Jesus and English

Happy 2012! We had a great end to our year, lots of visits from family, lots of exciting things happening and church, and lots of fun happening at our house with our 3 crazy kids.  I'll try to recap more of that soon.  I've just been so bad at getting on the computer and writing down my thoughts lately.

To start the new year we bought Boden a composition notebook to journal in.  He loves to write and we talk to him a lot about what he thinks Jesus is speaking to him, so we thought this would be a great way for him to record it, practice his writing, and learn to journal his thoughts.  On New Years Day Michael and Boden sat down on the couch and prayed about the upcoming year.  Then Michael asked Boden what he thought Jesus wanted to do in him this year.  And this is what he came up with:

"I think Jesus is going to draw me closer to Him"  How sweet is that? I asked Bo what the picture was and he said "That's me and Jesus, mom." Notice they are holding hands...Love it!

We do still have to help him spell words, but he knows all his letter sounds.  As I'm teaching Boden to read/write I'm realizing again how seriously confusing our English language is! Just today I was trying to explain that sometimes "K" sound is made with a K, sometimes with a C, and sometimes with a CK.  He kept asking why...which led me to wonder how in the world any of us learned all the crazy rules of our language and how am I going to teach the rules to my kids!?

Preschool part 2...the school bus

Yesterday was Boden's first day riding the school bus! He was so excited.  He wanted to go out and wait for it long before it was time.  It was a weird feeling putting my baby on a school bus - it's impossible to me that he is old enough.  It's only the preschoolers on his bus and they have seat belts and a supervisor other than the driver, and they pick up/drop off at our driveway.  Otherwise, I'm not sure I'd be so ok with it.  We only live about 5 minutes from his school, so it's not a big deal to take him, except that I have to take the other two little ones with me and get them in and out of the car to take him into school and pick him up.  and pick up is in the middle of naptime.  So, we are all pretty excited about the bus! :)

He came home yesterday feeling like such a big kid.  He got to sit next to one of his classmates and talk and play.  The only disappointment was that he had to get off so quickly - he is one of the first stops.  

Today he was all ready with his lunch packed, his backpack on, and his bus tag around his neck, standing at the end of the driveway. We saw the bus coming, prayed about his day at school, and then right as he is about to get on he says he has to go potty...like, really bad.  I definitely did not want him to have an accident, so no way I can tell him to wait until he gets there. And the bus can't wait.  I told the driver to go on and that I would bring him to school.

Poor Boden, he was devastated.  I had no idea he was SO excited about the bus.  I knew he wanted to ride it, but he was really, really upset.  So upset I wasn't sure I could get him calmed down enough to go into class.  He kept saying things like:

"just call the bus driver and have her come back for me"

"I can't go to school if I don't go on the bus"

I can't calm down, I NEED to ride the bus!"

I tried calming him down by talking about how he gets to ride the bus home and how he can ride the bus tomorrow.  And, at least he still gets to go to preschool today and he will still see all his friends, and how fun that mama gets to take him today.  He wasn't having it.

On the way to school he kinda calmed down and then he got upset again because "I can't pretend this is the school bus because it isn't yellow!", "This isn't the same road that the bus takes to school!", "my whole day is ruined now" and "but I don't wanna go through this door because when I come in the bus I go through a different door", and "but now I don't get to walk in a line with my friends!"  

We did finally make it into school and I dropped my little guy with red rimmed eyes off at his class. I told the teacher what had happened, just in case he has a hard day.  But, I'm hoping once he saw his friends and started playing he'll forget all about it.

I did have a hard time not laughing and smiling at some of the things he was saying (like that my van wasn't yellow so it wasn't like the bus), but I felt bad for him too.  While I know that in the scheme of things, this is not a big deal, but to him, today, it was HUGE! It was so not his fault that he didn't remember to go potty - at barely 4 I'm pretty sure that's still my responsibility to remind him to go before he leaves the house.  But, I think he learned a few things today.  We talked about not letting something bad ruin your whole day, and how he can still have a good day even though it didn't go the way he planned.  We repeated "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" several times until I finally got him to crack a smile.  And I'm pretty sure I won't have to remind him to go potty before the bus comes again...

Preschool!

Tuesday was Boden's first day of Preschool! He was so excited, talking about it all summer long.  It's hard for me to believe he is already 4 years old and ready for Preschool...it goes way to fast!

packing up his school supplies

The "Lightening McQueen" lunchbox! 

I have to admit I am really NOT a fan of character themed items for kids - shoes, t-shirts, etc. I try to keep it to pajamas only.  I had him convinced to get the gray and green backpack rather than the cartoon character one, and even talked him into a very sleek gray lunchbox.  But I noticed he just kept eyeing that obnoxious race car, and I felt guilty.  Who am I to judge what's "cool" to a 4 yr old?  So, we put the boring gray lunchbox back and left the store with bright red Lightening McQueen, and a very excited little boy.

 I may have gotten carried away and took a whole bunch of pictures...

"come on mama! I wanna go to school!"

 when we got to school we saw his friend Taylor who is going to be in the same class

 don't they look so cute walking down those big hallways?

He walked right into the classroom without me, didn't even look back.  Such a big kid. :(

Didn't even take 30 seconds for him to acquire some type of costume, no surprise there

This is his teacher, Ms. Kristine

I couldn't even get a wave "goodbye" - he was ready to play.  I was a little teary at this point, but so happy to see how independent he was about the whole thing.  I know he is going to love preschool!

We are so thankful for such a loving, intelligent, sweet boy.  God has really blessed us. Boden's name means "messenger" and we have been praying over him since his birth that he would be a light in this world...that through him, others would come to know Jesus as their savior. Even though it may seem like it's "just" preschool, this is the first big step for him to begin reaching out to the world and having an impact on his peers.  As our family and friends, we ask that you would please join us in praying for him and his new adventures in preschool.

I also interviewed him when he got home from school....I'll have that video posted soon!