First day of school!

Last Friday was the Open House in the afternoon, which we went to. We dropped off our school supplies and ran into Nico's friend from preschool last year, Michael. Nico was excited to see him, and likewise! Here's his classroom. The teacher is in the white dress on the left. Ms. Lung.

His first day was on Monday, it was an early release day which meant his class started at 11:30 (instead of 12:30), and got out at 1:15 (instead of 3:15).

Nico wanted me to take a picture of him while he was pretending to fly his water airplane. So this is him in action:

We walked to school, and on the way we ran into another mom and son walking to kindergarten. Silas was the boy's name. Nico and Silas:

We are supposed to wait at the playground until the bell rings. Then they line up and on we go into the classroom. The parents were invited in for a story. All the kids sat down on the mat and Ms. Lung read them "The Kissing Hand". It is a story about a mommy and child raccoon. The child didn't want to go to school, so the mom had him open up his palm and she kissed his palm. Then he could grab onto the kiss and use it to kiss his own cheek whenever he missed his mom. Then, as the child raccoon is saying goodbye to his mom at school, he comes up to her and has her open her palm and kisses her palm, so that whenever she misses him she can open her palm and use his kiss to kiss her own cheeks.

After the story was over Ms. Lung had all the children go find their parents and have the parents kiss the child's hand and the child kiss the parents' hands. Ms. Lung said if you don't have someone there then kiss your own hand. She also said that it could be your mom or your dad or your grandparents or whoever was there with them. Nico was sure to point out to her that his daddy and grandma and grandpa were not with him, just his mommy. So he came over and I kissed his palm and he right away pressed it to his cheeks. Then he kissed my palm.

In the previous picture, the teacher had just read that the child raccoon didn't want to go to school. She added that she knows some of the kindergarteners probably weren't excited about school but that's okay. Nico called out "I am excited for school!" heehee. Ms. Lung had to put her finger to her mouth to show that they had to be quiet, that's what she's doing in the picture. 

When she called roll and got to Michael, Nico called out "But Michael isn't here!" Ms. Lung pointed behind him and so Nico looked and there was Michael! Nico smiled and did a little wave to him.

Nico asks sometimes for me to pick him up in the car next time because he doesn't like walking. It's usually right in the middle of walking home in the hot sun that he says this. We continue walking to/from school, though. We wear hats to keep the sun from scorching us, and it's about a 7 minute walk.

On Thursday morning we took Evelyn up to the cabin for a quick morning visit. Grandma Salisbury fed us apples, asian pears, and cheese. Evelyn helped pluck the seed-hats off of the sunflower sprouts, and she also really loved eating them. They played really well together and Nico enjoyed showing her everything. We raced back before school and ate lunch and then off to school. Thanks for the fun visit, Grandma!

A few funny things Nico has said this week..

Snuggling before bed one night, Nico asks me what comes after Kindergarten. We go through all the grades and then I tell him about turning 18 and moving out and getting a job to make money and maybe going to college. He asks me why we need to make money and so I tell him we need to make money to buy food, shelter, clothes, cars, and then other things that you want.

Nico instantly started listing the things he was going to buy when he turned 18.
#1 Go to Fred Meyer and buy a Thomas the Train Engine toy
#2 Go to Fred Meyer and buy another Thomas the Train Engine toy
#3 Go to Pojo’s and play games
#4 Play another game at Pojo’s
#5 Come home

Then another time, Nico and I were talking on the couch and the topic of Jesus came up. Nico jumps off the couch and goes into storytelling mode, animated and acting everything out.

"Jesus was on a boat, and he was going and then a STORM CAME! The waves were really big. Then Jesus PUSHED JONAH OFF THE BOAT! He got swallowed by a big fish. He was in his stomach and he was really gooey and slimy. Jesus was talking to the captain and asked him "Where's Jonah?" and the captain said "Hmm.. THERE HE IS!" Then Jesus flew away off the boat and all the animals were safe."

heehee...

That's it for this week!

First Day of School

Open house on Tuesday was great, we filled out a form that asked some questions about Nico. They are doing an "About Me" segment that it will be a part of. Questions like: What is Nico's favorite color?  (Blue).

Nico got right into the toys and had lots of fun in the 30 minutes we were there. We also got a picture of him and his teachers. Miss Candace is his teacher (left), Miss MaryBeth is the helper (right), and Miss Suzie is the speech therapist (middle).

We talked about Nico's food allergies, and Miss Candace gave me a paper that lists the snacks they'll be having in a 3 week rotation. The Boise School District provides a carton of milk and a small snack every day for the children, and I'll be sending in snack replacements for Nico every day so that he can participate in snack time (they teach a lot of valuable skills during this) but still avoid the foods he's allergic to. 

Wednesday was his first day, and I am so grateful my Mom came with me! We started the morning off with a bang when I knocked the rear view mirror off and then took a wrong turn. But the mirror incident got Nico laughing and we showed up to the school with time to spare. 

Someone came out to get him when we got to the gate, and we went with him into the school.

Miss MaryBeth taking off Nico's backpack to put into his cubby.

He had no trouble saying goodbye, and then we were off. We spent the morning at Target to help distract me/us. We had so much fun! (Thanks Mom!)

Picking him up was super sweet.

The teacher told me that he had asked for Mommy several times, but more in a questioning type way, and there were no tears. He did just fine! He has a folder in his backpack that always stays in there and they send home a weekly newsletter to tell us what they're going to be focusing on. This week it's all about back to school. They are talking about following directions, buses and the color yellow, and also starting the "About Me" segment. They sent home some homework for Nico and I (and/or Guy) to do together some time this week: coloring a picture of a bus and a large pencil. Then we put it back into the "Return to School" side of the folder.

Today I dropped him off again, but he took the bus home. I waited for the bus outside, watching watching watching, and watched it turn the corner and pull up. Nico couldn't see me until he was at the door of the bus, and it was sweet to greet him there. The same will happen tomorrow - I will take him to school and the bus will take him home. Then next Tuesday he'll be taking the bus both ways.

After we got inside we ate lunch and then he went right down for a nap. At the table during lunch he started counting the water bottles that were on the table. Something he learned in school? He said "Wuh wah, two wah" (One water, two water). 

When Guy asked him what he did in school today he responded with "buh!" (Bus). I am looking forward to Nico being able to tell us more about his days! 

The other thing we did this past week was go to a car show in Nampa on Saturday. We searched the lot for a Mini, but there were none. Nico picked a car he liked and I took a picture of him with it.

We were surprised by the presence of a quilt show inside the church that was having the auto show. So, we went there, too! This time I was the one to choose one I liked, for a picture. I liked the fall colors of this one.

That was our exciting week!