Carter has now officially completed the first 1/4 of his kindergarten year and is doing amazing! Carter's favorite subject is math, and he has even been working on multiplication. He has always astonished me with his ability to count, add, and subtract even before starting school. In kindergarten they also do an app on the ipad three days a week called ST MATH, and Carter absolutely loves the days they get to do this. He's also doing well in his other subjects with letter sounds, early reading, and writing. We had a parent teacher conference last week, and his teacher had great things to say about him. Carter likes school once he his there, but almost every morning it's a struggle. He will say, "But Mommy, I'm going to miss you for seven hours while I'm at school" or tell me that he is too tired to go to school. He goes to bed at 7:30 on school nights and gets up at 6:30 on school mornings. I DO think a lot of him not being thrilled to go to school each morning is because he's tired, but I am not going to put him to bed earlier than 7:30! Really, even though it's not easy when he doesn't want to go to school, I do know that he's happy once he's there and is doing well-so I think it's just an adjustment that he will make as the school year continues.
Carter is an extremely focused child. This is an awesome quality because he wants to focus and work intensely on everything until he has perfected it. Carter is the kid who will want to play or do something nonstop for a couple of weeks, and then as soon as he has figured it out or gotten good at it and the challenge is not there-he's done and on to something else. This has been great with his sight words from school so far as he wants to learn all of them as quickly as possible so he can return them for more. He focuses on them and learns them, then is ready to move on. Occasionally, this intensity can get him upset when he can't figure something out, but for the most part he just sticks with it until he gets it.
Carter is very outgoing and has made lots of friends at school. He says he plays with everyone, and from the way it seems when I visit school I think this is true. He likes playing soccer on the playground or "just running around."
Carter continues to love the game of soccer and has done well on his soccer team this fall. He is playing for the Great White Sharks, and there are several kids from school on his team-including a classmate, so that's been fun for him too. His coach ended up living in our neighborhood which was neat, and she was a really great coach too. The started the season out really strong with several wins, but have had some more challenging opponents in recent weeks. Carter usually scores at least one goal though and really enjoys playing. He's pretty competitive, so he's always interested in knowing the score. Watching Carter's enthusiasm for soccer this fall has actually rubbed off on Dawson who has requested to play spring soccer for the first time in 3 years.
Carter and Dawson are sweet brothers, and I always love to hear their excitement when they report that they saw the other one in the hallway at school. (They're on separate ends of the building so they don't always see each other.) All the kids in Carter's class think it's so cool that Carter has an older brother in 2nd grade, and I can tell that Carter is proud of Dawson when he tells me things his friends say. Sweet, sweet brothers.
Carter is very tenderhearted and caring. From a young age he would run into the kitchen when I was cooking and announce, "I just came in here to kiss you" then kiss me and run out. He's always been very affectionate and loved to sit on our laps and give and receive kisses and hugs. At 5 and a half this has not changed at all. I love his sweetness. In addition to me and John he is equally affectionate toward Dawson, Nora Kate, and Clayton. He's just a sweet brother.
Not only are Dawson and Carter in school together now, they also continue to share a room. Dawson's on the top bunk and Carter on the bottom. They love sharing a room, and I really don't think Carter remembers NOT sharing a room since they moved in the same room when Carter was 14 months old. They tend to play well together even though things can easily get rowdy. Carter also plays well with Nora Kate though. It's funny because when he plays with Dawson they play much more real things (chase, climb trees, board games, etc.), and when Carter plays with Nora Kate which he enjoys equally as much they play much more imaginative things (a game they invented called ostrich where Carter is Nora Kate's pet ostrich, restaurant, store, family). Clayton loves his big brother Carter especially how Carter loves to make Clayton laugh-it's like Clayton has come to expect the silliness from Carter already to make him laugh. Carter is really sweet with Clayton though and protective- and is always the first to worry that Clayton's going to get hurt by climbing on or doing something. Carter is a good little brother and big brother.
At five and a half Carter is compassionate, caring, tenderhearted, smart, loving, focused, competitive, athletic, and our sweet boy! We love him so much and can't wait to see how he continues to grow.
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