Tigers and Guts

So I made a decision.  It was a tough one and there was a lot of thinking, meditating, praying and thinking some more.  In the end I decided while his school is not BAD, it certainly is not good, at least not good enough.  Yes, there is the new language but it just wasn't enough to make it worth it.

 We took Tiger out of French school on Tuesday.  Stella's school does not have any space and I am grateful because for half-day 5x a week it is the same price per month as my college university was per semester.  So he is home with me.  I decided that I needed to be somewhat organized and have some small preschool activities for him every morning.

The mystery scratch Tiger came home with the other day after school.

Tiger has shown signs of being able to read for a while now.  Like, potty training, I knew it was something that was there but with him at school there was never a good time where he was able to focus before nap since his best time is in the morning, when he was at school.  Now I get that time.  I have had him home for four days.  He is reading and it is blowing my mind.

At first I tried to see what he knew: at, bat, cat, sat, fat, up, pup, pot, no problem.  So then I tried to get a bit tougher: with, the, she, he, boot, zoo, boat, no problem.  The kid is reading WITHOUT ME TEACHING HIM!  Today he sounded out umbrella, little, moving. What really gets me about all of this is that if I hadn't gone with my gut and decided he needed to stay home who knows how long it would have been before I figured it out and at that point he may not have wanted to learn.  Right now he is so excited to read like his big sister.  It has been so wonderful to be able to teach this little guy.

At the same time, while his reading is pretty awesome for a three-year-old he needs someone to sit down with him and make him color.  He doesn't like to color and is still working on that crayon grip.  Right now it is pretty caveman-ish so we are working on that and scissors and other things that no one in his class of 27 had the time to do with him.

The best part of all is how happy both of us are.  I feel totally freed not having to get him and pick him up and he is loving his time at home.

I still schedule daily play dates and he goes to the army gym day care a few times a week.

I think it is going to be good for all of us.