On Jayce: School, Signs, and Scribbles

Our little buddy is just so full of personality and life these days.  There is so much to say about him.

He's had a few rough moments this past week though.  Last week he saw something on tv that shook him up a little bit.  It was nothing, a strangely drawn number character on a little kids' show, but it freaked him out, and I think he had a nightmare about it.  For the past week he's barely let me out of his sight, which was not amazing while Chris was away.  Things like, he wouldn't even go into the bathroom unless I was with him, or wanted me to come upstairs with him if he needed something from his room, and forget about me leaving his room at night before he was asleep.  It's getting a bit better this week though, and we're working on getting back to normal.

School is, as a whole, going very well.  

I was surprised to learn that they would be doing phonics with the kids.  Four just seems like a young age for this.  But even though he's known his letters and sounds for a few years now, I have been amazed at how much he is taking in.  He has learned how to sound out words and spell phonetically, including the "tricky" sounds.  Last week he was explaining to me about ch and sh.

"Mom, the ch and sh sounds are a little tricky.  It's not ck-huh, it's chu, and not ss-huh, it's shu."  

The kids have books that they bring home each week to read, along with a new poem each week, and words to arrange into short sentences.  This kills me.  I just can't believe he is reading, like REALLY reading, even before kindergarden.  He obviously still makes mistakes and certainly doesn't know all of the "rules" just yet.  But the fact that he is constantly trying and often successfully reading and spelling seems pretty incredible.Last week, we were all sick, all on three-doses-per-day antibiotics, and often on ibuprofen/decongestants/inhalers.  That was not the best week of my life.  Each day I wrote out a little schedule so that I could help my cloudy mind keep track of who had which medicine and when.  Each day, Jayce would sneak my pen away and add xo's for me at the bottom of our list of medications.  This day he drew a picture of me as well.  

He also drew multiple spots on the couch for some reason.  After that, there were no pens laying around anywhere.  Even I couldn't find them when I needed them. 

 Jayce REALLY missed Chris, and really wanted to make a big sign for when he got home.  So one night after I put Hannah to bed, we painted, colored, cut and drew up a little display for Chris.  I gave Jayce some white tack and he hung it all up by himself.  (I was pretty pleased with the symmetry and even the little pieces of paper being so orderly.) 
Jayce asked me to take a picture of his signs, and told me "I'm going to make this face mom," and posed in the above photo. 

(Also the picture on the far right of all of the smiling faces are "dad's students.")

Chris loved his signs.

 Jayce also told him, shortly after he arrived, 

"Dad I really wanted you to snuggle me when you were in America.  I drew on the couch and Mom was very angry, and she yelled at me and I cried and I wanted you to snuggle me."  

I'm not really sure why I am the one who got "told on" in this instance?  Chris was like, "Yeah, mom's mean sometimes, huh?"  And I was like, "I'm going on vacation."

The little stinker.