dear santa

kindergarten take 2

Fall kindergarten is way better than summer school kindergarten. After summer school, I was a little worried this summer that E would be super bored with learning shapes and colors and letters again.

It turns out they move at quite a speedy pace in "real" kindergarten. He is learning a letter a day Mon-Thurs and then they review on Friday. They use a method called Animated Literacy where there is a character, movement, song and sound with each letter. They started putting words together the first week using the letters they covered. He is very excited about learning to read a BOOK! They rotate through P.E., library, art and music each week. The favorite? P.E. of course! He likes to play on the "horizontal ladder". Is it not PC anymore to say monkey bars?? Maybe we offended the monkeys somewhere along the way. His teacher really is wonderful. She is expecting a baby in November, so I hope she comes back!

I think he is making friends with his classmates, although it took a week or two for him to break out of his shell. He gets to see Noah, his friend from day care, at recess. The first couple of weeks he was so exhausted from no naps, but now that he is in his groove he is in much better moods in the evenings.

The hardest part for me is not seeing his teacher and his environment every day. You have to trust that he is being nice to his classmates, eating all of this lunch, etc. He got a yellow card one day for talking, but has stayed on green since. This kindergarten thing may work out after all.

watch dog catcher

It sounds like a Wheel of Forturne "before and after" phrase, but it's also what I label my conversation with big E yesterday on the way home from school.

Last night E and daddy were heading back to school for the Watch D.O.G.S. program orientation. It's a program where dads sign up to hang out a school for the day to help out and to have the dad presence known.

E and I were discussing the evening plans, and our convo went a little like this:

Uncle George is a watch dog.

I had to think for a second.

Oh, no honey, Uncle George is a dog catcher.

Why is daddy going to be a dog catcher?

No hon, dad is going to be a Watch D.O.G. It's just a name for dads who hang out at school for the day. There aren't any dogs actually envolved.

I'm trying my best not to laugh because he gets upset now when you laugh at him.

Well maybe he'll look for cats.

No. No, I don't think there will be animals of any kind. It's kind of like a mascot, like how you're a Shark.

Or he can catch snakes. Mrs. B had a snake in her house once...

And on he went. Sometimes there is no changing his mind once he gets rolling.

Love that kid.

catching the bus

my big kindergartener!

since i'm on leave, ethan's been catching the bus for summer school. he was so excited on the first day and says now it's his favorite part of school.

he's way braver than his momma. i totally had that first-day-of-school nervous tummy. his little blond head looked so small riding away in that big old bus. tear.

my graduate

i am the proud parent of a graduate! my big boy graduated pre-k on May 19.

i'll blame it on the post-partum hormones (even though i know they had nothing to do with it), but I couldn't help but cry when he walked out on stage in his little red cap and gown. his pre-k class sang quite a few songs before they each got their diploma. when ethan when to get his diploma, ms. jill announced that ethan wanted to be a fireman like his uncle george used to be and a construction worker like his dad used to be. then they all danced around and celebrated on stage!

we just got ethan's kindergarten teacher's name in the mail for summer school. he'll start summer school in a little over a week! since i'm on maternity leave, he'll be able to catch the school bus from the house each day. better stock up on kleenex now!