Lucy's Walking and Gus is in Kindergarten

You read that title right. Lucy is walking, and Gus has started kindergarten.

The day that Lucy turned 10 months old, she took her first steps. I was the only one home with her, as Jon and Gus ran to the store. They were both sad that they didn't get to see her first steps, but Lucy obliged by taking some after they returned home. Then, she took a break from walking independently. She would cruise a bunch, and walk with her hippo toy, but not many independent steps, until this past week.

Jon and I guessed that she had taken a bunch of tumbles initially, that she wanted to gain some confidence with her walking, and she has. She still has the drunken sailor look, with both arms out to the sides, and she still crawls more than she walks, but she does cruising laps around the table for practice, and will use the couch to pull herself up to standing and then walk away. Gus didn't take his first steps until the day before his first birthday, so she's walking way earlier than him. I'm not ready for her to grow up so fast :(

And then there's Gus, who started kindergarten this past Wednesday. He was so nervous. He did fine, and was happy to be there within two hours of the start of the school day, but this weekend, though a conversation with him, we found out that he's scared to talk to his classmates. Upon further inquiry, in response to the question of what he thought would happen if he did speak to a classmate, Gus answered, "They'll turn and run away before we can come up with a game to play." So, he wants to play with kids, but is afraid they won't play with him, so he doesn't talk to them at all.

My heart is sad and angry. Sad because what parent wants to hear that her son would rather play alone than talk to a kid his own age because there's a fear that the other kid will run away without playing? Angry because Jon would check-in with Gus' teacher last year about him playing with other kids and always got, "He's always playing with kids." I think what really happened is that Gus was playing next to kids, but not with them. And even when asked, the teacher didn't really look at what was happening to notice that Gus needed some help/guidance making friends.

So, now he's in kindergarten and afraid to talk to kids. We emailed his teacher, who is going to share our email with the guidance counselor to come up with some ideas of what can be done to address his fears. It sounds like the guidance counselor is scheduled to go to his class every two weeks, so I'm thinking they may do some large group things so that Gus won't be singled out, but will help with his fears.

On a more positive note, Gus seems to enjoy going to school, though he doesn't like that he doesn't have enough time to play video games. I think he really likes his teacher. He's doing well with taking hot lunch, and enjoys getting to choose which days he takes hot lunch or cold lunch. And he loves showing off his backpack and lunchbox, which are both R2D2 and have lights and buttons to make sounds.