First Day of School

Today was the day! Our first day of 1st grade...officially. I woke up a little stiff this morning, needing a stiff cup of coffee. Yesterday I spent the day in the baking heat, standing in lines. Not to mention the 3 hours of screaming and rooting, while holding up signs for Kai's favorite wrestlers. We ended our summer with a bang! I treated Beau (for his birthday) and Kai to a spectacular day of wrestling fanatic activities. They were able to meet some of their favorite wrestlers, get their autographs, and watch a live event.

At any rate, I started off a little slow this morning. I knew I didn't have time to be lazy, summer is over! We were having some friends over that we hadn't seen in so long (more of that, later in this post.) I made us all a nice breakfast of french toast with peanut butter and fruit. Right after breakfast, we started with our lessons. All went smooth, for the most part. I had to stop once and remind Kai of our goals, and our responsibilities to each other. We read the first chapter of "The Wise Enchanter : A Journey Through the Alphabet" . What a fabulous book. Today we learned about a magical book that is to be used to record the journey that we are embarking on. Today, we added our first entry to the book. Kai did a form drawing for the letter A. He decided to do a gnome village. Drawing and coloring are not on Kai's "favorites" list. It took a little coaxing for me to get him to do this, and in the end, he did a fabulous job. He seems a bit excited about this magical book that he's going to create.

After our Language Arts lesson, we moved on to handwriting. We are starting from the beginning as we did last year, with the letter A. It corresponds with our Language Arts lesson, and the form drawing. I'm adding a sentence daily, to his handwriting practice sheet. Each sentence will include the name of an animal. Today it was "anaconda". We then looked up pictures of the anaconda on the internet. Kai was amazed to see a picture of a snake that could swallow him in one bite. It had a head the size of his. Did you know that they have 2 sets of teeth on the top of their jaw, and one set on the bottom. YIKES! Once we finished the handwriting lesson, we reviewed subtraction for Math.

Then it was fun time!! We had our friends over for the afternoon. We used to spend at least 3 Mondays a month with them. However, when her oldest started school, schedules became more hectic, and that meant the fun Mondays were over. What a sweet reunion they had today. They played Battle ground, got wet on the slip and slide, and wrestled. Today I really started to realize that Kai is a growing boy. No longer a toddler, but a KID. EEEK!! I found myself wincing every time he and his friend tackled each other. They were kicking, slapping, and pushing each other, laughing all the while. I had to refer back to my childhood for a moment, and recall all the times I saw my friend's brothers beating up on each other. I've decided that it's a much needed release of energy, and male bonding. Girls get together and talk, act cute, and boss each other around. Boys, they act like little cave men.

I thoroughly enjoyed having some mommy bonding time today, too. My friend Julianna is such a blessing. She's talented, fun to chat with, and crazy in the mind like me! We both talk a million miles an hour, and we understand each other's broken thoughts....meaning, we'll be talking about one thing, change the subject, make a point, and then go back to the subject that got cut off in the first place. We never miss a beat in our conversations!

Lastly, Kai had a minor milestone. I guess it's not REALLY a milestone, but in my mind it is. I couldn't help but mark it, as it's another reminder to me, that Kai is growing up every day. He received his first personal phone call. My phone rings, and I see it's from my friend Stephanie. I answered it as I normally do when she calls, with an enthusiastic "HOLA!" It was met with, "Angie, this is Ben. Is Kai there?" I paused for a moment, smiled, and handed Kai the phone. He didn't know what to do with it. He doesn't talk on the phone. He has the occasional 3 sentence conversation with his Nana, but he isn't a phone talker yet. It was cute to observe this minor milestone of his. He had a rather lengthy conversation about Legos and Star Wars. After they hung up, I learned of plans for a Star Wars battle tomorrow at the park. Kai was instructed to build Trooper Tanks with is Legos, and bring them to the battle. He and his daddy built the tanks together before bed time.

We're totally looking forward to tomorrow. Another day on our journey through the alphabet, and an action packed Star Wars battle. Life is good!