Owen Rhymes With...

Yesterday morning Owen hopped in my bed and invented a rhyming game. "Hey Mom! 'Go' rhymes with 'Snow'! Now you do one."

Ok... 'bed' rhymes with 'head.'

"It's 1-1! My turn. 'Pillow' rhymes with 'zillow.' 2-1. I'm winning! We can play to 5."

How am I going to keep up with this kid? He can rhyme like a fiend, he can design a game that's reasonably fun, and he can ALWAYS arrange it so he'll win. He and Sam make each other crazy because they both want to win at everything: basketball, running races, getting through the front door, eating...

What are they? Boys?

First Days Reports

Even more fun than sending the boys off on the adventure of the first day of school is welcoming them home afterward. I love to hear them tell about school.

Day 1: Sam, who was pretty anxious about the start of school and told me more than once that he would not be going, came home in Tigger mode. Bouncing from one couch to another he told the world, “I thought I wasn’t going to like second grade but I LOVE IT!” I did not doubt he would like school but I didn’t expect quite that much enthusiasm.

Jude briefed us on the rules of kindergarten: At lunch you cannot leave food on the table and you cannot leave food on the floor. You cannot “be like LUNCH LADY! LUNCH LADY! You just have to raise your hand and she will bring the trash can to you. Mom, there are a lot of rules at school.”

Day 2: Jude came off the bus looking a little worried. “I had kind of a hard day at school today.” No? Why do you say that? “Because I went out the classroom door before teacher and you’re not supposed to do that. Teacher always goes first.”

Sam reported that he’d been to the nurse’s office with a stomach ache. To treat this problem, she’d recommended that he have at least 5 treats per day. (This is explained in all seriousness. No hint of self-consciousness.) “Hmm, well, I think I’ll wait to do anything until I get a note from your teacher.” Oh, Mom, she can’t send you a note. Her computer is all out of notes.

TWO School Boys

It's a big day for me. We put TWO boys on the bus for school today. I've been traveling with a gang since Sam turned 2. I'm also pretty jazzed about starting a school year and not being a chemo patient.

I suppose it's a big day for Sam and Jude, too. So on to the bus stop pics.

Waiting-for-the-Bus Baseball

Ready to rule the school! Sam and Jude attend a K-2 school, so Sam is a "senior" this year.

Ready for kindergarten! Eyeglass wearing has been sporadic at home. Will he be able to keep them on all day at school?

Our bus stop gang includes neighbor Keren.

Boy Who Wears Glasses

In Illinois, entering kindergarten generates a lot of paperwork. Birth certificates, immunization lists, doctor's notes, and eye exams. Really? An eye exam? It sounds like something an optometrists' marketing group thought up. Perhaps it is, but the school nurse said she'd have to kick Jude out of school in October if he didn't have an eye exam.

We discovered that Jude has an astigmatism in one eye. It is easily corrected with glasses and there's a good possibility that he will grow out of it.

Jude is perfectly pleased to wear glasses. He really only needs them for reading and writing but puts them on any time the mood strikes.

Just when I thought he could not get any cuter...

Curls AND glasses. I'm a lucky mom.