We had our first Kindergarten parent teacher conference this morning. It was nice to chat with his teacher. No surprises, of course. We asked about the reading testing they did awhile ago and she said that “he can word read anything you give him” but apparently his comprehension isn’t quite as advanced. I think she said they tested around a 2nd grade level and he could read it, but needed work on the comprehension. We also talked a bit about how it’s hard to tell with him sometimes because he often just doesn’t want to answer questions and it’s hard to tell if he doesn’t know or just doesn’t want to talk. Or maybe some of both.

Overall she said he is a great kid to have in class. Of course!

We had an interesting interaction in the hallway as we were rushing to the meeting, late of course. There is a counselor who teaches Second Step to the kids. She probably does other stuff as well, but Lex calls her the Second Step Teacher. Second Step is a program that teaches kids social and emotional skills to help them succeed at school. She said good morning to Lex in the hallway and he looked away. It was early and he was feeling nervous about the parent teacher conference (more importantly about whether he wanted to sit in the hallway or play outside with some other students). She paused and said it again, he looked away again. Then she got down right at his level and made eye contact and tried to prompt him on the right way to reply. He kept looking at me and his eyes started to well up. Silly boy. She made me laugh when she said “Ok, let’s try this again,” and she stood up, whirled around, looked at him again and said good morning. He smiled and gave her a little wave. She said, “Ok, I guess we’ll keep working on that one!” It was nice to see that people are working with him on his eye contact aversions and nice to see that she was so nice about it. I think on a different day he would have been much more receptive to her. Anyway, overall it was a nice morning at school :)

After a super busy week and a traveling weekend, Lex surprised me by going to school happily on Monday morning.  He was eager to show off his new lunch box carrier.  Monday night he went to bed saying he was too tired to go to school on Tuesday, but he woke up this morning and remembered it was library day and went to school.  I thought things were going well, but then he came home with this:

His teacher sends home a chart every day with a smiley, “straight” face, or frowny.  So far he has always gotten a smiley and only twice before has he ever received a “code.”  Codes give the parents more info on why the kids got less than a smiley.  Every day after school I ask if he had a good day and every day he says “Yes, I did!”  One day he even said, “Mom, you don’t have to ask me, I always have a good day.”  Today after school when I asked the usual question he said, “Oh, I don’t think so,” followed quickly by “but don’t look at my chart today.”  Of course I looked!

He had a dentist appointment after school and was very nervous about it.  I think that combined with the busy weekend caught up to him in school.  I was happy he was doing well and made it to school, but perhaps he would have done better taking a day off.  Sigh.  You just never know with kids.

After the dentist we ran a few errands, including a trip to the toy store to buy a birthday present for a party this weekend, and the kids were both super well behaved!  Then we came home, had dinner at 4:30, bath, stories, and bed.  They were both asleep by 6:15pm!  Yay!  Hopefully that helps make tomorrow a better day at school.

Here are two more quick thoughts about Lex. Have I mentioned him lately? He amazes me and amuses me daily.

This morning Eve, as she often does, was being stubborn and refusing to get herself dressed. Sometimes I do it for her and sometimes I leave her alone in the bathroom for hours (ok, more like tens of minutes) until she gets unstubborn and gets herself dressed. This morning, however, Lex offered to get her dressed. She loved the idea. He’s such a fun big brother!

She chose the skirt over pants, and laughed at how high he pulled it up :)

Socks on. (PS. My bathroom looks awful in pictures. I fear these bathroom photos will come back to haunt me in the future.)

Also, his class photos came in today. Yay! I love the class photo and am excited to now be able to put faces with names. Although, I realized that I could name about half of the class and those were the kids he always talks about. When he told me the rest of the names they were all kids he has rarely mentioned. So I guess I’m doing ok on knowing his friends :) Anyway, I ordered the smallest package this year, mostly because I just wanted that class picture, but for some reason they gave me two packets. Slightly different poses. I stopped in at the office on my way out and told them I got two. The lady said “Lucky you!” I asked if I was supposed to choose one and return the other or something and she said, “Nope. If they sent you two, you get to keep two.” Sweet! Both poses are kind of goofy, but that’s Lex. I love him!

School pictures

We had another busy weekend. Rosy came to visit (yay!) and we went apple picking and had dinner with Grandma and other fun stuff. I have photos, but I’m going to post them another time. Right now I want to talk about today.

This morning was different. Our usual waking time, 6am, came and went. I got up at 6:15 (internal alarm, I guess) and Eve got up at 6:30 and joined me for breakfast. Shortly after 7:00 I went upstairs to wake up Lex. I opened the door, turned off the fan, took of his blankets… he kept sleeping. I rubbed his back for a minute (ok, mostly checking to make sure he was still breathing!) and told him it was time to wake up. Then I left. Ten minutes later I went back up and tried to pick him up. He was out hard! I told him it was time to wake up for school. He shook his head a bit and kept sleeping. I gave up. If he was that tired I figured he must need the sleep! I turned the fan back on, closed the door, and left him alone. At 8:30 he got up to use the bathroom, but insisted he was still tired and needed more sleep. At 9:00 he came downstairs and said he was hungry but wanted to go back to bed after breakfast. Weird. As we talked he told me that he didn’t want to go to gym class today (not the first time I’ve heard this!) and therefore wanted to just sleep all day and wake up tomorrow. Of course this didn’t really happen, but I did let him stay home today instead of bringing him to school late.

We had no plans for the day and at one point it occurred to me that it was just like the slower days, just the three of us home, playing all day. They played super well together. I played with them off and on, also getting some exercise and chores done. Lex was very lovey and made love notes to people. Very sweet. I have to figure out what’s going on with gym class, but to be perfectly honest it was really nice having him home today.

Tomorrow is library day and he’s excited for a new book, so I think he’ll be up bright and early :)

Doing a Hidden Pictures together at lunch time.

A love note to Eve

Another love note to Eve

Lex’s school had Open House tonight. We went to Open House for pre-k and it was a disaster. He was hot, tired, and overwhelmed and had a total meltdown in the lobby. People in the parking lot could hear him screaming! Tonight went significantly better! I asked him this weekend if he wanted to go and he said yes. He came home from school today and was super excited about it. He kept bouncing around and telling me about all the things he wanted to show me. He’s so cute! We went tonight and it was great. Saw lots of stuff, saw his adorable little classmates waving to him and saying hi, saw his various rooms (classroom, art room, etc.) and it was fun. He was soooo happy! :)

This is how Eve went to Open House. I found it hysterical. Not sure what impression we left on the general public.

Here is Lex looking for his collage on the wall.

Lex's librarian was showing him where the Encyclopedia Brown books are. She squated down and he assumed the same pose. It made me laugh.