Kindergarten

We decided to keep Petru in kindergarten at ACC. He loves it, and he has made great strides in independence. The program is focused more on social emotional development, which is what Petru needs. Being an only child, he is very bossy. He is learning about the effects of that, however. The other day he got whacked in the head by his pal S., which made me happy; he needs to see the effect of his behavior onto others.

Things that he can do now that he could not do before kindergarten:
-easy drop offs.
-arranges playdates by himself - I often get emails from parents telling me that Petru asked them to email me about a playdate at X time and Y day.
-easy bed times.
-recognize all letters, read and write a bit.
-count to 1000.
-count by 5.
-understand shapes.
-play games and handle losing sometimes. By the way, he is very good at games, and has the ability to think ahead about moves. He also can cheat in a v clever way, but he understands now that he is not supposed to do that.
-dress himself.
-put shoes on.
-wet his hair at bathtime.
-use playground equipment almost as well as his peers.

Things we are struggling with:
-his nutrition - although he now is able to try new things, his diet is pretty limited. We used to have struggles with his dinners, but now we have a calendar and right down every Sunday night what he wants to eat during the week. Everyday he checks the calendar and eats whatever it says he should eat. His favorite? Nicola's pizza.

-hitting - still hits us when he is frustrated (he told Chris one day, in frustration: "When you stop the car, I am going to hit you!"; also to Chris, one night after he hit him and I came in with pretzels saying that daddy bought them for him : "Daddy, you should have told me you got pretzels, I wouldn't have hit you"; and to me, when I questioned him about hitting at school: "Mom, I don't hit at school, only at home"). He is making progress with this, though, and he is able to use his words and breath instead sometimes.

-being oppositional - if you tell him not to do something, he will go and do it. teachers at kindergarten have taught us great tricks in terms of communicating with him on this, and we are making progress.

-trying out new things.
-ability to sit still when not engaged fully in the activity.

Personality:
-happy
-funny
-great sense of humor
-very sensitive
-caring
-affectionate.

Oh, and he's got a good head on his shoulders, too!