First First - Part 2

Preface:
Jacoby is 20 months old today! Four more months until the terrible two's (TTT)...Lord have mercy on the Rogers family!

The Post:
Jaydon's first 8 days of school have been phenomenal!

He has come home every day and told me what he did at school. This is a HUGE change from last year, where I had to drag it out of him.

He even came home on Monday and said, "Mom, I made a friend at recess. I played tag with her, and we played on the play ground." AWESOME!
(The little girl who he became friends with is SUPER sweet. She was in his class last year too, and I like her parents - big plus.)

Last year - in Kindergarten - our ONLY goal was for Jaydon to make a friend. Going into Kindergarten, Jaydon already knew the ins and outs of the alphabet, letter sounds, numbers to 100, how to read, how to spell TONS of words, etc. so learning to socialize more, and make friends was of utmost importance to us.
We felt like he made some acquaintances, but no friends....goal not achieved.
Not once did he ask for someone to come over, and he was never invited anywhere. (Yes, it made me cry every time I thought of it too!)
So you can imagine my excitement when I heard that he made a friend!

On our way to school Tuesday morning, I noticed that his new friend was in the car behind us turning. I told Jaydon, and he turned around and said, "Yep, that's her."
So he gets out of the car and starts to walk towards the front entrance of the school and stops. I look in the rear view mirror and notice that he is standing out front. I never leave until I see him go inside the front doors. I keep waiting, and he isn't moving. So finally, the teacher who has car pool duties tells him to go ahead inside. I leave.
It didn't hit until I got home that he was waiting for his friend to get out of the car so that they could walk in together! Why else would he be standing there when he has never done that before? I cried when I thought about it. It turns out that her mom had parked and walked her in.

Last year, Jaydon would hide his face if he saw any of his classmates. If I was with him, he would bury his head in my clothes like he was 3 years old.

Not this year! This year, he has even played basketball on a team during recess. He has told me more than once that he shoots and makes it, and some of the other kids miss. Last year, he shot the basketball alone.

On the first day of school, I sent a note in his lunchbox. I try to send notes every once in a while, but I don't like to send them daily for fear of some "meanie" (i.e. The child who wishes their mom did the same for them!) making fun of him, and Jaydon not being able to fend for himself. I washed his shorts from that day, and found the note in his pocket. My boy saved that note, and of course I took a picture of it.

Monday night was a bad night here. Three kiddos going haywire, and their mom at wits end. I sat on the recliner for a "moment of silence" with my head in my hands, trying to regain my composure. Jaydon comes over, puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "Mom, what's wrong? It will be okay. You are my mom, and I love you, and you will always be my mom."
Y'all, those words melted my heart, but the touch of those 6 year old hands on my shoulder really did me over. Have you ever had the joy of the touch of tiny hands on your shoulder? ☺

What all of this is trying to say is that Jaydon is really growing up. He is turning into the compassionate, intelligent, social boy that we knew he could be. He is really making us proud!

One last picture to leave you with...
He got a reader on Monday, and we read it once. There was no need to read it any more because well, he knew all of the words. It was 4 pages in length - about 10 sentences per page. Not the little one or two liners that they got in Kindergarten. We get it back on Tuesday, and check out what his teacher wrote in red on the top left...you may have to enlarge to see it. (Yes, I'm grinning from ear to ear!)

We can only hope that we will always be able to provide our boy with all that he needs in order to be successful...love, patience, and more love!