September Update

Well, we are settling into a new school year routine....or trying to, anyway. Sam has commented, more than once, that it's always "rush, rush, rush", and boy is he right. There doesn't seem to be much downtime anymore, and I think that's terribly sad. I'm really struggling with the fact that our lives, our time, is dictated by public school. But, so far, we haven't come up with a better alternative, so, we're learning to adapt.

After 2.5 weeks of first grade, Sam is adapting seemingly well. Frequently after school he asks when they will stop doing kindergarten work and get into the real stuff. The first full week, they took a math assessment test. We tried to gather from Sam what was on the test and how he did. Apparently one section included items that the children had to count and record how many there were. Sam decided that, to make it more challenging, he would just guess how many items there were instead of counting them. Hearing him explain this to us, Paul and I became nervous about his answers and that the assessment was not going to accurately gauge his knowledge because he was simply bored with the test. He then, however, assured us that he was always right, for he always went back and counted to check his answers. Then, just this past Friday, on library day, after the kids came back to the classroom with their books, they were supposed to take some sort of computerized reading comprehension quiz with their fourth grade reading buddy. Sam told me that the reading buddy told him he was supposed to actually read the book first, but Sam? Well, he just decided to wing it and took the quiz without reading the book. He claims he got all those questions right, too, and all I can go on at this point is his word. In the car one afternoon he asked me, "what if I'm the smartest person in the world?" And he doesn't doubt that he is. It's going to be interesting to see what kind of trouble he gets into with his boredom this year.

Sam also started back up in soccer a couple weeks ago. This season he's playing in a different league and the team includes ages 6 and 7, so Sam is quite small compared with most of the other kids. The areas in which he needs improvement are definitely more noticeable, but luckily he is still having lots of fun. His little legs aren't as fast or strong as many of the other kids, but boy can he play goalie! He's still anticipating being a professional soccer player. But if that doesn't pan out, he plans to fall back on being a race car driver. I'm just happy he's confident.

Nathanael is loving his new school. Every morning he asks if he is going to school today. Since he only goes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the answer is usually no, much to his disappointment. I love how he comes bounding out of his classroom every afternoon at pick-up to give me a hug and tell me about his day. He always has some pretty good details to share. He's enjoying the crafts that he's been making and loves that he finally has some things to hang on our wall o' crafts in the playroom that has previously only held Sam's work. And, though it has nothing to do with preschool, he has finally, in the past week or so, started to correctly identify most colors. Some of them still receive a much longer name than just "red" or "blue". In fact when asked what color something red is, he will say "it's like Clifford the Big Red Dog, so it's red!" And for blue, he will say "it's like a blueberry, so it's blue." But I don't care...it's kinda cute. And so is he. My favorite parts of the day are when we drop Sam off at school and they each tell the other to have a good day at school and then when we pick Sam up from school they both tell each other what they did. Super cute and super sweet. And then, as soon as we get home, they start beating on each other. Gosh I love them.

And as for me, I'm now 30 weeks pregnant. At last check, which was probably about 6 weeks ago, baby girl was breech. She is pretty active, and I'm trying to stay active as well. For the record, no we do not have a name yet and no we probably won't make the final decision until we see her. But we sure do like her alot already.