First Day of School and Adjusting

The new school year officially began on Tuesday, August 17th.  Melinda was absolutely THRILLED to begin 1st grade, so she could finally go back to full-day school.  I never mentioned it here, but when we moved from Maryland to Colorado, we went from full-day Kindergarten to half-day.  And when I say half-day, I mean 2 hours and 50 minutes, which includes a good 15 minutes of attendance/announcements/etc.  It was way too short for Melinda.  She adored full-day school, and cried several times about wishing she could be in 1st grade in Colorado, just so she could be there all day.  So, when the first day of school rolled around, she took right to it like a fish to water. 

She's reusing her backpack and lunch box from last year, as they will both work perfectly well for her again this year.  By 2nd grade, I may have to upgrade to a full-sized backpack for her, however.  I bought her original backpack on the small side, because it always bothers me to see such small bodies burdened with humongous backpacks.  Between growing and having more homework next year, this is probably the last school year she'll use this backpack. 

Melinda and Jacob on the sidewalk just a block from school.  Jacob tagged along because he had Kindergarten assessments right at the beginning of the day, but his first day didn't come until later.

Heading towards school.  So excited for 1st grade!

Melinda stands in front of her classroom door and classroom bench.  Her teachers are Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Crain, who team-teach, one in the morning, one in the afternoon.  I've heard good things about it, and so far everything seems to be going well.

 So, Jacob had his Kindergarten assessment, which is where they basically figure out where the kids are academically.  When I asked Jacob what his teacher asked him about, he said, "I don't remember."  This seems to be a new constant theme for him.  He basically can't "remember" anything about his day until something very specific prompts him to talk about it.  Such as Melinda telling me she saw Jacob's class going to P.E.  Then he was able to tell me about the game of high-five tag they played, and how he got to be a tagger, and had fun.  I would have never even realized he had P.E. if Melinda hadn't brought it up.   Anyway, his first day of school was actually Friday (oh, he was SO eager for Friday to come!), and that day, only half the class attended for a staggered start.  The whole class didn't meet together until the following Monday.

Jacob poses with his backpack in the field near his Kindergarten classroom on his first day.  He has the funniest poses!

There's a more normal looking face!  ;)

Here's Jacob's new backpack, complete with the embroider he chose: 3 flying jets in formation.  Awesome!

Jacob heads over to his classroom bench, while Ms. May is ready in the background with a clipboard.

Jacob putting his backpack on the bench.

Waiting in line to go inside on his first day.  Ms. May was basically making sure she knew which kids were there that day.

More waiting in line...

At the end of Jacob's first day, he rushed up to me and blurted out, "Mommy, I have something I have to show you!!"  And he pulled a little craft out of his backpack:  A flower shape he had colored, with a smiley face with hands and legs (his typical drawing of a person), glued to a Popsicle stick.  He was SO proud about it, and SO excited!  And then it was time to ride our bikes home.

 I have to say, I was so excited about this bike ride home.  It was the VERY FIRST TIME he had ever gone the entire distance from home and school (~0.9 miles) without whining, even a single tiny little bit.  Jacob does tend to be of the "Eeyore" sort of disposition, seeing the worst in everything on a very regular basis.  Usually we can't walk, bike, or push him in a stroller without hearing a near constant stream of complaints in the whiniest voice he can conjure.  But after his first day of school, he was all smiles, biking his heart out, and even when he got to a hill, instead of whining about how he couldn't do it, simply would exclaim, "Mom!  I need a push to get up this hill!"  It was magnificent.  And the rest of the day at home, too, he was happy as could be.  Miracle!

Unfortunately, Monday rolled around.  And although the same happy, excited mood filled him up, Ms. May waved me over to talk to her.  She informed me that he's been having a fairly rough time adjusting.  She quickly asked me if he had gone to preschool (no, he hadn't).  I also informed her that his birthday was just barely before school, so he was on the very young side, too.  She nodded and said it made good sense.  Apparently he's been having a hard time listening to instructions, often flitting about the room and getting into things instead of doing what Ms. May directs the class to do (for instance, sitting on the group carpet).  And then, when someone took what he perceived to be "his" spot, he broke down crying.  And then on Monday, he couldn't get the Weekly Reader into his backpack (I think he needs to work on using the zippers), and broke down crying again.  Yup, that has Jacob written all over it.  When Jesse and I substituted in his Primary class way back in January, and we had a simple little coloring activity, Jacob ended up on the ground crying his eyes out, because he "couldn't" do it.  I've seen him react the same way to lots of other situations that he sees as unfair or too difficult.  Even Jesse and I have never really figured out how to get him out of a crying spell like that. 

