Guess what?

The tooth fairy is coming tonight!

Update

So let me fill you in on this guy. I'd say little guy, but that's becoming less and less true. He's quickly closing in on 50 inches tall, and weighs about 1 pound per inch. There are mornings when I swear I can see the overnight growth. 

Kindergarten is over. He's officially a first grader now. He's grown so much this year. He had great teachers this year, and learned so much (just ask him). He made a lot of friends. We're told he's a really good kid--is polite, gets along with everyone. The one challenge he runs into is that he just doesn't understand when others aren't nice to him. We have to work on helping him deal with that. 

We went to a potluck for his aftercare the other night and were watching a slide show of things they'd done throughout the year. Rob and I are pretty sure that they do more in aftercare than we did in kindergarten. 

He's in camp this summer. The camp is run by the same group that runs his aftercare, so he knows the ropes and the counselors and should have a lot of fun. They go swimming every Monday, and go on a field trip every Friday, with lots of fun stuff going on in between. 

We've been spending more time with our neighbors lately. We've really lucked out in that regard. All the kids are pretty much in the same age range. The adults are very similarly minded in terms of parenting and politics. Over the past month or so, we've had two potlucks at different houses, and it's been so much fun. The kids are old enough that they can run around in a pack and amuse themselves, which leaves the adults free to have a drink and an uninterrupted conversation. It's been great. Zack has also been getting to know another boy in the neighborhood, and it's been working out that they have been getting together to play pretty spontaneously. 

As for the boy himself, what can I say about him? He's got such a personality. He's got a great sense of humor and now that he's older, he gets more inside jokes, and makes some of his own. He's also taken to "getting" us---in other words, pulling our leg. 

He's still working on reading. It's interesting to watch; you forget how much mental energy it takes when you're first learning. We can almost see the cogs turning. Now that they sent all his school work home, we've seen that he was working on a journal in school where they were supposed to draw a picture and write captions about it. He was doing a really good job of sounding out words on his own, though it's hard for us to read. For example, he wrote the word "science" as "siins". Which, to be honest, makes as much sense as the correct spelling. 

He still loves to draw, and was very sad that the drawing class he'd been going to was over for the session. We'll definitely have to start those again when they start in the fall. He still loves Legos, too, and builds very complex things with interacting parts. 

Along with everything else, he's developing a bit of an attitude. There are days where I'm pretty sure that he's 6 going on 13. But we're working on it. And overall, he's a really good kid. 

End of an Era

First day of kindergarten. Heading off to his last day of kindergarten. After today we have a first-grader on our hands.

Slacking.

I know, I've been slacking on posts lately. To tide you over, here's a pic of him sacked out after his drawing class last Saturday. Boden had slept over the night before, so he was pretty tired.

Jo Jo Penelope

We went with Kelly to get her puppy today. What a sweetie! So far she and Georgia are getting along fine.

More from the sculpture club.

Too bad he doesn't have any fun after school.

Reading

Zack just read about half of Dr Seuss' Go Dog, Go to me. He did such a good job of sounding out new words and repeating sentences again to "smooth them out" after figuring out all the words. He was really motivated to do it, too, to figure out all the words. It's amazing how much energy it takes--he gets a bit out if breath when he's really concentrating. 

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Sculpture club

Zack and his latest creation made during sculpture club at KAH (aftercare).

Sporty

As we were driving home tonight, Zack was describing a car he'd seen. I asked him if it was a sporty car. He said it was there was a pause for a moment. Then he said, "And I'm a sporty Zack ."  

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Drawing

Yesterday, after he and I got home, he apparently noticed this card on the counter and took it. He went over to the table and all I knew was that he was very engrossed in his drawing. Before I knew it, he'd done this.

And just FYI, the one on the left is the old old lady, and the one on the right is the young old lady.

Weekend

While Rob and I went away for a night to Shepherdstown, Zack hung out with Kelly. He was so excited and had a whole list of things they were going to do. I don't know if they got to it all, but they did go to the playground, rent movies, go to the aquarium, get a balloon jet pack made, and have lunch. And I'm pretty sure he didn't notice we were gone.

Crossword

She finds the Sunday NYT crossword a bit too challenging.

Variation Part Two

These are his characters from yesterday, a snow day. He was more interested in working on these than going outside. See Mother Nature? We're ALL sick of winter.

