Conferences

Tonight, I visited with all of the kids' teachers for Parent/Teacher Conferences.  It's always nice to hear what the kids are doing in class, and how they are progressing.

Addie's teacher had great things to say.  Second grade is going well for Ad!  She is quite the little reader, and has improved in math.  She is doing well socially, too, and has lots of friends.  I wasn't surprised at all to hear any of that.  Addie loves school, and dreads weekends and breaks because she enjoys school that much.

Andrew's teachers also had good things to report.  He is definitely ready for Kindergarten; my response was, "But is Kindergarten ready for Andrew??" (they politely laughed).  They told me that he is a leader in class, and that the kids look to him (that made me both proud and a little worried; this kid is ornery!). Overall, though, they had nothing but great comments about my youngest kiddo.

Alex's conference shouldn't have had any surprises, either.  I meet with his team at school often enough to know how he's doing.  I always schedule a conference, though, just to touch base in a different setting (his classroom, as opposed to a conference room) and briefly check in.  My plan was to gather all the dates of the third grade standardized testing (he doesn't participate in these tests, but it's a great time to set up dentist appointments and the like), and ask about the Pioneer Day event coming up in May.

I was very pleasantly surprised, though, to hear a lovely story of inclusion.  During a group exercise where the students were asked to go to the board to solve a word puzzle, Alex raised his hand for a turn.  He marched up to the board, all by himself (I hear he usually requests a buddy to accompany him), then proceeded to solve the puzzle, correctly, all on his own.  If the look of pride he had wasn't enough, his classmates all cheered their support for him when he got the answer right, which I'm sure brightened his smile.  His teacher told me that she had to turn her back so they wouldn't see her cry.  Score one for inclusion, right?!?  I loved hearing this.

Then, though, his aide (this was the first time an aide had ever attended a meeting, by the way...my advocacy at work, yay!) began telling me about a song that Alex sings every day when he washes his hands after using the restroom.  "Something about 'tight pants'", she explained, and my jaw hit the table.  You see, Alex caught Mark and I watching the Jimmy Fallon/Will Ferrell skit called "Tight Pants" (which is freaking hysterical...Google it if you haven't seen it), and because we were laughing so hard, he has memorized it and sings it to make us laugh.  It's pretty stinking funny to watch him act out the skit. I had no idea he was repeating it at school, though.

Thank goodness for teachers and aides with good senses of humor.  That's all I can say about that. Goodness.

All in all, it was a pleasant evening of conferences.  I'm fortunate in that all of my kids enjoy school, and have excellent teachers.  It makes evenings like this much easier than I suppose they could be.

And now I have the "Tight Pants" song stuck in my head...again.