So we sat down and talked about things: I encouraged him to listen to Ms. May's instructions.  I told him I'd watch through the window after they put their backpacks up to see if he'd go straight to his carpet spot.  I told him that if he gets frustrated, to go tell Ms. May he was frustrated, so they could fix the problem instead of just crying about it and making things worse.  Ms. May also gave him a designated special spot (on the picture of the polar bear), which has fixed the problem of having his spot taken.  When she gave me a smile and a thumb's-up on Tuesday at pick-up time, I hoped we were well on our way to fixing most of his issues.


And then, when I picked him up today, Ms. May waved me over to talk to her again.  At about 2pm, he had gone into the bathroom, and pooped.  He then spent the next 15 minutes screaming and crying for someone to come wipe his bottom for him.  Poor Ms. May stood at the doorway, yelling encouraging instructions to do it himself and come back out.  It got so bad that she called me, though I had left my phone at home and was already on my way to school to pick him up at that point.  Teachers simply aren't allowed to help, and Jacob was just refusing to do it on his own.  I guess it got resolved in the end.  And while I was waiting to hear all of this from Ms. May (while she dismissed the rest of the class), I asked Jacob if anything bad or upsetting had happened today.  No, it was a good day, he said.  Nothing was wrong.  (See?? I can't get anything out of the kid!!!)   And yet, you could tell his day wasn't so good.  The whole bike ride home today was one big whine-fest.  It didn't help when I got tired of his whining about Melinda always being in the front, and told her to let Jacob take a turn for the last couple blocks.  Then Melinda threw a big ol' fit, throwing stuff around when we got home, slamming doors, scowling and rolling her eyes at us.  Sheesh.  Not a good day.

Well, Jesse and I had a very, very long conversation with him about how he has to wipe himself at school, nobody else is allowed to do it for him, and gave him very specific instructions on what to do when he uses the bathroom (or has an accident, because honestly, that's a big worry to me still).  And it's all rather odd, because he's been wiping himself for at least a week or two with no problems.  Neither Jesse nor I could say when the last time was that we helped him in that department.  We were surprised and shocked that he created such a scene over it at school.

All day long I've been feeling bad about it all.  I went back and forth so many times about whether I should send him to Kindergarten this year.  In the end, I decided that since it was such a short day- and less time than he spends in church every week- that he could handle it.  He wanted to go to school, has been eager for it!  He is learning how to read very quickly.  It's just the social aspect that made me worry so much.  He's shy, sensitive, doesn't really make friends easily, prefers to play on his own instead of with other kids, still has accidents, gets upset easily, tends to not listen to instructions.... and to see it all causing so much difficulty for himself and the teacher really makes me question whether I was right to send him, after all. 

Jesse reassures me that he'll adjust in time.  And other people have said the same thing, that kids adjust, they figure it all out, and the first couple weeks are the hardest.... but it still doesn't make me feel like maybe I should have waited.  Maybe this is just too much for him right now.  Maybe another year would have been just what he needed to be able to adjust more easily and quickly, so he doesn't end up feeling like he's incompetent, or a bad kid, or a trouble-maker.  I don't want him to constantly struggle in a school setting, I want him to enjoy it.  But what if he never does?  I've thought about homeschooling in the past, but ended up deciding I just didn't have the temperament for it.  I know it's a jump to go from 3 bad days during the first week of school to thinking "Now I'll have to homeschool!!!", but that's where my brain is taking me.  Learning and socializing should be fun, and I hate to feel like I'm forcing it on him when he's not ready.  I know I'll certainly be keeping him my prayers a lot more than usual, hoping he'll get the hang of it all soon....

