St. Paul Open House

St. Paul's Open House was last Thursday night and this is the first year Jack's class actually goes on stage, as opposed to riding around the room in buggies while the music plays. Don't get me wrong, I don't think a single kid in Jack's class knew a single word of the song ("You're My Best Friend from Toy Story) that played while they were on stage, but it was still fun to see them up there like the big kids. Here's a few pictures from the night. The red head with Jack is Shelby Ann Torter (Porter), Alesia's 13-year old daughter, who is currently one of Jack's favorite people. Alesia's entire family is like a second family to Jack, so Shelby stood as Jack's designated sibling since all kids in his class with siblings had them up there with them. She was a life saver. I'm not sure he would've gone on stage without her.

The assistant director of the preschool said during rehearsal there was a lot of dancing, even on Jack's part, which is no surprise since dancing to Daddy's IPod is his favorite thing to do these days, but that night he must have had stage fright because you see the look on his face in all of these pictures that never went away.
He did spot Travis and I against the wall with our cameras, but couldn't even get up the courage to wave and blow us kisses, so Shelby had to do it for him.

After the program, we visited Jack's classroom where he showed us all his artwork. I was most impressed by the fact that Jack pointed to pictures of all of his classmates naming each one. At home, he only talks about a few, but apparantly, they've all made quite the impression. His teachers said he's a joy and that he's really opening up to them. After 3 weeks of crying every single day when I left him, one day he said to me "Walk me in, Mommy." and as we approached his door he let go of my hand and walked into the class without looking back. That's the new norm and it couldn't be more welcome by me. I can't believe how grown up my little boy is getting! In fact, one of the other parents said just that the other day and asked if he's almost 3. She couldn't believe he just turned 2 in June and is one of the youngest in the class. Anyways, here's a couple of pictures of Jack and his artwork.

A few more fun things about Jack right now and St. Paul:

• He sings songs with me now and knows most of the words to "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star", the ABC's, "Jesus Loves Me", "Old McDonald", "The Wheels On The Bus" and several others.
• The firemen visited his school today and the first words out of his mouth when I got to Alesia's to pick him up were "No like firemen. No sit on truck. I scared." On the way home, he also informed me "No wear firemen hat. Jesse wear hat."
• He can count to 10 if he thinks about it, but if he just starts rambling his numbers he always skips 6, which used to be his favorite number.
• Bob the Builder is still his favorite character with Pablo and Dora as close seconds.
• He knows his colors when he wants to, but has selective memory when he doesn't want to be quizzed. The teachers agree. He does get black, white and brown mixed up on occasion.