7 weeks of piano!

Adam just started his 8th week of piano lessons and he has finished his first 2 piano books! I think he was getting bored last week so he tried to play his lessons with both hands.  I told Mr. S. that we have a boy who wants to play with both hands and he said they may start that next week!  Crazy! I was looking through his new book and he will be learning dotted half notes, 8th notes, and the names of the keys by the time he finishes it...might take longer than 7 weeks but he's smart, so who knows?

Field Trip to the pumpkin patch

Adam's class took their first field trip today to Hidden Creek Farm.  Adam was soo excited! He was a little confused as to why we weren't driving to his school first. We had to try and explain that the parents drove their own kids and we would meet them and his teachers at the farm..  Later in the year they will go on a trip where they all get to ride the bus.

They had a couple of animals, a little straw maze, a big pumpkin slide, a dirt hill, and a little corn room with a smaller slide for the kids to play on while we waited for the hay ride.  We had quite a few people on the trip so we had to cram onto the hay ride but Adam sat on Dave's lap and thought it was fun.  When we asked him what his favorite part was, first he said hayride and then he listed everything else he did so..he liked everything!

Pumpkin Patch 10/12/11

A New Chart

Adam has a little chart that he gets a sticker on for each day he practices piano.  The Conservatory of Piano wants the kids to practice 5 days a week so they send the chart and stickers home and when it gets full, they hang it up in the lobby.  It's working pretty well for Adam so I decided to make a new chart for him at home to get him to do some things he doesn't always want to do - brush teeth in the morning, practice piano (so he gets 2 stickers), take a bath, try new foods, go to class and listen (only gets a sticker if he listens), as well as the easy stuff like getting dressed, eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner, picking out books, pjs, etc. 

Tonight he really wanted to get his sticker for "try new foods" but I didn't really have anything new to try.  He started going through the pantry and I saw a can of Spaghetti-Os with meatballs.  He had them a long time ago so we decided that the meatballs would be considered a new food.  He was SO funny!  He ate some noodles and was all "YUM!".  He ate a meatball and said "Mmmmm! Yummy!" but the way he ate it...I'm thinking it wasn't so yummy.  He chewed with his mouth wide open then immediately sucked down some water.  Did it with the next meatball, too.  He ate around the rest and then asked for some more..and said, "Don't forget the meatballs!".  When he was full, the meatballs were still there.  We asked a little later if he actually liked them (knowing he didn't) and he finally said no.  We told him it's OK not to like them...they're kind of creepy...but great job trying them!

His original request for something new was broccoli.  Guess I gotta go back to the store...

Gymnastics and piano today

Adam loves his gymnastics class! The only problem is, one little girl (I'll call A.) thinks she can do everything and runs from one thing to the next and the teacher is constantly focusing on her telling her to slow down.  Then, last week a new girl (I'll call R) joined.  Her Dad is one of the instructors at the place and the Mom is a total stage mom who knows everything and yells out things like "Don't touch the floor! You just lost 5 points!!" and is constantly talking throughout ("I should sign her up for soccer.  I don't think she's a gymnastics girl....blah, blah, blah.")  R kind of wanders around and doesn't pay attention very well (Mom says that this has been her playground for the past 3 years so she's not used to listening) so the instructor is also helping her with everything.  Then there's Adam.  He has been listening SO well and he's yelling to the teacher, "TEACHER!!  Look at me!!  Look!  I can do it!!"  She'll look over briefly but by the time he looks at her she's taking care of the girls and he's back to yelling, "TEACHER!!!".  I feel so bad for him.  I am going to take a look at the schedule to see if he can change classes when he turns 4 or maybe move him to the Friday class if there's room.

Adam is moving along with his piano lessons.  He started learning about quarter and half notes today!!  Mr. S. says he's doing great and catching on really fast. 

1st Day of Preschool!!

Adam had his Sports Jam class this morning which he was totally into this time around!  Today was soccer and he did great! 

