1st day of school (belated)

Moose is on to his 2nd year of preschool.

I'm already getting the question, "so will he go on to kindergarten next year?" Um...well, I don't know less than 2 weeks into the year. I'm thankful he is a July birthday so we really could go either way.

So far, everyone who has asked has been very supportive about 'if there's any doubts, hold him back.' Apparently that's a common thing to do here, which is good! There is just a lot we don't know yet: how he'll progress this year, being the biggest thing! I know how far he came with one semester of school under his belt; who knows how far he'll come this year!

Part of my hesitation already "holding him back" (because it's not really holding him back) is his build. He's a big kid and if we held him another year, he'd be even bigger! That may seem silly to some of you to be concerned about, but with his gentle little soul, I would really hate for his size to be the torment of him. It's not always the big kids who are the bullies. Not saying that it WILL happen but it's always a possibility - and socially I'm not sure he'd be able to defend himself against something like that.

Regardless, that's a big decision to make that we are not at all equipped to deal with just yet. We have a whole school year to get through and learn through and grow through. No use worrying about tomorrow, let alone next year!

Today is a kind of big day. It's my first day watching a friend's two little boys (3 months and 3 years), so that will be an adjustment. I think it will be good, but it'll just be an adjustment for everyone.

It's also Squirt's first day with Tiny K. They are some sort of educational organization that does early childhood testing and such, just like we had done with Moose. I guess Squirt has seen these ladies before but this is the first day that we know we have work to do. We've decided to put him on an IFSP (like an IEP but for little ones) because his speech is pretty garbled. At his age (2) you should be able to understand about 50% of what he says. Now I understand that much, but someone unfamiliar with him should - and they cannot. So we'll just go through speech stuff similar to how we started with Moose. Now, I'm not concerned about autism in Squirt at all. He shows no other signs of autism. And a lot of his speech garbledness could be because his older brother has garbled speech or it just is. Who knows but I'm thankful for an organization that can help him through this. Wish us luck!