First Day of Kindergarten

Can you believe it????  My Little Man is old enough to be in kindergarten!  As in, all morning long, following directions, doing stations, earning Good Time Tickets, doing homework, taking tests, and receiving a Report Card, kindergarten.

The Friday before school started, the kindergarten classes had a "Meet & Greet" where the students and parents could meet the teachers, see the classrooms, and get some of the nervous energy out.  Noah was very excited to go to K-2 (his classroom) and look around.  Because he is attending the school where I work, Noah already knew his amazing teacher and had been in the kindergarten classrooms before.  He was pretty excited, however, to show Daddy and Ava all around the room.

 After a good night's rest,  Noah was so very excited to go to school in the morning. 

We tried to make the morning extra special by decorating his door with streamers.

He was so confused when he woke-up.

He asked me if bad-guys had come in the house in the middle of the night and put them up.  What?!?  We gently explained to our Super Hero loving, good-guys vs. bad-guys enthralled, son that we were all safe and nobody was going to break into our house.  I couldn't help but laugh as I thought, "Yeah...bad-guys broke into our house and all they did was put streamers up".  Ha!

After getting ready, we had to take a few pictures.  Noah wanted his toy Jengo Fet {from Star Wars} to be in the picture with us.

Look at my handsome kindergartener!

 

I put together a cute gift {thanks to Pinterest} for Noah's teacher.  It's a Mason Jar Cup filled with chocolates.  The tag reads, "I am filled to the brim with excitment to be in your kindergarten class this year".  How cute is that? 

 

Once we got to the classroom, Noah was so excited to put his name tag on and play with all the toys the teacher had put out.  It was so nice to see him engaging with other students and confident in his classroom.

I was very fortunate to be able to stick around, after all the parents left and the classroom was cleaned up, and talk to the students about Noah.  His teacher was generous enough to carve out a few minutes of her very busy day and let me introduce Noah to the rest of the class.

I started by talking about how Noah is very similar to the rest of them.  He is five years old...just like {most} of them.  He loves swimming, reading, and playing...just like {most} of them.  I explained that there were a few things, however, that were different about Noah.  He was born with only one eye, but could still see very well.  I had the students cover up one of their eyes with a hand and notice that they can still see.  I talked about how Noah's ears don't work very well and it is hard for him to hear.  Because of that, he wears a BAHA hearing device that gives him "Super Hero Hearing".  {Noah's teacher actually wears a microphone that connects directly to Noah's BAHA so he can focus on her voice and learn to tune out all the noise around him.  It works so well that if he were to go outside, he could still hear his teacher talking.  Hence the "Super Hero Hearing".}  I also talked about how Noah has difficulty swallowing and so he cannot eat food with his mouth.  Noah showed the class his g-tube and told them that his food goes right into his tummy.  I ended by answering the student's questions.  It was such an amazing relief for this Mama's heart knowing that the students in his class were aware of his challenges learn to accept him for the amazing kiddo that he is.

When I picked Noah up from school, he was quite excited to tell me all about it.  In fact, he told me we needed to "chat all about my class".  How cute it that?!?  He said that all his friends are nice and nobody stared at him or was mean to him.  Tears just welled up as I thanked God for the blessings of a safe first day of school.  I know that my Bubs will encounter challenges in the future, but was so thankful for a blissful beginning to what I am sure will be a great Kindergarten year!