Halfway through kindergarten, Chipmunk is doing over the top super well. I’ve gone on a couple of fieldtrips with him. On the first, he didn’t interact with kids, but he pointed at what they were doing and told me they were his friends.
A couple of weeks ago, we went on another, and when a few of his friends showed up, he ran up to them and did this arm-waving-tentacle thing and said their name all silly and… the kids did that back. So I guess they have some kind of awesome awkward playground routine. (These kids aren’t in his class.)
He’s also in love, but. Nope, not thinking about that. He won’t tell me who she is anyway, only that she is his happy thought before he goes to bed and A SECRET.
So I’m ridiculously pleased, of course. I believe a lot of it has to do with the structure of his school and classroom, the social skills program we did for nine months leading up to Kindergarten, and the sink or swim nature of blasting into public school for the first time. I know he’s doing well when he gets in trouble. But I also know we have to keep an eye on that. Right now I’m feeling positive though.
He has a busy day each day, and a different special class every day. Music, Art, Library, Drama, Dance. And some surprise stuff. He knows which class he’ll have each day and the next. He hates dance and loves drama. (His drama teacher is a dude and he worships the guy.) (Dance is, apparently, now for girls, mama. And boooooring.)
Things that aren’t boring:
- poop jokes
- fart jokes
- fart sounds
- walking R2 off various precipices in Lego Star Wars
- General Greivous
- Jar Jar Binks
- stinky cheese
- discussing who is getting married
- asking how long people are married before babies come
I.
Cannot.
Anyway, in the midst of all this awesome, I’m also noticing that his handwriting is terrible. And yes, he isn’t even six. But seriously. It’s illegible. He’s reading at a second grade reading level, so his teacher isn’t super concerned in general, but it needs work and I’m meeting a metric assload of resistance from him about practicing at home.
Today he also sulked to me, “I never want to jump rope again. I couldn’t do it. And every single kid in my class could do it except me.”
Coordination is still an issue. His sensory issues aren’t so very in your face crisis mode constantly, but in some ways he’s no longer making progress and as much as I read and listen to his therapists, I’m not an expert. So–it was awesome when the children’s hospital called me last week and said they finally have an OT opening for us again. As much as I dread having yet another weekly appointment over at the hospital (and the fact that I haven’t finished paying for last year’s therapies yet and the fact that my insurance thinks it’s a luxury and will only pay for 20 appointments all year) I said yes, yes yes. Sign us up.
She’ll start with a little mini evaluation to get back up to speed (it’s a new-to-us therapist) and we’ll go from there.
Chipmunk is super excited. The first thing he wants to do is learn how to jump rope.
