Karsten Update

We had our parent/teacher conference this week with Karsten's preschool teacher and it went really well. He is doing great in class and is a good listener and is respectful of his friends and the toys in the classroom. He loves the block area, but moves throughout the classroom to other areas as well. He is not that interested in art and sometimes he has to be encouraged to do the offered art projects. I shared with her that I had a fear of being the mom of 2 little wild and crazy boys that the other parents would talk about wonder if they got any discipline at home. She assured me that Karsten is not wild and crazy at all and is a joy to have in her class. She also assured me that he will be ready for kindergarten next year. She said that he can sit still and follow directions and his kindergarten teacher will love him.

He is really starting to take an interest and get pretty good at writing letters. It has taken him a while to become interested and I never wanted to push him, but now that he has on his own, he is really having fun. He is always asking me how to spell the names of our family and his friends and he writes them in his little spiral bound notebook that he carries around.His soccer team is doing well. Karsten continues to struggle a bit with being aggressive and getting in the action. He runs all up and down the field, but is always about 3 feet away from the ball. A friend joked that he is like the referee- right there near the action, but not really participating. He is having fun though and smiling the whole time and has gotten a little theatrical with swinging his arms and taking long strides down the field, so I guess that is what counts. We did try to bribe him a bit this week to get a little more involved and told him that we would give him a treat if he kicked the ball 8 times. Well, it really worked. He kicked the ball about 20 times and scored a goal. He seemed to really enjoy the game more, but we'll see what next week looks like.

Overall, he has chilled out quite a bit. He is much more helpful, less stubborn, and less purposefully irritating to Peyton and Cooper. I was telling his preschool teacher about this and she wondered if this is just part of the 6 month cycle that kids typically go through in their brain development or if this is a maturity process that he has gone through. I am praying it is the latter because if I have to deal with the stubborn, irritating, throwing fits version of Karsten every 6 months for the rest of his life, I am in real trouble!