We left a little early for Preschool to make sure we had enough time for a couple of pictures.  I parked the car and was going to sit for a couple minutes because I thought Adam wanted to finish hearing the song we were listening to.  He said something like, "This is going to be so EXCITING!" and I unbuckled him from his car seat.  He climbed over and I thought he was going to sit in the seat but he was ready to go in!  We had to wait a couple minutes outside the classroom and when the teachers were ready, he just went in!  I barely got a goodbye. 

Class was an hour short today (which made for a speedy trip to Meijer for me).  I picked Adam up at 2:00 and the first thing he said was that he had goldfish for snack.  Ha ha!!  Then he talked about the playground. Finally, I got him to tell me about the book they read and the "Kissing Hand' they made.  He said he didn't really talk to the other kids but that he tried to whisper into the boy's ear that was sitting next to him.  Instead of actually whispering words, I guess he was just making the fake whispering talking noise and the boy kept saying "what??".  Ha!  He seemed to have a good day and I can't wait until Thursday!

Here are some first day pictures:

Being Goofy!

 

 

 

 

 

There he goes! (in the room by the other teacher)

Meet the Teachers Day

Adam got to meet Mrs. Morales and Mrs. Heckathorn and hang out in his classroom for a little bit today.  He did his whole shy act when we got to the doorway of his classroom.  He wanted us to pick him up and when we didn't, he hung onto and tried to hide behind Dave's leg.  The teachers had a little scavenger hunt to get the kids acquainted with the classroom.  Adam finished that pretty quickly and then headed over to the play kitchen to microwave some stuff.  Ha ha!  I think the most interesting part is that despite some of the girls playing in the kitchen and general area, none of the kids really interacted with each other.  Adam didn't do his usual, "Hi!  What's your name? How old are you? Oh, Hi ______!  My name is Adam. I am 3!  Wanna play?"  He just reached around the girls for whatever he wanted.  He actually made one girl cry because he wanted to play with this scale thing that was set up on the science table that she ans another girl were playing with..but then I saw her crying a lot through the half hour we were there...  I didn't see a lot of boys.

When we told Adam we needed to leave, he just ran out of the classroom, out the door, to the car.  He didn't even say goodbye to the teachers.  We asked him if he liked it and he said yes so hopefully Tuesday will be an easy drop-off.  He said that when he first met Mrs. Heckathorn, he thought she was a little creepy.  Ha ha!!  (She's not, by the way.) We said that she was very nice and he said " I KNOW that!"

We talked to Mrs. Morales about the age thing and she said that there are some younger 4's (like Adam) and some that will be turning 5 towards the end of the year.  That's just the age range they accept into the class or something like that but he'll be fine.  And for Dave - no, Adam cannot go to kindergarten next year!


On a completely, non-Adam related note...for those following my gluten free stuff - my doctor ran some gliadin antibody tests (IgG and IgA) when he was running my thyroid labs last week.  Gliadin is a protein found in gluten and the antibodies would come back positive when there is some sort of gluten sensitivity and/or celiac disease.  I thought he was wasting a test since I had been gluten free for 2-3 months but I read  that since it was not longer than 6 months, there would still probably be antibodies.  Anyway, a positive result for both would be higher than 11 and mine came back at <3 and 4 soo.....  I'm eating normal food again!  Hopefully I will gain some weight now that I enjoy what I'm eating! (You don't hear that everyday, do you?)

Parent Orientation

Dave and I went to the parent orientation at Central College preschool yesterday.  It was pretty, well, boring.  It was a group orientation for an hour where they went over the handbook and a couple handouts they like.  Then we went to our kids classrooms to meet the teachers.  Adam's teachers seem very nice.  One is bilingual in Spanish so she will teach them their basic numbers, colors, and random words in Spanish.  The interesting thing was that they had a sheet to sign when we got in that asked if our child was going to be going to kindergarten next year - lots of parents checked "yes" .  Then someone asked if we should put extra clothes in their bags just in case and they said at this age, rarely are there any accidents and there are extra clothes in the office if needed.  They said most of the kids are 4 years old with several turning 5 this year.  What??  Is Adam going to be the youngest in the class??  I will be asking tomorrow when we head back over for him to meet his teachers.  I don't mind because I think he'll keep up academically.  It's just that other kids can make such a big deal out of age.  We'll see...