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Rocking Another Year of School

The kids have officially been in school for a little over a month (minus a week due to Hurricane Irma and her wrath... but that is another post for another time) and they are doing great!


Will is blossoming in school. The more he goes, the happier I am with our decision to put him in a "year" earlier than Kenzie. Technically he is almost the same age she was when she started but because of how his birthday falls (especially compared to her), he is in a younger class. He is the oldest in the class, I think, but he is having a blast. I remember on his second day when I made it to his school a little early and planned to sit in the parking lot waiting for time to pick him up. His class was on the playground and he was running "with" his friends (they were mostly parallel playing but every now and then would interact some and it was adorable). He went down the big slide a bunch of times and waited in line to go down the smaller slide after some of his classmates. When a friend lost his shoe across the playground, he volunteered to go pick it up and bring it to the teacher so she could help put it back on. Later, I asked him who lost the shoe and he made sure to explain that it was "William. The other William. Not me, Will. William." Too funny. Watching him line up and walk in line to go back to his classroom was adorable. Then I caught him sitting on the carpet in his specific spot waiting to get the wipe to clean up his face and hands after playing outside. He got up when told to do so and threw it away. It's so funny because we know he sometimes seem pretty mature for his age. He is even more so because he spends so much time with Kenzie but seeing him in action and requiring such minimal assistance, especially compared to some of the younger kids, was eye opening. After I pick him up from school most days he will tell me that he  misses his teachers. It is adorable. The only weird thing we have going on is that when we first get there, he gets a bit upset. He cries some but I called and checked on him one day and talked to the director when I came in and was told that he was perfectly fine within about 2 minutes and never said peep again. He has been doing this since the second week and while it is continuing, it is getting less and less. The funniest part is that even though I drop him off crying, he is so compliant. Anything he is asked to do, he does. Or he answers questions appropriately through tears until he calms down. Every day I am told that he had a good day though and once he calmed down (which never takes long), he is fine. He also tears up when I pick him up but I think it is just a rush of emotions or something because he is fine almost immediately. I've been told that he does the same thing if a parent comes early for a child and sometimes those times are the most upsetting to him for some reason. I don't know if he thinks I am not coming back or what but he is a sad panda for a while until he snaps out of it. During the day though, he is loving being in school. When I pick him up he always asks me if I missed him. I tell him that of course I did but that he had such a great day in school and I am happy about that. He tells me that he misses me too. (Side note: When Kenzie gets ready to get out of the car in the morning he tells her that he will miss her during the day. And he sometimes tells me that he misses Daddy during the day when he is at work. He's just a loving kid.) This crying thing is part of the reason we did school a year earlier with him. We know he will be even more independent with each passing year.


Then there is Kenzie. Kenzie is seriously becoming such an amazing student. We have heard from her  prior teachers that she has always been a great student. She follows rules and directions well. She wants to help. Those are all things we already knew but now we are seeing her bring home serious work and it is becoming apparent that as far as kindergarten goes, she has it together. I know we are only a month or so in and things will get more difficult but she is doing so well. She has been bringing home her homework for a couple of weeks now and she is doing so well with it. She is learning sight words and has been rocking it. Now, when we read books together we try to stop at any sight words and let her read them. It slows our reading down, but she loves reading with us. Pretty soon, we will hand her the book and let her go. We made a sight word wall on the door of the bathroom and she practices any time she is in the area. She has become a champion cutter. Much better than her dad's "mitten cutting" in kindergarten. (He had a note sent home that he needed to work on his "mitten cutting" which seems super random and still makes everyone laugh.) She comes home excited each new day to tell us about her day. Steven picked her up on a Friday a couple of weeks ago. She had a great day. She lost a tooth, got to visit the nurse who gave her a cute tooth holder necklace, got her first reading charm for reading 25 books (with us), got 3 emoji keychains on a necklace for selling more than 10 items for the fundraiser, and did well in class including reading all her sight words correctly. She literally got in the car and talked the entire way home. Steven wasn't sure she had even taken a breath until they hit the garage at home. Haha! That is normal for Kenzie. Even more so when she has a good day and that day might go down as Top 10 in elementary school for her. We are so proud of how well she is doing and how she has taken to elementary school. We were so scared to watch her walk into school herself that first day that we used the car rider line to drop her off... and now she goes in like she owns the place. That's Kenzie. Always confident. I hope that never changes.


So, at about a month in, they are both doing really well. We are certainly proud of them. Kenzie returned today after a week off for Hurricane Irma and as she got out of the car, it was like she never missed a beat. I hope to hear that her first day back after 6 days off went well and she had a good time. I'm sure I will. Will goes back tomorrow and he is super excited to deliver his birthday invites and get to go to Gym Buddies so he should be fine, too. (Bonus: I get a bit of time to do some things without kids under my feet. It's been a long week without power and frustrated kids due to the uncomfortable-ness of the entire situation.) They are ready to get back into the swing of things. So am I.

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