"How Do You Keep Up With Him?"

...asked the Kindergarten teacher following Jakob's evaluation.

GOOD QUESTION!

Rewind 1 week.

Me: "Jakob, next week you get to go to your new school and meet some teachers and they're going to ask you some questions about what you know."

Jakob: "Well, I know alot because my brain is really smart."

Me: "It sure is!"

A couple of days later...

Me: "Jakob, are you getting excited to go to your school in a few days?"

Jakob: "Yeah."

Me: "Ok, good..."

At this point I start to get a teeny bit worried...not that he isn't up to par, but because if you know Jakob, he can be quite moody and difficult to deal with sometimes...and I was starting to have some anxiety about him just not wanting to cooperate.

On the morning of the evaluation:

Me: "Good morning! Guess what? Today is the day you get to go to your school and talk to the teachers!"

Jakob: "Cool!"

A few hours later he was in a terrible mood and saying he wasn't going to go to school. My fears were being realized. At that point I just hoped that by the afternoon he would mellow out and would be ready to go and be back to my sweet, funny, brilliant Jakob again.

Brad came home from work to watch Joshy and Drew while I took Jakob over to the school. I was a little bit nervous on the way over there...but was trying not to show it. Jakob was happy, but pretty quiet. As we walked up to the kindergarten area, he started to act a little bit shy by walking behind me, hiding. Then we sat down to wait, and ended up having to wait about 10-15 minutes before it was his turn. He was actually pretty quiet as we waited, and I wondered if he was nervous, but I didn't want to ask for fear of putting the idea in his mind that maybe he should be nervous!

Finally his turn came, and I waited about 10 minutes while he was inside with the teacher. When he came out, he had a big sticker on his shirt and a big smile...he was excited! This was looking good! I started to feel very relieved...and then the teacher held up her paper to her face, kind of covering her mouth and said in an excited whisper, "He did AMAZING!"

Imagine a huge proud grin on my face at this point!

Then she continued..."Have you been working with him? ... He's so smart! ... I asked him how he got so smart and he said, 'it's my brain! and do you know what else? sometimes I keep secrets from my mom' ... what kind of secrets? ... 'like how I can count to 100!' ... oh, those are the kind of secrets we like!"

Then came the question up in the title of the post, "How do you keep up with him?" I explained to her that it's not easy...he just has the kind of mind that craves knowledge, and he has to be kept busy or he kind of wigs out! He is a little bit too smart for his own good sometimes, but he's so much fun and comes up with the most creative things!

WOWZA. PROUD MOMMY MOMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!

I seriously felt so overwhelmed with joyful pride...as if I needed that small reminder that my son is extremely intelligent, creative, intuitive, etc. It was just so nice to hear a teacher GUSHING over him!

Oh yeah...I almost forgot, she also said, "I hope he's in my class! I LOVE kids like Jakob! They are so much fun to be around!"

So, class rosters were posted on Friday, and lo and behold, he is in her class! I am really glad because I heard it from her that she WANTED him in her class...wow, that makes me feel good!

On the way to the car I gave him a hug and a high five and told him how brilliant and awesome I think he is...then we went to 7-11 to get Slurpees!

I was going to wait to post this when I had a cute pic of Jakob to include...but I've been waiting to shoot some pics of him until he gets his cute new faux hawk haircut! So, those will be coming soon...

I also wanted to share a cute idea I found in a parent magazine... You have your child leave their backpack on the front porch on the night before school starts for the Backpack Fairy to leave treats in. You can fill it with some new school supplies, a cool new shirt for the first day of school, and maybe a book to read together. Well, Jakob is really into drawing right now, and hates notebook paper "because the lines get in the way" -- so I'm thinking of a small sketchbook and some pencils. We'll see if I can find a cool new shirt for him to wear without him knowing about it!

I can't believe his elementary school career is just a few days away...I didn't cry when he started preschool or extended kindergarten...but I think I just might shed a tear or two when he starts next week. This is for REAL! Wow...I can't believe it.