Variation on Legos

I printed out a bunch of Lego mini-figure templates for Zack's birthday, but they weren't used. Zack found them this weekend and spent hours over the past two days coming up with his own characters. These are from Sunday. He sat at the counter while I cooked and we had some pretty intense conversations about monsters.

Enjoying...

...this guy's company while I do some cooking and baking in the kitchen. When we decided to put in this island/bar, I don't know that either of us thought of this scenario, but it's certainly the nicest one I can imagine now.

And while I'm here, I should note that I honestly don't think he's stopped talking since 7am.

Our Mighty Mustang

Last night I just happened to see a note in Zack's backpack about how he was chosen as the Mustang of the Month. (The mustang is his school's mascot). I asked him about it, but got very little information (shocker). So I found the email associated with the person signing the note, who turned out to be the school's guidance counselor. I asked her what this meant and she sent back the following response: 

"Yes, it is a very good thing!  Each month we focus on a Character Education virtue.  At the end of the month students are selected either by their teachers or peers, in upper grades, for demonstrating that virtue.  I announce their names during morning announcements.  Then the students are invited to have lunch in my office to celebrate, watch a movie and have popcorn.  They receive a certificate and get a Marvelous Mighty Mustang bracelet!

It is a simple form of recognition, but the kids LOVE it!"

How cool is that????!!!!!!  I'm pretty proud of our little guy! 

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Six

So we have a 6 year old in the house. And what a cool 6-year old he is. (Ok, so maybe I'm a little biased, but....)

How would I describe him? He's often happy. He's funny, and likes to be funny. He's showing tendencies of being a smartass (in a good way), and if 6-year-olds could be sarcastic, he would be. He comes home with lots of new phrases and sayings, but he always puts his own spin on them. He loves to learn about new things, particularly if those things are reptiles or amphibians, or if they live underwater. The zoo and the aquarium are probably his two favorite places to go.

He's a sweet boy, concerned about others feelings. His one big complaint about kindergarten is that kids are mean to each other. He seems to feel responsible for making everyone get along, even if that means telling the teacher. We've tried to talk to him about letting the other kids work it out, that he can't be reponsible for how other people behave, but he has a very strong sense of justice.

Except when he doesn't. He can be wily, trying to play Rob and I against each other, telling one of us that the other said he could have X or do Y, when we really haven't. Or he sometimes tries to figure out what the "right" answer (i.e. the answer that won't get him in trouble) is, to the extent that we can pretty much see the gears in his head turning. What we have to remember is that this is all part of normal development and that we just have to guide him in the right direction.

He's very open about asking questions about things, whether it's about animals, or about whether or not something he heard at school is bad or not. He talks about how he feels. We love that about him and we hope he'll always feel that he can ask us things.

It's interesting watching him develop his interests. He's not big on group sports or that sort of thing, but he loves going to drawing classes and guitar lessons. At aftercare he mostly chooses to join the art clubs or play with Legos over doing the larger group activities, though he is perfectly fine when they do group games. At home, he loves to create, whether its spending time building new Lego creations, or getting out his markers and paper and glue. If he gets an idea in his head, he's very adept at putting things together, not hesitating to get the materials he needs (glue, tape, scissors) to make whatever he's cooked up. I've also gotten him started in helping with things in the kitchen like making salad, and I've been teaching him how to use a small sharp knife to cut up things like cucumbers and snap peas. He's been doing really well with remembering how to use the knife properly and is obviously pretty proud about helping out.

He's got two close friends in his classroom, Naeem and Grey. From his teacher's accounts, he's friendly with all the kids in his class and talks about other kids that are in his aftercare. He's still very close with Boden and Emiliano from his old daycare, too, even though none of the Three Amigos go to the same school now. He and Bo are particiularly close, and I just love watching how they pick up where they left off as soon as they get together. Those two are so good together; I love listening to them working out their differences and coming up with all these great imaginary scenarios. Bo spent a lot of time over here this past weekend and the two of them did just great. It really warms my heart.

