First Few Weeks of School

I'm way behind on blogging (shocker) but wanted to give a quick update on Jack's first couple of weeks at school and any other random stuff we have been up to.  Just in case there happens to be a minor interruption in the next few days...like labor.  And a baby.  But who's counting the days, right?

 Jack's first couple weeks have been wonderful but not without the occasional adjustment hiccups.  The first couple days of school Melissa and I (because we are in this together) decided to walk our kids to school to drop them off for their first full time days.  It was fun (and some nice exercise too) and we managed to get a picture to capture this very important milestone!  Anderson was already inside the cafeteria but imagine another precious, bespectacled 5 year old in this picture as well.  My goal was to show him the car drop off line and how it works so that by Wednesday he could literally just hop out of the car and walk right into school - like the teenagers I teach each day.  How crazy is that?  There was some hesitation (from me not him) when I walked him into this cafeteria with a million kids and a teacher took him from me (literally - I barely got a hug in there) and sat him in a sea of kids waiting to be taken back to their classrooms.  Jack was nervous but handled it well.  I cried like a baby on my way back to the car.  There is something so weird and surreal about looking on at Jack from a distance and seeing him by himself among the rest of the population.  For some reason, that causes anxiety.  He's in the mix and has to take care of himself.  It reminds me that from this point on I'm going to play the role of observer more than intercessor with his school life.  It's a hard pill to swallow.  But enough sappiness.  I think pairing this milestone with my crazy out of whack hormones was not the smartest move.
I picked him up from KidTime that day and....he was crying.  Apparently, his stomach (which has been acting weird for the past week) made him sick at KidTime and he has a stomach ache for most of the time he was in there.  He was upset (there was a brief incident in the bathroom with other kids that embarrassed him) and didn't understand why his tummy hurt - I didn't either.  I thought it was nerves but the next day I got a phone call from the clinic at FPS stating that Jack was complaining again of cramps and I needed to come get him.  So we experienced school check out (which is pretty tight security - nice to know) and went to the doctor.  He's been tested for intestinal parasites and everything else to no avail.  Something has messed him up these past three weeks but cutting back dairy and introducing a probiotic has done wonders.  And now that he's not worried about getting a stomach ache at school every day, he relaxes more and is really, really enjoying it.  I'm just hoping against hope this kid hasn't inherited the Kersey Stomach.  Poor guy.  But all that aside, he LOVES school.  He really does.  Whew!

 His first homework assignment. :) His teacher has been fantastic so far with homework.  She told us at Open House she's not big on worksheets so our homework each night has been reinforcing things he needs to know from class (sight words, write his letter proportionally, etc.)  This little sheet was hilarious b/c his answers are just what (most) 5 year olds would say:
I think I will like school because "it's cool."
My favorite book is "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus."
My favorite game is "monopoly."
My favorite color is "red."
I like to eat "bananas" because "they're healthy."  ?????  (He clearly was forgetting about the ice cream he begged for earlier that day.)
When I am not at school I like to "play."
This summer I "swam." Yes.  Yes we did.  A lot.
One interesting thing about is "I like science."  He does?
When I grow up I want to be a "monster truck driver."  This is a change from last year.  Last year it was a construction worker. :)
He then had to decorate it with markers or stickers.  We went the sticker route.

 He had this in his backpack at the end of the first week.  It has a little clothespin on the back so we can display his work.  I love the red hair and glasses more than anything :)

We also already had our first parent teacher conference!  I got to pick the date so I went early (as in Sept 1) b/c I wanted to make sure we get info as soon as possible - the baby urgency at play here.  It was so weird to be on the flip side of this.  I've had lots of parent teacher conferences but from the other side of the table.  Andy and I sat there and had nice conversation about how Jack is doing, where he stands in terms of his development/achievement (smack dab in the middle - perfect.)  And one thing that was super helpful was that I got to talk to his teacher about his attitude in class.  Jack has a tendency, b/c he's very soft-hearted, to get frustrated, defeated, and say things like, "I'm dumb. I can't do this."  On Thursday of his first week, he had a meltdown about cutting and when I was dropping him off, he apologized to me in the car line that he, "wasn't very good at Kindergarten."  Naturally, I did what any normal parent would do.  I emailed his teacher immediately to find out if he was acting this way at school and what could we do at home to help with his confidence problem.  His teacher told us that she hadn't noticed Jack having any struggles but would be on the look out for this behavior.  She told us Jack was doing wonderfully and I told him that which helped.  But when we met on Tuesday, she noticed a meltdown in class about the cutting.  (Damn the cutting!)  She assured us though that he recovered quickly and that she thinks part of the problem is that he's a pleaser and a perfectionist.  If he can't do something exactly like the teacher did it, he thinks he failed.  So we are working on showing him that there's more than one way to skin a cat (or cut out a stupid palm tree.)
My favorite part of the conference was when she talked about his imagination.  Apparently the first thing they do in class in the morning is journal (or draw.) She showed us his drawings with captions underneath about what is happening in each picture and some of them were hilarious.
"This is a house that is haunted and the family doesn't know about the ghost yet."
"This is a sea monster attacking an island with jelly fish guns."
"This is a house that monsters live in together and they are having dinner."
I told her as long as he's not drawing pictures that'll force her to include the school psychologist, I'm good :)
After a couple weeks, his favorites are PE, Computer lab, Recess, and Music class.  He has made a few friends in his class (one of which is a kid with glasses and strawberry blond hair - how weird!) and looks forward to getting ice cream at the end of the week if his behavior report is good.
Sorry this is rambling and long but I want to document exactly how this all goes so when Lucy starts in a few years I won't be sitting there going, "huh - I can't remember what happened. It was a crazy fall."
No matter what though, we are really tickled with how well the transition has gone and are glad that so far, he still wants to go back! :)