week of firsts...

Last week held some important firsts for each of the boys. I'll start with Calebug. He had his first day ever of school. He is going to preschool two days a week from 9-2:30. He had a wonderful first day. I was concerned because he is the only one of the boys that is really attatched to his mommy (and truth be told, his mommy is pretty attatched to him too). He walked in, took a look at his teacher's and said, "Hey!" and then a second later said, "Check out my new shoes!" This is when I said, please excuse him, he is really proud of his new shoes because he actually got to pick them out...they're not hand-me-downs from his brothers! By this time Cale was ready for me to head out. I was so happy that it went so well.

When I returned to pick Cale up, the teacher looked at me and the first thing she said is, "He's is very talkative!" Ha, tell me something I don't already know. She said he did great. He ran to me, threw his arms around me and said I knew you'd come back. It was a GREAT first day of school and has been smooth sailing ever since. He just loves it and want to go every day. Yay!

As for Connor's first, he decided to join the school orchestra. This is something that is available only to students fourth grade and up so it is something new for our family. He went to a meeting during school one day and came home really unsure of whether he wanted to join or not. Darren and I told him to take a week and really think about it before making a firm decision. We didn't want to sway him either way as we won't be the ones practicing every day. This really needed to something that he wants to do. After putting a lot of thought into it, he decided to give it a go. We went the following day to rent his violin. He is really excited....all of his close friends chose to join as well, so it should be a lot of fun for him. We may find that he has great talent in this area as well, you never know until you try. (I'm guessing that by next year, he won't want to play anymore, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong!)

As for my little Coby Lane, he spent the week preparing for his first ever spelling test. It has always driven Connor nuts, but I always start quizzing him on the weeks words starting Monday night. That way by Friday's test he is ready and we don't have to spend Thursday night stressfully cramming for it. It's always worked well for Connor so I am doing the same thing with Coby. (He made a 100, by the way!)

For some reason, it still doesn't seem like Coby should be old enough to be taking spelling tests. It's like all of a sudden he just grew up on me. He loves first grade and I can't believe that I was worried about it. If you'd asked me six months ago, I would've told you that I thought he should retake Kindergarten. I'm not sure if it was summer school, us working with him, or just maturity, but all of the sudden something in him just clicked and he is doing so well! I knew it would click eventually, but to be honest I was surprised that it clicked for him as abruptly as it did. He had to try really hard to get where he is now, but all the hard work has really paid off. I am SO proud of him.

Oh, and in case you read my last post and are wondering...no one else in our family has come down with the flu yet (and hopefully won't at all...now I'm knocking on wood!). I'm hoping if we can make it through the weekend without symptoms we'll be in the clear. That would be terrific.