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Nia is proud of his reading too. She is always updating us when Nate reads something we may miss. While we were at a baseball game, she kept praising him for reading things off the scoreboard monitor. She’s been so excited about his reading that she even made him flashcards. She brought them to me and said, “He can make sentences with them!”

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It’s really fitting that she is such a big cheerleader of his reading. After all, she used to read to him.

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Summer Reading – When Do We Start?

2 Jun

I am loving Nia’s suggested summer reading list. Harry Potter, Judy Blume, Nancy Drew and Chronicles of Narnia? What a great list! I’ve been waiting for the day to introduce her to Harry. I can only hope she enjoys the Harry Potter series half as much as I do. (That way I can at least talk about them with her after I re-read them for the I-lost-count time.)

Along with the books of her choice, Nia will add the dictionary to her reads, just because she’s been wanting to learn more vocabulary words. (Awesome.)

I wonder which book she’ll want to explore first?

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Nate – The Grad

19 May

A school year’s worth of art, including self-portraits of himself as Spiderman and marker-colored baseball fields depicting him and his daddy playing ball.

A school year’s worth of milestones like his first “girlfriend” and learning to write his full name, and many of his classmates’ names as well.

A school year’s worth of field trips to cool places, friends he cherishes, lessons about caring, sharing, ABCs and 123s, playground woodchips in shoes, stories, show-n-share fun and memories like playing catch with one of his wonderful teachers, Ms. Amanda.

Nate’s year of Pre-Kindergarten. We are thankful for all that it held and offered for him and we are hopeful his first year at “big kid school” ends with smiles and moments like these:

Color Coded Moods

18 May

With one week left of school, Nate seems to be going out with more than a bang – it’s more like a behavior blow up.

Each day, he and his Pre-K classmates start with a blue day, which basically means great behavior. If they have behavior troubles, like not listening to the teachers or being mean to friends, their color turns to green, yellow or red, depending on how many issues they’ve had that day. (We tell Nate to think of blue like a home run, green as a base hit, yellow as a foul ball and red as a strike out.)

For the school year, Nate has actually earned more blue and green days than yellow and red days combined so these past few days have been tough on all of us. (Even Nia told me today that she was wearing blue so Nate will get a blue day.)

For the most part, he gets yellow or red due to listening issues like not being quiet when he’s supposed to or playing while he should be resting/learning. But one of his recent not listening days went further because it involved him losing a friend’s football on the school’s roof because he didn’t stop throwing it up there when the teacher asked him to.

His punishments for his actions include no video games, no baseball playing (we’ve actually removed all baseball gear/toys/cards from his room), he wrote an I’m sorry card to the football friend and will be using his piggy bank money to buy him a new ball, and today he was not allowed to wear pajamas to his class’ pj day. He is always so saddened at his punishments but today’s was especially hard. He saw all of his friends in their pajamas, even a few who had yellow or red days yesterday like he did, but he was not in his.

I feel so bad about it. I just don’t know what else to do since we’ve used all the other typical punishments (that usually turn his behavior immediately around because he wants to earn his privileges back). I’m worried we are being too strict but I’m also worried about his behavior when he gets to Kindergarten. Right now, his color coded days of Pre-K influence my moods so heavily. What in the world am I going to do when he’s called into the principal’s office? That will be a red (fire-red) day all around for sure.

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Hope to see blue (or even green!) today.

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Dragon Collector

16 May

Knights armed with swords and shields. Horse-riding heroes on a dangerous quest to save thee fair maiden. Or heck, even ogres or zany donkeys. They all have battled fierce, flying and fire-breathing dragons. I know of one little girl though who can also claim to be a dragon tamer. She doesn’t use weapons like those characters did and the dragons she conquers are not dangerous but her story should still be revered.

To defeat her dragons, she uses the magically polite powers of being Ready, Respectful and Responsible – her school’s motto and pledge. For that, she earns the praise of her teachers and principal and a Dragon, her school mascot.

Her school gives these Dragon Awards out every nine weeks to the boy and girl in each class who possess those powers. For Nia, she’s captured three Dragon Awards in three years. Quite the collector.

So proud of her! (And somewhat fearful of her powers too.)

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Be Afraid Ye Dragons!

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Dragon Collection

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Two Fields, Two Kids, One Day

14 May

My mom, Nate and I experienced quite an action-packed day recently. First, Papa Dave joined us at Nate’s school Field Day and then the three of us went to Nia’s school Field Day (after recharging with some tasty Chick-Fil-A).

Both events were packed with fun activities, friendly-competition and heat. It was a gorgeously hot day for playing outside but that didn’t stop Nate from attacking every activity with as much energy as 10 people. And Nia was such a sweet, big sister -walking him around with her hand on his back and telling her classmates, “This is my little brother, Nate.”

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