Wednesday, January 7, 2009

CJ's First Day

So CJ started school last week. Real school. For the first time in five years. To give you some perspective, here's what he looked like the last time he started school:

And this is him on his first "First Day" (This is also when he stopped wanting me to kiss him in front of his friends, so he'd put one of his tiny little hands up to sheild us from view.):


This is him now, all grown up:

I'm really proud of him. On top of his normal attention-deficit issues, he was struggling with his schoolwork here at home recently. Struggling to do it, struggling to stay on task, struggling to have a good attitude. I anticipated a rude awakening for him at a academically-competitive private school. Much of the material they are covering is completely foreign to him: Algebra, cursive writing, even things like writing his name on his papers! But this week, he has really picked things up, been responsible with his assignments, and brought home some surprisingly good grades for someone so new to all this!
So far, he's gotten two A's and a B, one 100% (!) and although he got a C on his first Science quiz, but I'm cutting him slack since he didn't even have a book yet! His math teacher is impressed with his progress in catching on to equations, and all his teachers are just so nice.
On his first day, it became obvious that the girls were going to be an issue. It was reported by my friend's daughter (who is in CJ's class) that "four girls" like him. She wouldn't say who. When I picked him up in the afternoon, high school teachers were making comments about the stir he was causing with the girls. One day, when I picked him up a little early, he had three girls huddled around him--one of whom was an 11th grader. He was looking slightly uncomfortable with the attention.
This Monday night we got home late, since he just stays with me at Bible Club on the afternoons I have it (we meet at the same building that also hosts the school), to find two phone messages from "Elizabeth" waiting on him. She had called the second time to make sure E had written her number down correctly. Then during dinner little Elaine called. All these calls were supposedly about homework assignments, but we know better. On the way to school Tuesday, I said, "let me jsut make this easy on you. You cannot have a girlfriend. You can have girls that are friends, but no girlfriends that lay claim to you and distract you--God KNOWS you don't need more distractions." Honestly, he looked relieved.
All in all, he's doing really well, although today he left without eating his breakfast or taking his Omega-3 (our homeopathic way of dealing with his attention challenges--it works, too!). I didn't have time to take him his breakfast after I came home and found it in the microwave, but I may be running that vitamin up to the school around lunch-time. After all, he's got three quizes tomorrow and he needs to be able to study tonight!


I love the picture below for the story behind it. This is Zay, who started coming to His Hands Bible Club when he was 11 (he's now 20). He is such a great kid, now. (o: He came over for dinner the other night because we missed him badly--he is in college and working fulltime, so we don't see him much. CJ was doing his math homework, and Zay just jumped right in and started helping him. Double irony is at work in this picture, as Zay struggled at frist to pass college algebra and was proud to be able to help CJ, and secondly, although Zay only advised CJ the exact way I had, only moments before, CJ still credits him with showing him how to do these equations. (o:

3 comments:

  1. Oh, I am so glad to hear that CJ is doing so well. I've thought of him almost every school day, wondering, wondering...And Zay helping CJ brought tears to my eyes. Thanks for sharing CJ's success!

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  2. Oh my gosh! I totally hadn't thought about GIRLS!!!! Why haven't you called me and told me about this!?! He is absolutely adorable, so it makes total sense... I just hadn't thought about it.
    I am glad that he is doing good on grades, and settling into the "routine". That whole "name on the page" thing is a killer to get use to. I remember having to adjust to that when I got to college!

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  3. Yes, when I first went to "real" school in the ninth grade, I was forever having some teacher say, "Whose paper is this???"

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