Jacob's Birthday Party

So Jacob's birthday party was Monday, August 16th.  We invited everyone he knew from church, since he really hadn't met anyone his age otherwise, yet, and invited their siblings to come along too, if they wanted to.  We had a pretty good turnout, especially for how busy people were getting ready for school.  I'm so glad!  This was Jacob's first birthday party ever, and I wanted it to be fun for him.

We went with a "bug" theme that my sister Melissa shared with me recently, and it was great.  We started the day off by doing some mini "ice treasures".  We made them inside the nice little IKEA children's bowls, and it seemed like a perfect size.  Inside each of them was an assortment of plastic bugs and pennies and nickles.  Everything they freed from the ice was put inside a gift bag to take home.  They had fun pouring, squirting, spraying, and chopping the ice for a good 15-20 minutes.  Perfect for a summer birthday!

After ice treasures, we played a little bug-themed game called Spider and Fly.  Everyone paired up, and took turns being the spider or fly.  The "spider" had to try to wrap toilet paper around the "fly" as fast as they could.  First one to finish a roll was the winner!  This was actually very tricky, because too much pressure made the toilet paper squares separate, and that meant it didn't want to wrap around very well.  But they had fun, at least!

We had one friend who had to leave after just an hour, so we went ahead and did snacks and cake/ice cream next.  I had spent a few hours the day before getting some "bug" treats ready:  Spiders made from round crackers, peanut butter, and pieces of pretzel for legs, and raisins for eyes; ants on a log (celery sticks); ladybugs on crackers made with tomatoes and prunes (I wish I would have thought to do black grapes instead, as the kids mostly avoided the prunes); caterpillar grapes with slices of carrot for antennae; and bees on crackers made from circles of cheese and prunes (again, grapes would have been better.  Or maybe olives?).  The spiders were gone in a heartbeat, and caterpillars came next.  We had a lot of leftover ladybugs and bees, lol. 

Here's Jacob and his "dirt" birthday cake!  It's a devil's food cake (boxed, I got lazy) topped with chocolate frosting and crushed Oreos over the frosting.  Then we put extra bugs all around it and stuck the candles in.  :)

And here's a video of the birthday song and blowing out the candles!



After everyone had eaten, we played pin the spider on the spider web.  I wish Jesse had taken a picture of the board near the end!  All the spiders were grouped in the same general area, in the left half of the web, mostly in the upper quadrant.  Melinda actually got closest to the middle.  And even though Jacob looks reeeeally close to center here, he changed it at the last second and got pretty far away.  I was pleased with how eager the kids were to take their turns!

After Pin the Spider on the Spider Web, we headed back down to the grass and played a quick little bug-crawl relay race (otherwise known as a crab crawl).  Jacob was a stinker and wouldn't even give it a try, just laid down and watched everyone else.




And finally, we played "Buzz Buzz Sting"... a bee version of Duck Duck Goose.  Alex was super adorable when he had his turn.  ;)

Time was about over at this point, so we headed inside to let Jacob open his presents.  He loved *everything* that he received, and has had fun leaving them all over the floor for me to trip over this past week.  ;)

Jacob's 5th Birthday

Four months since I last updated.  I'm so lame.  If you're actually reading this, hats off to you!  I'm surprised anyone checks back anymore, these days.  ;)


My little guy Jacob actually turned five last week.  How did the years go by so fast?  And why do they just keep on getting faster?  It's not exactly fair.

We went to Idaho to visit my sisters Melissa and Jacy (Jacy came from Eastern WA to meet us in the middle), and while I was there, I realized that once we got back home, I'd have all of about 2 weeks before Jacob's birthday.  Therefore, I needed to plan things quickly.  And throw together a party somehow.  Lucky for me, Melissa had recently done a birthday party for her son, and it seemed really simple to pull off.  So I copied her, grateful for an easy idea.

I was originally going to have his birthday party on his actual birthday, since it was a Saturday.  But before I actually managed to send out any invitations, I learned that our ward camp-out for church was to be held from the 13th to the 14th... making it so that if I had actually invited all his classmates from church, I'd be darn lucky for anyone to show up, since they'd still be camping if their family attended.  So at the last minute, I decided to have his party the following Monday... the day before school started.  Also not an ideal time, but more likely to have party-goers show up and attend.  ;)

On his birthday, actually, we attended the funeral of a friend's baby.  What a hard combination of emotions to process -- grief for the loss of such a very young life, sorrow for the family... and yet, gratitude for the birthday I was allowed to celebrate, joy for the boy who was getting so big and looking forward to new, exciting things.  It did make me appreciate his birthday so much more.  Though I still had a very hard time fitting that in between all the sad emotions.

