Growing, learning... Testing

Mister Kindergarten has talents that he's never exposed before at home. Look at this picture! It's his self portrait. It's awesome.

Cam has been REALLY busy since Kindergarten started. He has a whole bunch of friends and he's been pretty darn positive about everything he talks about at school. And I finally got Cam interested in riding his bike! On Sunday, I finally reached him as he started screaming, "I can't! I can't!" That's when I announced to Cam that I won't bike ride with him unless he changes his attitude to "I can." It worked pretty well. Instead of driving to the nearby parking lot, I got him to walk his bike up the hill we live on and then ride it almost all the way to the parking lot. We rode like crazy and I almost got him to ride all the way home on the bike. The best part: He asked to go out biking after dinner. So we did. I hooked the bike trailer to the back of Randy's bike and had Jordan join us for the ride. Cam had very few "I can'ts" and Jordan even wore her helmet the whole time without protest. It was fantastic. I'm SO thrilled to have more excuses to enjoy outside time with the kids. The best part: As Cam and I were riding down our street he looked over to me while he pedaled and said: "I love being outside." It was awesome. Then we talked about our great camping trip. It makes me all warm and fuzzy.

Of course he's still testing me. Food continues to be a big challenge. But that testing is normal stuff... And the crying and craziness is not as crazy as it has been. The funniest stuff is Cam's complaining as we walk towards school. He is a bit more motivated each morning when we walk with our neighbors. That's been an added plus to the morning walks: Grown ups to talk to!!

He did great!

Here's an email from Cam's teacher:

Cam had a great first day of school! He made several friends and seemed to be happy all day.

Looking forward to tomorrow

Hooray Cam!

Some things work out... others don't

Today was insane. I woke up with the kids and ran right out of the house and trained people for almost seven straight hours. Cam was so good. He kept himself busy, he got really good at printing things out. We were very excited about Can's big day. He got to meet his new teacher in his new school. He also had his cool HSM 2 party.

So we ran out of work, I cooked up dinner super fast and the whole family ran out to the elementary school. We walk up to the school to see the class list. I immediately discover that Cam got the teacher I wanted. We grab material and head to the classroom. It turns out his classroom has AIR CONDITIONING!! That's pretty exciting. The school doesn't have air but I guess a few classrooms do. So not only did we get the teacher I had hoped, we got air conditioning. Wow.

Because I'm a little loopy, I've been keeping in touch with our new school since last Spring. I sent a number of emails that I wanted the new teacher to receive before the school year started. So when we met her tonight she already knew why I think it's really important to get to know Cam and make sure we're all on the same page. I can only hope we're making the right choices to help Cam calm down, relax about his world and enjoy life. Cam's teacher said she planned to call us this weekend and set up time to meet on Monday.

After the big-deal school meeting we ran home for Cam (and my) big High School Musical 2 party. We had a nice little turn out and a lot of fun watching the show. By the end of the movie, Cam was incredibly exhausted. I took him to bed and he crashed.

Suddenly I sit down for the first time and realize we forgot an important day. I feel horrible. Just horrible.

Kindergarten-ho!

Yesterday was a big day. We finally got to go to Cam's "home school" to fill out the paper work, make sure he's properly immunized and check out how the school works. It turns out the immunization stuff got me a little stressed -- the possibility of not having all of the right shots got me nervous. But we're good.

We've been struggling with what is the right place for kindergarten. Cam's learning style is different and I want an environment that fosters his growth, not stymies it because he's very active and wiggly while learning. I've talked to a local magnet school a couple of times and had emailed the principal at our local school. When I got to registration, he had made sure the vice principal tracked us down so he could meet with us. That was very kind. He spent time with us in his office talking about what his school can do for us. He's been more mindful of boy needs in the learning process since he became principal of the school. He's been there 3 years. I know the school pretty well from volunteering there for 2 and a half years so I've heard a lot about him from the teachers. It's been mostly positive. Right after all the paperwork and learning about summer school for kindergarten (how cool!), we got a tour with a really cool 5th grader. I saw parts of the school I hadn't seen before, but on the whole I felt really comfortable there because of all of my volunteer time.

Immediately after we spent almost 2 hours are our local school, we had a sit down meeting with the principal and a teacher from the magnet school. I'll be honest, I'm not sure I got the same positive vibe from the meeting. But I'm still a bit torn over which school is the right school for Cam's needs. We might put our names into the hat for the kindergarten lottery... If we get in that doesn't meet we have to put Cam into that school. So we have some more time to think about this. I'm trying to not be crazy about elementary school. Honest I'm not.