School is back in session!

Ethan started 1st grade at his new school. He was super excited and I'm so glad that he was looking forward to going back to school and making all new friends this year.

He had a "green" day which is good(they use colors based on their behaviors and the like during the day, green, yellow, orange, red). Ethan even told me what he did today with very little prompting. I mean, I had to ask what he did but he told me pretty easily and with a lot of detail!

Of course the first thing he told me that they did was go to lunch and then recess, lol. Ethan also shared that they read a book called Bucket of Love and told me about it. Which is huge! because usually he doesn't focus (at least last year) on what is going on and remember details especially if its a group activity.

After going through his bookbag, we read the letter from his teacher welcoming the class and talking about their day, and he showed me the picture he drew in Art class.

It's a picture of him drinking pink lemonade and holding the TV remote with a TV in front of him! (ok, that looks bad, really the TV has been off a lot more lately, LOL, but still we do watch too much TV as a family!) Note the two elbows on his arm with the remote, he thinks that is HILARIOUS!

(he also drew something to do with his name? not sure what since he didn't bring that home) Again, this is huge because this is only like the second time without being prompted that he has drawn something besides a map or something similar to that. The other time was Sunday afternoon at the Meet the Teacher open house when we were checking out the art classroom and he drew a red flower with roots and a rain cloud with rain drops.

Ethan did have a couple small things that he did though that he told me about all on his own. One was that he was told to go to the circle for group time and he refused at first and stayed at his desk and the other time he was told to sit at his desk and he didn't want to and proceeded to throw his lunch bag on the ground. He did manage to crack the little plastic base (just a little spot) on his stainless steel thermos, but from what it sounds like, he did listen after that and didn't have a huge meltdown either time.

In the teacher's note, she also said they had music class, talked about the classroom rules and about eating healthy snacks at snack time in class and getting a good night's sleep so they can learn well in class the next day. Ethan remembered a couple of the rules, the first being truthfulness (which I remember reading on the board in his room) and "niceness" which I think was worded differently but still that was great that he remembered. He also told me he ate his corn chips for snack (the teacher also mentioned in the note that the snacks must be healthy, not fruit snacks, chips, or cookies/little Debbie. OOPS, I didn't even know that they had a snack, since it wasn't mentioned in her first letter before school started! so that was actually part of his lunch!). Ethan also told me what song they sang, something like Do you know everybody in the school? He said it was about everyone who works there or something like that.

I'm really impressed with how his first day went, how he handled himself (even though he had a couple minor behavior issues) and that he remembered so many things and was able to share them with me.

After he told me that he had misbehaved, I honestly wondered if he had lied about the "green" day to me because there were a few times last year he tried to get away with that but I found out from the teacher what was really going on (at his old school) and I think he was just trying to keep from getting in trouble and losing his privileges (toys, TV time, maps, etc) for the day so he would say yeah mommy I was on green. I finally had to sit down and explain to him that it hurt my feelings when he lied to me and that I wasn't mad when he had a bad day and that I wouldn't yell at him, but I needed to know so we could talk about it, figure it out and try harder and that he needed to understand it wasn't ok and that's why I took his things away for the rest of the day if he wasn't listening to his teacher or misbehaved badly in school. He seemed to understand, but I was hesitant to believe him today because of last year.

I felt pretty bad though when I opened his bag and saw the chart they made up at school. Its a calendar grid for the days of the month and the child writes the date and at the end of the day they color it with the color they were on for the day. Then they bring it home for a parent to initial and return the next day. Well his was green for today. Bad mommy, for not really believing him 100%. Well I did at first. Until we got home and he told me what happened with him throwing his lunchbox and not listening. That's when I started to wonder.

Well, all I can say is I'm sorry for that! Oh and it seems like taking those nasty little additives out of his diet and adding the vitamins/minerals and omega fatty acids has been a positive. I know, I know, its only been one day of school. But still, I've seen a huge difference in him over the summer and am amazed with how much he has grown emotionally and mentally. Everyday I see more and more of Ethan, if you know what I mean. His personality, imagination, creativity are all emerging and its so awesome to watch. I love him, with all his little quirks, but especially cause I finally am getting to really know him...