Eli is back in kindergarten this year. We switched from the Open Classroom to the traditional public school (on the same campus) for both Eli and Alia as it seemed both would benefit from a little more structure in their classroom. In addition to class, Eli has speech therapy and, recently, a one-hour post school intervention class to work on letter recognition. On Thursday his teacher phoned me, and after assuring me (in response to my query) that nothing was wrong, she told me that she was calling to brag about how well Eli was doing! In a week he had gone from being able to recognize and write 3 letters (yep, that would be E, L and I) to knowing 19- lower and uppercase!
I wonder if he would have done as well if he'd been in the traditional program last year or if he just needed that extra year to socialize and grow a bit more. Everyone who knows him now is convinced that he is a smart kid!
Alia was having fun singing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" - after confiding to me that she really wants a nintendo ds. Eli is conflicted about whether to feel left out as the only person who hasn't lost a tooth, or to be happy about it after seeing the bloody teeth his sisters bagged for the tooth fairy.
Yesterday, Halloween, we went down to Santa Monica and met up with my brother and his girlfriend who is attending law school at UCLA and explored the Pier. It's a fun place- just celebrating a life of 100 years- and a mix of the old (carousel) and the new, the pure entertainment (arcade and rides) and the educational (aquarium). The kids enjoyed having two fun adults who were happy to indulge them in games of air hockey and other games. Couldn't afford the rides (and no adult really wanted to get on a roller coaster anyway) so maybe we'll return some day and try out a few more things. The kids liked the arcade (Kim played basketball games and guitar hero, Eli sat on all the car and motorcycle games even though his feet couldn't reach any pedals, Corey challenged uncle Mike to games and Alia watched everyone else) and we all enjoyed the aquarium and each other's company. Here's thew view from the Pier- it was a beautiful sunny day. Those tents are the Cirque de Soleil tents.
Alia is 6 and is in 1st grade and Kim will be 12 in a week (!) and is in 7th grade! She looks younger in her photo this year- perhaps because her hair isn't pulled back the way she usually wears it.
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