The Brave Cowboys

Twin B is on the left and Twin A is on the right. They couldn't wear their Halloween costumes to school today, so the school district found a way around it. Today the kids dressed up as their favorite book characters. Twin B decided early on that he was going to dress up as The Brave Cowboy. Twin A couldn't decide who he wanted to dress up as and eventually decided on The Brave Cowboy as well. I wish the pics were better. I took them with my phone, so they quality is very poor. Twin A is really blurry in the top pic, but Twin B's pose was priceless so I had to post it!

It has rained so much here lately. Lots of areas are flooded today and it's still raining. I probably won't be taking the guys trick or treating tomorrow, but several churches nearby are having trunk or treat, so we may go trunk or treating again! I hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!!!

Trunk or Treat

We went to trunk or treat with a friend this past Saturday night. The boys had so much fun. They had a chili cookoff and lots of activities for kids inside the church. Outside, people decorated the trunks of their cars and handed out candy in the parking lot. They raked in the candy. A good time was had by all. I got to visit with adults which is really nice sometimes, and the kids got to run around and play with all of the other kids. The best part though was that Sunday morning they slept until 7:30!!! Usually they're up a good hour before that.

School...so far

This is for Robin! You asked for it...Kindergarten has been a little frustrating to say the least. I requested that both boys be held back in Pre-K. I just didn't feel like they were ready for Kindergarten. Apparently if a student is deemed ready for Kindergarten in the Little Rock School District, he can't be held back by a parent. Strange. Now that they're in Kindergarten they're both struggling a little. Twin A, who I've never had any major behavior issues with all of a sudden became a "bad" kid (at least I felt he had been given that label by his teacher). His teacher called me 2 or 3 times in the first 2 weeks of school. Twin B was misbehaving a lot too. I was hoping that maybe they just needed time to adjust to the more rigid structure of Kindergarten. In Pre-K they pretty much got to play all day, and now they're expected to sit still for long periods of time. No such luck. Both boys were having trouble sitting still and focusing long enough to get any of their work done. They can identify only a few letters and numbers. Both teachers were taken aback when I told them I requested they be held back. Clearly they aren't ready for Kindergarten. I guess I could have pushed the issue, but I didn't. If they had been full term babies, they would have been born after the cutoff date and would be in Pre-K this year. After visiting with both teachers and their pediatrician, both boys have been diagnosed with ADHD. I really have mixed feelings about this. I always kind of thought ADHD was just a bogus diagnosis. I just thought it was kids being kids. I struggled a lot about whether to medicate them or not. I eventually decided to go with the medicine. It seems to have made quite a difference at school. I still feel like they're behind most of their classmates though. Maybe their teachers this year will agree with me that they're not ready to advance to first grade. I know there's a lot of time until the end of the school year and maybe they'll catch up. At the very least, maybe with the ADHD diagnosis, their teachers won't label them as "bad" and will work a little harder with them instead of writing them off. They've only been on the meds for about 2 weeks, so hopefully I'll keep seeing improvements.

That's our school year so far in a nutshell!