KINDERGARTEN

What?! When did this little guy grow up?

Walt started Kindergarten this fall and hasn't looked back. He loves school (although, like his mom, he's not so great with mornings). His teacher this year is Ms. Oakley, who is great.

School came with more challenges than I had expected. It is great that he has an activity that takes up the bulk of his day (he was getting really bored and whiny towards the end of last spring), but it is difficult to plan Zuzu's naps around his school pick up schedule, hard to get him out of the door on time, and hard to fit in all of the volunteering and field trip chaperoning and a whole host of other things that came with school that I hadn't been 100% prepared for.

After a few months of school, two different teachers let us know that Walt was struggling with writing. He started the year not being able to write his own name or really form letters at all. I always chalked this up to a general disinterest in art and drawing, and figured it'd get better over time, but after multiple people brought it to my attention we decided to have him evaluated. The district occupational therapist told us that he was delayed in fine motor skills and gross motor planning, but since his reading and math skills are quite advanced, he doesn't qualify for any help through the school.

Strangely, as soon as his teacher mentioned the possibility of physical therapy, a lot of things fell into place in my mind. Walt has always been less "athletic" than his peers, but he's so imaginative and bright that it never occurred to me that these things constituted a delay of any kind. At the mention  of his struggles, I recalled his difficulty riding a bike at the same age as his friends, running slower than his soccer teammates, the hard time he had with teeball, etc. It just all started to make sense to me. Through a series of small miracles, we were able to visit an occupational therapist and a physical therapist who have given us a lot of ideas and have been helping us understand the best ways to help Walter thrive.

Now one of his favorite activities is to make "books," where he typically draws a bunch of pictures and then adds some descriptive words either outlining a video game idea he has or a story about church or our family. He is still a bit behind the writing skills of his classmates, but he has worked so hard and improved so much and I'm just grateful that we have been able to help him move forward so this won't be a stumbling block his whole life.

We love school, and we love our Kindergartener!