school daze

Both kids, ready for a fun afternoon at school in their awesome backpacks from Boffo Home and Cottage in beautiful Dryden ON.

I don't think I've felt more like a "mom" than I have this week, with two kids in school. Well, ok, one's in preschool. But it feels the same. The honeymoon is still in full swing for both of them, but so far, it looks like it could be a great year.

Joan is in Renfrew - an awesome little special needs preschool - she's been discharged from the hospital's infant program, so this is the next phase of her therapy. They mix preschool with therapy in a kindergarten-like setting. It reminds me a lot of John's Best Start program, where he went when he was 3. Very loosey-goosey, rule-wise. They have stations, but are allowed to move around them freely. The only formal thing is a circle time. But the rest of the day is spent in free play. After they get settled in, and the therapists get to know the kids, they'll be directed a little more into more therapeutic type of play, using the things they like to encourage development. But for now, they're just spending some quality bonding time.

I was really concerned about her starting school. But after seeing her at her staggered entry, I knew I'd have nothing to worry about. She's very shy, but when I went to pick her up, she was leading her teacher by hand to a bench. They sat down together, and Joan shimmied over to her, until they were cuddling. Then Joan took her by the hand,and they just sat cuddling, holding hands for a while, with Joan giggling away. She likes the baby station best apparently - she likes pushing the dolls around in strollers. And apparently, she loves the playground - it's a great design, with disabled kids in mind. The one at John's school is completely inaccessible to her - she has to climb a ladder or worse to get to a slide. Not even a set of steps! Joan's is filled with ramps and tunnels and stairs - she would be able to get everywhere on it, with effort.

I know they're working her hard, because she's completely fried when she comes home. She generally curls into a ball and screams for an hour or so. I'm assured this will pass as she gets used to it. I think the teacher is worried I think she's not liking it, because so far, she hasn't even made it out of the building before melting down. "She really had a wonderful time, I promise," she said emphatically on Friday. I assured her that I can tell she is from how excited she it to get there.

She was actually mad at me for the first couple days of the week - her school didn't start until Wednesday. But John started Monday, and I had to take all three right into the classroom to fill out paperwork, because he had missed his staggered entry. We walked in on a room filled with kids reading books on a carpet. John was instructed to find himself a book and join them. Joan was all set to get herself a book and join right in! She was not a happy camper when it was time for us to go - without John. It began a two-day funk. When her day finally came, she was so excited. She knew exactly what was happening, because I was packing her pink backpack. I said "ok Joan, let's get you to your school!" and she threw her arms up in the air and said "Woohoo!" She says that every day as we leave for her school now. This weekend, I've had to hide their backpacks, because she was following me around with it, chanting "School? School? School? School?..." So nothing to worry about there. And Tuesday is music therapy day, which I know she's going to love!

Then there's John. John, who we put in French Immersion, firmly against his will. We've been arguing with him about it all summer long. If we said the word French, whether it had to do with school or not, he would fly into a tantrum. He said he hated french, he just wants to speak English, that french was bad, that he wouldn't do it. He would refuse to speak in class, and just play with toys all day.

So, we get him there...and he LOVES it! He comes home every day all excited about the new words he's learned. He learned rouge, and goes around the house pointing out everything rouge he sees. He thinks his teacher is fun, and pretty. She's very young and energetic. Now, whenever he sees a brunette with long hair, he says she looks like his teacher. It seems to be just the challenge he needed to keep him focused. His preschool used the K curriculum, so now, they're starting with the same unit pre-K started with - I Am Unique. We think he would have been bored if we'd gone with English school, and he may have been up to his usual antics. So far, he seems to be listening and connected. One day, leaving school, he actually thanked me for putting him into french school! He seems to be really proud of it - he tells strangers in the street that he does french school, and will teach them a few words if they seem suitably impressed. I know he was nervous about not being able to handle it, so I think he's really proud of himself that he's able to keep up. It's mostly in english for now, but every day, they learn more words and phrases. It really moves quite quickly. The teacher uses quite a bit of conversational french with them, that they're just expected to pick up naturally. Then they learn vocabulary on a more formal basis, from a puppet named Sluggy. Once sluggy teaches them the french, though, the english equivalent "goes on vacation" and can't be used in the classroom again. So far, he can say hello, goodbye, pencil, September, yellow, red and backpack, and can tell you if the weather is either hot or nice. We were sent home an assignment to help them do about their likes and dislikes, all in english. But the note to us was that they will be repeating the exercise completely in french at the end of the year. I think that's pretty impressive.

We've also got him into scouts. That was a whole other battle. Ugh. The registration night was this week, and we wanted him to actually be there for it. So he and I went down after dinner. But up until we left, he was determined to stand at the door, yell "hate it hate it hate it!" and run home. Mike won him over by reminding him that he could earn badges. he has a check mark rewards system in school - they get a check mark for doing nice things to help classmates or working extra hard on projects. He responds really well to the system - it's always his goal to get a check mark that day, and only missed one day. So we compared badges to getting check marks in school, and he was all over it. Then once we got there, he met some other boys being registered, and he was completely sold. I'm surprised so few people brought their kids, but he was able to have an entertaining conversation with a Cub about what Beavers was like for him, and he assured John that it's lots of fun. But he warned him that the badges aren't very easy to get. We may have simplified the badge earning process slightly, to get him interested. "If I'm nice to a plant and give it water, or if I do something nice for someone else, I'll get a badge!" John tells the Cub. "Well, good luck with that," he replied. "It wasn't like that when I was there. The requirements were pretty insane." But John was not put off. In fact he was so excited, he insisted on registering himself, and made me give him all his forms and cheques so he could deal with the volunteers directly.

So it's been a busy week, all around. Even Dave had a little excitement. I took him in for a check-up on Wednesday, and brought up his habit of attacking his food like some starving, rabid dog. He eats like a horse, but never gets fat. He Doc laughed at me, and said that's a good thing. So he weighed and measured him, and sure enough, he's a great size. He's above the 98th percentile for the weight to height ratio. He's 30 inches and 21 pounds, which are both perfectly fine. He said third kids are often like that, because they have to keep up with the pack. They tend to be stronger, more advanced and more active than what their older siblings were at that age, and as a result, they often have much faster metabolisms, because they burn through calories like crazy. So he said we're doing great - just keep stuffing him up, as much as he'll eat. He said he looks beautiful and very healthy, and can't see anything to suggest anything is going wrong. He's always been very active. He's been climbing the stairs for months. And even with baby gateswe have to watch him - if he's in bare or socked feet, he can climb right over the gate! It's a game to him - he likes me to find him climbing, then have me chase him up. He's so close to walking. He can take a couple steps, but only if he has something to fall into. But it won't be long. Some scary days await.

Anyway, better go! it's getting late. Well, it's 10, but I'm beat, so it feels really late.