Where does time go?

How did my baby get to be old enough to graduate Kindergarten? It seems like just yesterday that he was born!

Regardless of how I feel like time seemed to slip by at times, I am just SO proud of this kid! Looking over the last year, he has been through a TON. Moving, a new area and house, a lost cat, seizures that brought on EEGs and an MRI and ultimately the diagnoses of Epilepsy, a new baby brother, a Daddy deploying and more meds for ADHD (no, I haven't blogged about that as I am still trying to figure it all out).

Austin had persevered through all of it and even thrived and succeeded! There were times when he just didn't want to go to school, but he went anyway. He found the positives in the school year, even though he missed his Pre-School class where he got to play more. :-)

His teacher, Mrs. Bruner, was a bright spot. Austin liked her. He made her a flower out of paper the other day and said that when he goes to First Grade next year, he wants to go to Mrs. Bruner's class first and give her this flower and THEN go to First Grade. Yes, he will miss his Kindergarten teacher.

Austin liked PE and library and computer class. He liked going to "centers." He loved eating the cheese pizza for lunch as well as the corn dogs and chef salad. He loved recess as well, but was always bummed when they had to go to the "little playground" instead of the "big playground."

Austin was apparently very popular with everyone in the class, especially the little girls. On several occasions, he came home with "love notes." But it wasn't all one sided. He was sending them right back, especially to one little girl in particular.

Yes, I think he had his first crush this year. He has had girls as friends in the past. He has liked them pretty well. One even called him her boyfriend (We miss you Skylee!), but this year, he was seen playing with C's hair, holding hands, and we can't forget about those notes. :-) Yep, it was different than with other girls. They sat next to each other at the beginning of the year in class, but the teachers saw the connection pretty early on and moved them so it wasn't a distraction.

At the end of the year, Austin's class had their awards ceremony. Austin was awarded the "Best Friend to All" award. He really is friendly to everyone and we are so proud of that. While we want him to pick his friends wisely in the future, right now, I think he is doing what is best by being friends with everyone, even the class bully, and being a role model for the other kids to just be nice. :-) Plus, being friends with the bully (or at least nice to him) means that he isn't hitting you!

Austin has learned life lessons as well as the regular academic ones. His math is doing great and he's interested in learning more. He is reading a lot better (you know, since he wasn't reading at all before Kindergarten!) and can read simple books at home. He came home with something new everyday!

He's going to do GREAT in First Grade!

Here's a couple of pictures to compare what he looked like on the last day of school (top) vs the first day of school (bottom)!