The big Cameron and Camryn match up

Cameron and Camryn met face to face in a big Cardinals versus Cubs t-ball game last night. Her mom and I have joked about what a big deal this game was. Actually, it was just cool to hang out.

Cam is getting ready to wrap up his Kindergarten year at school. It's exciting... and a little scary to figure out how I'm going to keep Cam busy before summer school starts. He's looking forward to spending time with me at work. I'm hoping to find ways to keep him from surfing the web the entire time. Exhausting, but I just want him to be happy and not obsess on media like he can when he has a lot of time online. By the way, he looked at me and announced: "Mom, I'm almost a first grader. That means I'm almost really big." Then he told Jordan that she can be big too one day when she goes to first grade. Clearly, he's looking forward to being "big."

Some trouble there

So I called in this afternoon to hear how the day went. I heard that Cam got into a pushing match. The later at home Cam lets out that he was sent to the office. He says some kid hit him really hard and then Cam hit back. I understand, but he needed to tell a teacher. I can't imagine that the playground rules are as simple as they were at the Academy. So we had to really talk to him about getting a teacher involved before Cam tries to take things in his own hands. That's all we can ask for!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little easier for him!

Pressuring himself

So it's a lot harder to guage how the new school is going. I didn't realize how lucky we were in pre-school to get a little note about my child's day or the quick conversation with the teacher on a daily basis. So I kept asking Cam about his day all evening long. Little pieces of the day came through. But it all came crashing down as we were going to bed.

I asked him what his teacher told him to work on... And Cam just started crying. He started talking about something that didn't make sense. He was really upset. I think I boiled it down to the fact that he couldn't remember what he needed to work on. So I told him the best part about Kindergarten is how you get to work on the same thing a bunch of times. That seemed to calm him. So Randy and I are going to focus on how Kindergarten is fun since he's clearly putting a ton of pressure on himself all by himself. We don't need to encourage stress.

Cam also told me he was shy at school. I tried to understand why. But I just told him that as long as there's one friend who he feels comfortable around, he doesn't have to feel shy. It's the first step towards feeling okay around everyone else. I don't remember feeling shy... So I don't have a ton to offer in that department. Randy says he thinks he can relate and may be able to help him. We'll see. I just want to hold him and tell him that he'll be okay and he'll never have a rough time. Wouldn't that be great?

BTW, I upgraded this blog -- It looks similar, but a bit different. Randy was giving me hell for not creating a new banner for Cam's blog after what I did for Jordan. Mission accomplished.

First Day!

My boy is on his way to becoming a full fledged Kindergartener. Today I took him to school, walked him to his class line and just waited until it was time to move over to his classroom. We talked about Jordan's arm with a bunch of kids and I even got a few moments to chat with his teacher. I was the only crazy parent to just hang out... But I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm just lucky enough to not need to rush off.

There was a wide range of kids in the class. My favorite analysis of the group was watching the difference between the girls and the boys. The girls were congregating and talking about who knows what. The majority of the boys were just sitting there, wiggly and wanting to move. None of them really talked to each other. I got Cam to say hi to a couple of people, but he didn't really strike up a conversation. He knows one other kid at school who is in a different class. They'll get to play out on the playground together. Cameron was really excited about that.

We have a t-ball game tonight... Hopefully we'll have a good report at the end of his day. I know he's going to be exhausted!!

Open House

We took Cam to the open house at his new school this evening. He's pretty excited and doesn't seem to freaked out by it all. The interesting part was when we went into the classroom. We met his new summer teacher and he and I immediately found the circle time carpet. There was a little piece of tape at the top of each color. We found his color (green) and Cam quickly proceeded to find a book and plop down into his spot on the rug to read. I chatted with the teacher and felt like we're going to be okay with her. Another child came in and I was humbled by how fortunate we've been to educate Cam so much. This little boy had a very poor language ability and it was clear he hadn't spent a lot of time in a classroom before. Cam's going to be in a classroom with a wild range of kids... That's how public school works. I knew that, but I'd never actually seen it in action.

Then we went outside to the playground... And all I can say is THANK GOODNESS we went to the playground at Barry's nearby elementary school. We pushed Cam to play on apparatus that he hadn't played on before and that helped him ease up on his nervousness over this new school's playground. He did AMAZING things on parts of the playground. I'm thrilled for him and how he's not going to be as freaked out as he used to be.