1. On Friday afternoon Dave and I took the kids to the playground. It was gorgeous out. In the 70's. And the playground was crawling with kids. Andrew headed straight for the swirly slide where there were about 12 kids playing. And Andrew was in heaven.
He loves big groups of kids. He loves being jostled by them, the crush of little bodies swirling down the slide. He loves when the kids wait at the bottom of the slide for the next kid to bump into them before getting off. He loves being the kid that gets bumped off of the slide. He became one with the group and they all went down and down and down again. Taking turns, not taking turns, making trains, piling themselves up, laughing, squealing. Definitely Andrew's scene.
Most of the kids were a little older than Andrew and more accustomed to the unspoken rules of playground etiquette. Andrew has yet to learn those rules. So when two 9 year old girls wanted to go down the slide holding hands, Andrew thought it was completely natural to saddle up behind them, an arm around each of their shoulders to join them in their trip down. And the girls allowed him, but not without exchanged looks and some eye rolling.
Oh, Andrew. So much to learn.
2. On Saturday we went to a birthday party for one of Andrew's friends. (on a side note, when Dave was at a lunch meeting Friday afternoon, the conversation turned to everyone's plans for the weekend. Dave received more than one jealous look when he mentioned his plans to attend a "karate themed birthday party". Parenting sure changes your life, huh?)
Anyway, there was a karate instructor going through various moves with the kids. Feet together. Feet apart. Jump straight up. Arms to your side. And everyone followed along perfectly...except for, ahem, Andrew. Granted, the kids were a year older. Granted, the kids were all friends from the birthday girl's school. But it was pretty striking to me how Andrew just didn't get it. How could one adult talk to so many people? If he tells us all to jump, does that mean me too? Why is everyone standing in a circle when it is much more fun to run around the circle? Why is everyone looking at him when they could be looking at me?
Oh Andrew. So much to learn.
I feel like I learned a lot about Andrew this weekend. And I am very interested to see how he does in school this fall. His teacher sure has her work cut out for her! I am praying that she is the patient sort.
4 comments:
Jake has swimming lessons and I find it so hard to accept when he doesn't listen to what the teacher is saying. I try to remind myself that he is still young and that the most important is having fun... I think my expectations are too high. I feel better when I read about Andrew, thanks for sharing!
Your blog is just so visual in your descriptions, I love it! I can so imagine Andrew in both social situations. There's a lot of tough lessons to be learnt at that age, and it must be so confusing for them. Boys are so amusing to watch interacting with each other, a bit of rough and tumble one moment and then something sensitive like Andrew trying to join in with the little girls. You have many fun years ahead!
Do you feel this is a function of Andrew still being behind on language/listening comprehension? Or is it mostly a function of Andrew being a free-spirited kiddo? (Or both?)
I think that not understanding to sit and listen to the karate guy is partly because he's never been in school...or any kind of situation where he's had to do that. AND I think that his free-spirited-ness is a key player. The language thing...not so much...because I think he would have understood one-on-one. But I wonder....
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