After the funeral and back at home, we let Jacob open up a few family presents- one from me, one from Jesse, and a couple sent in the mail from Grandma Wilcox.

Following Jesse's family tradition, we play a little game of "Heavy Heavy Hangover Thy Poor Head.... What are you going to do with it?"  Then the person getting the gift has to guess, and if they're wrong, they get a bonk on the head.

Jacob opens the first gift from Grandma Wilcox.... and it's... an UMBRELLA!  He was thrilled.  :) 

Next up, he opened a gift I worked very hard on.  I wanted to get him a t-shirt with a picture of Link from the Legend of Zelda, but I absolutely could not find one.  Every store online that sold video game shirts either only had adult-sized shirts, or all their child sizes were sold out.  Well, that just wouldn't do.  So I decided to get my hands on some t-shirt transfer paper.  I looked around online and found a supply store that seemed to sell very nice quality transfer paper (based on reviews, it seems like the stuff I could walk out and buy at a craft store wouldn't work well or last long).  I ordered a sample size of 3 sheets, and it got to me just a couple days before his birthday.  I found some images, arranged them in Photoshop to my liking, and printed it on the paper.  Then I had to cut out the paper by hand (ugggggh, it took so long!!), and then iron it on.  I was very happy with the result!  I've already washed this shirt three times and it's holding up awesomely.  And Jacob loves it!!  That's what I was going for, of course.  :)  (And now, I have extra sheets of transfer paper, and I can't stop thinking about what else I could do with it!!)

We also got another package in the mail while we were out, which we opened once we got back home- it was a package full of Disney Car socks from Grandma Wilcox.  He put a pair on right away!  Despite the insanely hot weather.

The worst part about this day was that Jacob started throwing an absolute fit over not having more presents to open.  We wanted him to have something special on his birthday, which is why we opened any presents at all.  But he also already knew that we'd be having a birthday dinner at Grandma's house the next day, and get some more presents from Aunt Rachel and Grandma Newson then.  And beyond that, he also knew that he was going to be having a party with all of his friends coming over the day after that.  So THREE days of fun and gifts, and he decided to throw a fit on the very first day because he wanted more presents.  It made me feel so bad.  I felt like Jacob had transformed into Dudley Dursley or something.  I have no idea where the attitude came from - I don't remember any of my children ever doing that before.   Eventually, he stopped, and I could tell he really liked all his gifts, but it was still a shocking attitude.

So, on Sunday, the usual Sunday Dinner with family was now Jacob's Birthday Dinner.  He wanted spaghetti, but we had just had a lot of spaghetti recently, and nobody else really wanted it again, so we talked him into chicken drumsticks and various sides (like fancy green jello with pineapple), instead.  He ended up really happy with that (phew!), and we had a lovely meal. 

After dinner Rachel and Grandma presented their gifts to Jacob.  (And poor Rachel, don't mind her.  She was doing some dishes and got wet at the sink!)  Another round of Heavy Heavy Hangover....

And Rachel made him a lovely name banner, which we have now hung up on the underside of the bunk bed, where he sleeps.  :)  We also used it as decoration at his party!  Wonderful.  :)

Grandpa gets excited to do Heavy Heavy Hangover....

Grandma Newson made him an awesome Link (Legend of Zelda) costume!  A nice green tunic styled just like the character, with belt and sword harness trappings made from some perfect vinyl, which was leftover from her's and Rachel's re-upholstering of my dining chairs for my birthday.  It looks awesome!  And he's always wanted a Link costume. 

Rachel went the extra distance and made a dessert for Jacob's birthday dinner - homemade brownies with mini M&M's scattered on top, then topped with ice cream, whipped cream, and a few more M&M's.  It was a hit!!

Tomorrow I'll blog about the birthday party.  I think it was a lot of fun and I want to share!