Last week J was the "spotlight" in his Kindergarten class. He came home the second week of school and told me all about spotlights and EXACTLY what he wanted to happen when it was his turn. It was hard for him to wait more than 3 months for his turn, but it finally came and it turned out great.
The first thing that J wanted was for his ENTIRE family to come to class and be there for his spotlight. So Ken took a little time off of work so he could be there. J got to fill out a big poster all about himself with pictures- he choose a picture of himself when he was about 18 months old as his "this is me" picture.
After reading his poster to his class he had the chance to answer questions. Mostly the questions were like this. "what's your favorite candy?" "who's your favorite super hero?" "what's your SECOND favorite candy?....." and so on and so forth until we knew a lot about J's taste in Candy and Super Hero's. Then he did his best to read a book to his class. I had expected that Ken or I would read the book, but J took the book and just started reading. It was awesome. He needed help at times, but he did it, and his teacher was quite impressed too.
The spotlights are at the end of class and so J got to dismiss each row of kids to go get their coats and backpacks and then they could come back and J would give them a treat. The treats needed to be store bought and individually wrapped. Well, if you know us, then you know we are kind of cheap.....and buying an individually wrapped treat for 30 kids just isn't something we budgeted for. The Saturday before J's spotlight Ken took the boys with him when he went to the bank. The boys LOVE the bank because they give kids "Candy Money". So Ken told the teller that J loved candy money and wanted to give some to his class the next week, the teller than filled up a bag with candy and gave it to Ken- AWESOME! All the kids enjoyed their candy, and it was even kind of educational as they were able to look at each coin and say "I got 25 cents" or "I'm eating a penny!"
After J's spotlight Ken surprised us all by 1- not going back to work (well, he did work from home a little) and 2- taking us all out to lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe.
It's hard to believe that my little baby, who first appeared on this blog at 3 1/2 months old when he started rolling, has grown up into such an amazing and fun Kindergartner. He is such a loving, smart, imaginative and funny boy.
I have one last story to tell about J, not related to his spotlight, but related to what a kind and loving boy he is, and really, how much he loves his sister. After talking to my Mom and then talking it over with Ken, I decided that I would go ahead and start thickening the babies formula to see if it would help with the re-flux issues she was having. Basically she was spitting up 1-2 hours after eating. That same day I had told J that I would take him to the store so that he could by some gum- with his own money. He was so excited, he had all of his money from his piggy bank in a little plastic bag and he knew exactly what kind of gum he wanted to buy. I had been trying to get a prescription filled for a couple of days and so on our trip I was planning to pick up my prescription and buy a box or two of rice cereal for my baby, because that's what we use to thicken her bottles. I decided that I would take the baby with us to the store as well, since she had had a hard day, nap wise, that day and I figured a good car ride would help her to relax and get back to her normal "I sleep anytime someone lays me down" ways. Well, when we got to the store I realized I had forgotten to bring my purse.
I started to tell J that we had to go home when I realized that he could still buy his gum. So we went into the store. I asked J if he was willing to let mommy use his money to buy the food the baby needed. He said yes. So I let him buy his gum and then I counted how much money he had left. There was $1.33 in his bag, which if my memory served me correctly was pretty close to the cost of one box of rice cereal, so we walked back to the baby section of the store and sure enough- the rice cereal cost exactly $1.33. Now, if we lived in a state that didn't tax food, this would have felt like a MIRACLE! But Utah does have a 3% tax on food. I told J to look around on the floor for some coins. We didn't find any. I stood there, in the baby food aisle for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I only needed about 4 cents. I thought about just going home but I really felt like I needed to get the cereal, so I worked up my courage and I asked a complete stranger if they happened to have 5 cents. When they gave me a somewhat quizzical look I blurted out, "I forgot my purse and my son had his money from his piggy bank and it is exactly enough for the food for my baby, but I don't have any money for tax" as fast as I possibly could and I was soon given a quarter by the kind stranger and there was another stranger walking by who stopped and was looking through his pockets as well. We were able to buy the rice cereal. The jury is still out as to whether or not it is really helping- she spits up less, much less, but she still spits up at least once a day (instead of once per feeding), I guess the doctor will tell me what he thinks at her appointment on Tuesday. And what I learned from this lesson in begging for help from strangers, and borrowing money from my sweet 5 year old son- Sometimes, you can't do it all on your own, sometimes no matter how hard you try and how well you think you've got it all planned, you're going to need to ask for help.
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