Progress Report

This week Eric and I received Ty's first progress report, and had our first official "parent-teacher conference"...I have not laughed that hard in a while!  Apparently, our little stinker has taken on quite the role of "class clown", and has made it a game to "trick" his teachers, and pester his friends!  One of Ty's "goals" for this year was to consistently find his cubby labeled with his name and put away his own belongings - which he learned to do very quickly.  Clearly, typical routine is not entertaining enough for Ty, because his comment on his progress report stated that "Recently, Ty has been placing his belongings in his classmates' cubbies, looking at the teachers, saying "NO!", and then totally cracking up."  His teacher also shared that Ty loves when he is the center of attention and will purposely take a long time to take his turn on an activity, just because it's entertaining!  It was the first of many discussions with our boys about being too silly in school - and I loved it! 

Seriously though, Ty is doing fantastic, and we had such a positive conference with his teachers!  His teacher truly believes in the benefits of inclusion in school, and does all she can to ensure that Ty has a typical preschool experience.  Even more importantly, she sees Ty as a *typical* 3 year old boy, and holds him to high expectations for his academics and behavior.  I'm not sure we could have hand-picked a better teacher for Ty!

In the three short months that Ty has been in school this year, he has completely blossomed all around.  Perhaps most excitingly, potty training ended up being a blip on our radar over the summer, and Ty has gained a great deal of independence using the toilet at school.  (I did not know that potty training could actually be easy, but I'll dare to say it was with him!)  His speech is just taking off, and I think it's safe to say that he is using short sentences pretty consistently.  In school, he is able to effectively communicate with his classmates now, which has been a huge step socially!  Cognitively, he is just such a smarty pants all around and continues to do wonderfully with his reading, counting (he's up to the teens!), and imaginary play.  It's a great feeling to be able to sit back to enjoy the show!

This little man continues to amaze me!

Reading about colors and shapes to Elmo #1 and Elmo #2