First, my 35th birthday came and went. 35 doesn't freak me out at all. People keep asking and I don't feel old, so that's that.
I ended up calling in sick last week on Thursday and Friday, so I did spend my birthday sick. Hell, I've been sick for a month and a half. Damn cold. The worst cold I've ever had. Some days are terrible coughing days, some days are mellow. In one word I feel exhausted. I am tired of being sick, my chest is tired of coughing and straining to breathe sometimes. I'm off to the doctor hopefully soon, but I'm sure they'll tell me again that I just have a very bad chest cold and "it will go away". Grrrr.
On Saturday I pulled it together to go out to a birthday breakfast with good friends. I don't look too sick, do I?
My friends Anna and Tatiana, both Student Advocates in my district too.
Erin and Cassidy. Erin isn't an Advocate anymore, but she is well loved and we could never do anything without her!
Today.
James couldn't wait to get out of the car today and "count the pumpkins". We have three sitting on our front porch, waiting to be carved! I can't wait to see what Jim will create this year!
Tonight we had our first daycare conference! Jim was out of town and disappointed that he would miss it. We met with the main teacher Shana and she had wonderful things to say about James.
But first, look at this cute spider! I just want to keep this forever!!
She gave me some examples of his artwork and explained the directions behind each. In this piece the kids were asked to use three colors and simply finger paint. James of course chose his favorite color purple and then orange and black. I'm sure orange and black are on his mind because of Halloween. They seem to talk about it often- scary witches, monsters, spiders, trick or treating, haunted houses, etc!
The kids were asked to arrange the black pieces like a face. Shana was very proud that James put the eyes and the nose in the right place- not a lot of the kids were able to do it! Yup, we have a genius child!!!
Glue. James does NOT like the texture or feel of glue on his hands. He's never liked a mess but he followed the directions and glued the tissue paper pieces to the leaf. Good boy!
James did NOT put the pieces in the face order. I did tell Shana that James has this OCD thing of putting things in lines and order- he used to do this with his golf balls and still does it with the magnets on the refrigerator. Its kind of odd that he puts things in straight, rigid lines but Shana said that its GOOD. He is organized and focused. Well, I'm still worried about the OCD :)
The only thing to really work on for James is his habit of drumming. Yup, he's our little drummer boy and they caught him doing it on film!
James is easily distracted, which is typical for his age, but he will distract himself with drumming on anything or turning any object into drum sticks. Hahaha!!
James and his buddy EJ frosting cookies.
I took a picture of the photocopied notes from the daycare conference. I think if you click on each image you should be able to see them close-up. In each area he is average or ABOVE AVERAGE! Yup, genius child.
Again, he is ABOVE AVERAGE in identifying shapes, counting, and colors.
The note at the top of this says he was too shy to identify the letters. While we were sitting in the office for the conference, I pointed to some of the letters and James did identify more letters like S, W, and X. So the teacher is aware that he knows more and she says again, normal to above average for his age.
James could NOT trace the shape outlines. Something to work on. I've never thought to do this so I guess he has had no practice doing this.
While we were waiting for our conference time I was happy to meet Russell and his family. James talks of a few friends- Andy (Pandy) and Russell- at home. There was Russell and I got to see James interact and play with another kid. I hadn't really seen this. I see James play parallel to other kids, or solo but never WITH someone. I didn't capture much on video but here's a little something via my new iPhone :)
