First Day of School

He was nervous and excited. His tummy had hurt for 3 days before. But he had fun.

Me: Did you make any new friends?
Cole: Yes, one boy. We played on the playground outside.
Me: What's his name?
Cole: I don't remember.
Me: Did you have to pray? (He goes to a Lutheran school)
Cole: Yes. We said 'Amen' at the end. Why do you say that?
Me: Umm, well. (change of subject) Sunday School starts Sunday! (off to google amen)
Me: Did you do anything else?
Cole: No. (And it starts already)

He's excited to go back tomorrow. :)

Two more sleeps

Until my "baby" starts Kindergarten. Definite mixed emotions. Apprehension. Excitement. Sadness.

I know he'll have so much fun and succeed. But there's the underlying usual mom worries of will the other kids be nice and will he make friends. Will he be too overwhelmed? He's a sweet boy with a heart of gold, and I hope that doesn't make him a doormat. I've seen it happen with him before. He's smart, and bored easily. It leads to being stubborn and a refusal to do things "because I know how already" (see swimming lessons).

He's my baby. My firstborn. The one that gave us the most trouble and had to be coddled just a little more from the minute he was born. That fragility is still stuck in the deep recesses of my mind. He's still tiny for his age. The kid is starting Kindergarten in size 2 uniform pants. I love him with my everything, and have a need to protect him, but have to let go a little.

He'll be fine, right?

My kid is going to fail

Swimming lessons! He loves the water. Taught himself to swim underwater. But he's going to fail level 4 preschool swimming lessons because he won't put his face in the water. WTH?! He's lazy and can't be bothered to do what's asked. I've threatened all sorts of evil outcomes. You're going to be in lessons next with your baby brother. He hates that. Still won't do it. I tried not being in the viewing area yesterday, so he didn't have me to whine to and attempt to make me feel sorry for him. There was improvement. He clings to his instructor and whines.

We just had a chat about what he's going to do at lessons this morning. "Not hold onto my teacher". Good answer. "Do what he tells me to". Again, good answer. Now do it.

And we're having the same issue with golf. Probably one of the most laid back, least active sports out there. GOLF. And the kid sits in the middle of the field. He's "tired". But has plenty of energy to go play on the playground after. You're not tired. You're lazy. Again, I won't be watching this afternoon.

Wish us luck. I've got Cole enrolled in 5 different sessions of swimming now for the fall. Let's hope he can pull it off before Friday or I have to call and deregister and get a refund for 3 of them. I'd rather call and deregister for 2.

Back To School

School starts in three weeks. We've got a new backpack, lunch bag, lunch containers and school supplies. My Lovable Labels order arrived today, and I'm totally happy with it. And kind of geeked out that I get to put labels on everything. Mike wanted to know why we couldn't just sharpie everything. Because it wears off and looks ghetto. Cole is going to be wearing a uniform so we've got the required black socks and black loafers. I just need to get down to the uniform distributor to get him fitted for his actual uniform (pants, shirts and sweaters). That's Friday.

Today is Meet The Teacher day. She's coming to the house. My house has not looked this perfect since we had a cleaning lady and/or Grandma came for Easter or Thanksgiving. I'm totally determined to keep it up, thanks to Motivated Moms. It's a nice, easy, a little bit every day, homekeeping schedule.

I volunteered to be Class Liason (room mom) for the year. I'm super excited about that! I have lots of fun ideas thanks to Pinterest. I've cut my hours back to two shifts maximum a week at work. The boys need me. Our house needs me. And I need the time. I was basically working just to pay for childcare and that's really a no-win situation.

The kids are enrolled in a ton of activities this fall. Cole will be going to all day Kindergarten, so he's just got swimming lessons and Beavers. Carson on the other hand, will be home with me. We've got a parent and tot clay play class, gradual entry program where I have to stay in the building, a parent and tot sports program and he's in swimming lessons as well. We'll toss some Strong Start in as well some mornings.

It's a busy fall coming up!! I'm going to give once a month cooking (OAMC) a shot to try and keep on top of healthy dinners and not eating out all the time.

There's still 3 weeks left though to get in some more summer fun and we're planning on visiting the aquarium, Science World, and Mike and I are going on an all day date outlet shopping in Seattle! Woohoo!! Plus lots more park trips and hopefully the beach thrown in one day. Cole still has a week and a half of swimming lessons left, as well as a golf sports exposure program next week.

Did I mention I live in my van?

Beef. It's not what's for dinner.

At least not nearly as often anymore. Mike had an incident with some fast food burgers that didn't taste "right" to him. They were cooked, but just didn't taste right. Turned him off of beef. Mainly ground beef. The economical staple of the majority of North American homes. Especially ours. So much so that I buy it at Costco in 5 lb packages of lean ground, split it in 4's and freeze it for the next two weeks. At least I used to.

