September 8: First Day of School & Creative Play

It was Koen's first official day of Kindergarten!  It took him 30 minutes to roll out of bed this morning, moaning and groaning about how tired he was.  He finally got up and we were out the door on time!  (A relief on my part!)  Once we got to school we went to the playground area where he's supposed to go in the morning, he put his backpack down and almost ran off without saying goodbye!  I had to ask for my kiss, but I imagine it won't be the last time that'll happen. 

It was odd to not have Koen home.  Tysen asked, "Where's mine brother Koen?" three or four times throughout the day...I think he really missed Koen, too! 

Koen was still smiling at the end of the day when we went to pick him up from school.  He told me about his first day (prompted by my many, many questions):  story time, snacks, lunch, other kids, Mrs. VanSledright's pet owl, playing outside FOUR times, and so on.  Part of me really wants to be there to get the full scoop of what's going on.  When he was in preschool and I had to take him into school and walk in to pick him up from school it was easy to stay in-the-know, but already I'm feeling more out of the loop.  We're supposed to bring them to the playground in the morning and pick them up in front of school in the afternoon.  Of course, his teacher invited us to stop by the room either time, but often there won't be a reason to do so (besides sheer curiosity).  I'm sure many of you are laughing to yourself about that...I'm aware that as he gets older I'll know less and less about his school day.  It'll all work itself out. 

While Koen was at school, Ty, Brielle, and I hung out at home.  Tysen and I pulled out his sticker book (mentioned in a previous blog entry), and I was surprised at how good he was at knowing where the stickers were supposed to go.  He thought he was so funny pretending to put the stickers in the wrong spots, and he cracked up when I made a buzzer sound when he was wrong.  He also spent some time hanging out in the garage playing and riding the scooter and his bike.  Dirty, but fun!  It was great to keep him in the garage, first of all because I could easily keep tabs on him, but also because it was incredibly windy today!

August 18: Sticker Books

I stumbled upon these sticker books at Aldi's a few weeks prior to this project day.  The store had a number of activity books for preschool/kindergarten age, so I picked up two of them.  On this project day, I randomly handed the two books to the boys, but in retrospect, I would have looked more closely at them before giving them out.  Koen's book focuses more on colors, numbers, letters, etc. which is fine but may have been better for Ty who needs more practice with these things.  The other book is divided into subjects like rescue vehicles, reptiles, insects, which might have been more appropriate for Koen, but each is happy with his book the way it is. 

I had hoped these books would be such a source of intrigue and joy that we would spend 30-60 minutes playing with them, but after about 10 minutes the boys were ready to move on to something else.  Oh well.  Since they've had them, the boys do go back to them for little bits of time to add more stickers; I guess we're just getting our money's worth out of them!