So how does one celebrate a 6th birthday? It started the Friday afternoon of his birthday, in his class. Zack had made a point of saying that when it's someone's birthday, the mom or dad can come in the classroom and stay, and he'd like me to do that. So even though the kids had their postponed Valentine's Day party that afternoon, I took birthday cookies into class to celebrate. The teacher, Ms. Goodwin, started by seeing if anyone had any questions for the birthday boy, then they sang and I passed out cookies. That evening, we went to Pacci's for pizza; Kelly joined us and we had a lovely time. The next day, Rob and Zack went to the Lego store--it sounds like quite a place! They came home with some rather involved Lego projects--the Millenium Falcon, for example. Thankfully, Uncle Geoff came over later that night and could help with construction. He stayed until the next day, when we all went to the aquarium in Baltimore. That was great, as always, though I'm not sure Geoff was quite prepared for the pace at which we went through the place.

We saw no reason to stop at celebrating after one weekend, so we continued to the next weekend. Bo slept over at our house on Friday night (more on that in another post). Then Saturday, we had a few other boys over for a glorified playdate. After last year's huge party, we had decided that we were going to keep it VERY small this year, and I think that worked out really well (particularly since Rob ended up not being around for the party due to a funeral). There were a total of 4 boys--Emiliano, Boden, Grey, and Zack. What's great about this age and about boys is that even though the didn't all know each other, it was enough that they all liked Legos and light sabers. I had planned some crafts, but those pretty much were ignored for the aforementioned Legos and light sabers. Heck, they barely stopped for pizza and cake! But they all seemed to have a great time, and I really enjoyed seeing Zack with his good friends.

All in all, Zack seems to be enjoying being 6. He seems to have this larger perspective on his age now, commenting on how he's been all ages from 1 through 6, and he says things like "Back when I was 1 or 2, I would have fit on this chair, but now I'm 6," sort of observing how much bigger he is now, how much he's grown. And there's certainly no question of that! He's 47 inches and 47 pounds these days. I imagine he won't be 47 inches much longer. He doesn't fit in our laps nearly as well anymore, but we certainly still savor the moments when he tries.

Creativity (?)

Zack brought this picture home today.

It's apparently of he and I, in the snow, with q-tips.

At Disney on Ice...

...thanks to Ed and Cessy.

I love our neighborhood.

A lot of snow and no school today. So the emails started flying and we decided to go down to the sledding hill. People got as far as our house and realized that would take forever and we'd have a lot of cranky kids before any sledding occurred. So we changed course and went to another neighbors' yard to sled. But first we built a snowman in the middle if the street. Georgia was running around as excited as could be, greeting everyone. There was sledding and some yummy chocolate pie. It's so great to be part of this fabulous community.

So now were getting a few more inches of snow. Our street hasn't been plowed from the first bunch yet. And no school tomorrow. More fun tomorrow!

Relaxing.

We were tired after a snow day.

Buddies

The first thing Zack said Saturday morning was something along the lines of "Am I having a playdate with Boden today?" He'd said something about it the previous weekend and I'd totally forgotten about it. So I quickly texted Bo's mom, and it luckily worked out that he could come over that afternoon.

They hadn't seen each other for quite some time, but they picked up right where they left off. They played so well together, and it just warmed my heart to listen to them.

"I want this guy to do x."
"No, I want that guy to do y."
"Hey, why don't we have them [insert compromise here]."
"That's a really good idea."

I gave them a 30 minute warning before I was going to take Bo home, and Zack immediately asked if Bo could stay for dinner. Long story short, that all worked out and Bo stayed for dinner. Zack and I drove Bo home afterwards.

[Side story. I sometimes just shake my head at the things that boys think of. They were eating crackers in the back seat as I was driving them home. One of them asked the other "Wanna see the crackers in my mouth???" "Yeah! Mine are all stuck on the top of my mouth--look!!!" Sigh. ]

Even at Bo's house, they were ready to keep playing and I had to extract Zack. As we were walking to the car, Zack said he wished that Bo could sleep over. I'd honestly not even thought of that, and felt bad that we hadn't thought of it earlier. I told him we'd do it soon. We had a nice conversation on the way home about missing our friends, and how sometimes spending time with friends has the funny effect of making you miss them more. I told him that happens with some of my friends that I don't see often.

That whole day just made me so happy. That he has such good friends, that they're long-lasting, that at least some of his friendships are growing along with him.

Our very own Caped Crusader

Chilling.