The kids and I stopped for lunch when we went to the passport office the other day to drop off Mike's application for a renewal. They love a certain restaurant with a crown more than the golden arches themselves. Lo and behold, there was one. They each got a cheeseburger kids' meal and I had their renowned burger with cheese. And then halfway through lunch, Carson picked off his bun. The burger was pink. Looking like day old roast beef, pink. On the outside. Not just a little pink on the inside, but pink on the outside. My mind panicked a little without letting the kids see. All I could think was "e-coli" and "salmonella". I checked Cole's. Same thing. I'd already finished mine, so no idea there. I took the kids' burgers back up to the counter, where they offered to make me new ones. No. Absolutely not. I'd like my money back now. And I'd like to speak to the manager. The manager seemed totally unaffected by this, and gave me back my money for the burgers alone, not the rest of the meals we were abandoning.

I'm totally grossed out. Disgusted. And turned off beef myself. I shouldn't lump all beef together. Can I see us enjoying a good steak on the BBQ this summer? Yes. A prime rib roast during the winter? Absolutely. A ground beef casserole for dinner next week? Absolutely not. I'm sorry, but that's all it took. It's much healthier in the long run. We've come to really enjoy ground turkey, even before all this. We'll switch to that. Sure, it's more expensive. Some recipes don't taste right with it to us, though. Like Sloppy Joes. Oh well, we'll live, I'm sure.

Happy 6th Anniversary, Baby

Cole

Holy smokes. That poor kid has made friends with more doctors, therapists, and psychologists than probably necessary. All because of an over-zealous preschool teacher. Which angers me beyond belief. Livid is actually an appropriate word here. As a parent you know if your kid is different. There's something not right about them. Cole was assessed for autism a year ago. Of course, being a helpful parent I shared that with his preschool teacher for the upcoming year. She almost refused to take him without a program assistant. I had to do a lot of talking to get him in there, despite the fact he did NOT place anywhere on the autism spectrum. Screened completely out. Because of that assessment they did make the recommendation that he see a speech language pathologist (we were already on that one), an occupational therapist (slightly behind in gross and fine motor skills), and a behavior therapist for defiance and manipulation issues.

So being the diligent parents we are, we got all of that lined up. Speech, he's doing just fine after weekly therapy appointments and we didn't need autism screening to tell us he was behind and having formation issues. The OT wanted me to work on snipping paper with him, mazes, and putting his coat on. Done and done. A year at preschool covered that. The behavior issues? He's 3.5/4. He's strong willed. He's highly intelligent. It's the perfect storm for "I don't want to, so I'm not going to, and I'll trick you out of me doing it". Yes, our 4 year old can outsmart us on occasion. I'll fully admit that. Never to him though. Here, sure. And Mike and I are intelligent people ourselves, so the kid comes by it honestly. It's just staying one step ahead.

So with the "your child may be special needs" package also comes a supported child development worker. Our was named Cindy. Cindy observed Cole at preschool monthly, and wrote up a report and sent it home in Cole's backpack. Cindy was a blessing really. She assured us that Cole was a very bright, friendly, well behaved child at school. This was completely contrary to what his preschool was saying. Not joking. His preschool actually tried to get a program assistant for Cole for next year for his "behaviour issues". Cindy is the one who would have granted funding for it, and immediately denied it. According to his preschool Cole was easily distracted, lacking focus, very high energy and a disruption in class. Cindy found he was one of the best behaved kids in class. Not wanting to leave a stone unturned, back we went for more assessments, this time ADHD. We'd rather be proactive rather than reactive parents. We didn't want him to get to elementary school and have nothing but problems because of some unknown issue. Right around then Cole started doing math at home. Like Grade 1 math. Addition, subtraction, greater than, less than math. He started learning how to read shortly after his 4th birthday. The pediatrician we saw (and have always seen since for developmental issues since Cole was in NICU) didn't completely rule out ADHD, but did feel that Cole was bored and unchallenged at preschool. In other words, cut and paste wasn't enough. Teach me reading, math, geography, all of it. Now. That was last month (May).

We'd been looking into schools for Cole since February. We knew that if we were going to send him to private school, we better know where we were going, so we were on the waiting list. We just weren't overly happy with most of our public school choices. We found a private school we love. I called them after the pediatrician appointment just for guidance on what to do with Cole for the next year while we wait for him to start Kindergarten. They suggested we come in, with the possibility of Cole starting K a year early. So, we went. And they were very happy with him and what they saw. Cole starts Kindergarten in September, a year early.

A lot of thought went into that decision. It wasn't something we just rushed into. He's really small for his age, and that bothers me because now he's going to be really small up against kids a year older than he is. His birthday is early February, so he's not that much younger than the youngest kids chronologically. Our K cutoff is December 31st for the year of enrollment. We would be doing him a disservice really to not enroll him now. Another year bored in preschool? He's my baby, and I had mentally prepared myself for September 2013, not September 2012, so that has taken some adjustment. The principal said that they don't really see if it was a mistake or not until they hit around Grade 5 or 6. So, we'll see. But for now, this is the best decision for Cole. My baby starts Kindergarten in September. Oh, and preschool's reaction? Less than favourable, and almost downright nasty. Two more weeks to go there.