School Days, School Daze!

Now before you think I've gone over the edge completely by writing about School in the early days of July, just because for most kids stateside this is school vacation time, in our house, things don't quite operate that way.

Today was the first day of the abbreviated summer session for Maya and for Kurtis, today was his first day EVER of attending school!

The school program Maya has been enrolled in for the past two years now has this shortened summer session so for her, it was a return to school.

But Kurtis is now eligible for the same type program that Maya has been in and for him, this was his new beginning.

Maya's hours this summer are from 9 a.m. until 12:30 and Kurt's school hours are from noon until 3:30 p.m. So, the van for Maya arrives around 8:30 a.m. to pick her up and then, another van comes around 11:20-11:25 to pick up Kurtis.

Maya was almost four years old when she started attending this school and her vocabulary, her comprehension of a lot of things by that time of her life was a lot better than is Kurt's right now. But then he is just a little over 3 years old too -won't be 4 until next April, so that's pretty much self-explanatory then the differences in understanding that each had of the idea of going to school.

So this morning when it was time for Kurtis to get in the van, Mandy and I were both a little concerned as to how that would go since he's not really gone any where before that one of us wasn't with him.

When the van pulled up out front and Maya told him to come on, time to go, etc., all of a sudden he pulled one of his little tantrums on us -jumping up, with a rapid descent to the floor on his butt, rolling around a bit and crying and both of us were thinking the same thing then. Oh no! We're gonna have to drag him, kicking and screaming out of the house and to the van to get him off to school.

To our surprise -and a very pleasant surprise it was too -his tantrum lasted about 10, maybe 20 seconds tops and then, he reverted to his nice, sweet and very sociable self, walking out the door holding Mandy's hand and all smiles as she put him in his seat in the van. He had his comfort items with him too -his bear-bear pillow and his little etch-a-sketch toy (which he dearly loves) and here's a couple of pictures we got of him to prove I'm not fibbing to you about how happy he was as he was getting ready to leave home.
Kurtis, waiting inside the front door for the van to show up.

Kurts, all strapped in, with his special bear pillow and his etch-a-sketch -necessities of life, ya know.
Seems like he's telling me "See you later, Gram . If Mom would hurry and get this camera out of my face, we could get going though."
Ok, Valerie (the driver), we're ready to roll now!

Before he got home from school, Mandy had already had at least three phone calls about how things went today for Kurtis. Renee, his former TSS and who is now the behavior specialist who supervises both Maya and Kurt's cases, called to say he was doing fine. Then, Kerri, the teacher, called and told Mandy that he had eaten a meatball and something else at lunch plus, he had his drink in a cup and had drunk out of it. Now that was quite the accomplishment for him since we just got him to switch over from a bottle to a sippy cup about 2 months ago! She also said he didn't want to sit down and preferred to wander about the room but that was no big surprise to us. He tends to be that way at home too. LOL And then, finally -a call from Sam -his TSS -who said he did very well today. "Much better that I expected" were her words to Mandy.

And yes, it was much better by far than we expected too but boy, how great it was to hear that he did so well, had begun to acclimate to these new surroundings and doing it fairly easily too. Couldn't ask for anything more than that, now could we?

And, I have a Maya-ism for you today too.

Sunday afternoon, Mandy took both kids up to the home of her best friend, Jen-Jen for them to spend the afternoon with Jen and her family -those three teen/preteens who love to spoil Maya rotten! (Just kidding, Jen. We ALL really do appreciate that Curtis, Gabby and Emmy love to have Maya -and now Kurtis too -come and visit!)

Anyway, Maya had apparently been giving Jen-Jen a bit of guff -yes, she likes to dish it out from time to time -and Jen had told her, "Maya, you are going to drive your mother to the funny farm."

And Maya's response to that -"No, she will drive herself."

That's the end of that discussion and also, the end of this little post about Kurtis and his first day at school.
Who would have thought a year ago, when he had no vocabulary at all, was very standoffish too most of the time around anyone but immediate family, that this little guy would have come so far in that short period of time.


Aint' life just grand though?