“That’s a distraction!”
“Where did you learn that word?” Hayden asked.
“Mrs Keeno told me.” (his pre-K 3 teacher’s helper)
“Good use of vocabulary, Austin.”
*looks proud*
At
4 years and 3 months, Austin is a full-on little boy. He is loving
school. Each day he reveals the artwork from his day: lots of rainbow
drawings (proudly using both sides of the paper), some writing (he can
write his name and the names of most of his classmates - Robert, Hope,
Eli, Avah, Nora, Isla etc) and his latest color by number coded drawings.
He
LOVES baseball and is currently favoring the Yankees over the Nats. He
doesn’t even pretend that it is for any other reason than because they
win a lot. Austin is super competitive. We recently entered him into a
“fun run” and he was actually nervous about winning. Even with lots of
“winning isn’t everything” pep talks from us. As I am a professional
worrier, it’s hard not to see this as a foreshadow for his competitive
sports game experience in the years to come.
Hayden
seems to be constantly surprised that Austin is not shy. He is not.
Anyone close to his age is an automatic invitation to engage. Even with
adults he feels he can carry a conversation and funnily enough he can. I
think people like him, because he is one of the few four year olds they
come across who can hold a coherent back and forth, linear conversation on the
weather, botany, baseball, etc...
For example, I wrote the above paragraph before receiving the following email from my dog walker, Angelique today:
"I
just wanted to tell you that Austin is hilarious. I just walked Jeeter,
and when I entered he says "I was wondering when you were going to get
here."
There was another day he told me he had to put up with a lot of nonsense.
When he's home, he puts a smile on the day. :) "
This
morning we had his final parent teacher conference of the year and it
went as expected: in conclusion, Austin is doing really well! He loves
learning and his teacher, Mrs. Mukendi, expressed true shock at how
advanced he is for his age. He wants to learn, he wants to write and he
is trying to read. We could not have had a better year at Miner
Elementary School.
As I write this glowing
report, I think of how many times I yelled at him this week. He is not
perfect and we are not perfect parents. He runs out of fuel quickly and
when he does, it’s batten down the hatches! He gets super hangry. And
I’m often tired after a long day and don’t exactly shine my best either
at 9:15pm when he is showing no signs of sleep.
Alas, ‘tis but a wrinkle in an otherwise perfect little boy. He is truly amazing, beautiful and we are so blessed.
