Alex L Johnson: 2015

Alex is growing strong. He’s lean and desperately ready to be 6 years old. He is completely obsessed with his upcoming birthday later this month and party. We are going to have a bunch of kids over for a Slip N Slide party! Cake, pizza, and fun! We invited several kids from his class at SEA and are hoping they will be able to make it. Alex refers to his age and/or birthday party practically daily.

He finished kindergarten the beginning of this month and jumped into First Grade! Mrs. Pitkin was a good fit for Alex and helped us get Alex back on track this past Spring. He was letting his silliness take over and it was impacting his learning. He was struggling with confidence and was easily frustrated. She said he displayed some signs of ADHD. We made some changes right away. I sent him to school with berries, a sandwich, and cheese every day. We told him no more chocolate milk (previously he was drinking it for both breakfast and lunch) and got the adults at the school to support us. Brent developed a homework plan for us at home. If Alex had focused homework time, he would earn 5 minutes of video game time to be used on the upcoming weekend. If he didn’t put the work in, he didn’t play video games. He was also given video game time for his daily behavior at school. Mrs. Pitkin was willing to fill out a daily sheet for us! Since Alex is very much like his father, video game time became a huge motivator. The gym teacher, Mr. Lui, asked Mrs. Pitkin if we had put Alex on ADHD medication since he saw such a change in him! I personally thought that was a poor way to express that his behavior was so drastically improved. Putting a kid on medication is not a light decision. Over the months we realized Alex just required some more attention from us at home and we had to stay on top of things constantly. If our focus slacked so did his behavior/attention.

A big focus of Kindergarten is learning Sight Words. Works like: Him, School, we, were, when, you, I, was, for, with… you get the idea. The kids are tested on the same 50 sight words through-out the year. In December, Alex scored 2/50 and tears came to my ears because he could only read “I” and “a” at that time in one minute. It was then that Mrs. Pitkin told us he was struggling. In March, Alex scored 34/50! What a drastic improvement! Previously to the March test, I was practicing with Alex and he noticed I was keeping track of ones he missed. His concentration faltered and he visibly was shaken. I then started verbally praising correct answers and he picked right back up! When our little quiz was done, I was so proud of him I teared up. Alex has such a tender heart and I worry for him in this regard.

Alex will be attending Targeted Services AKA Summer School in July. 4 hours every week day with a much smaller class (only about 14 kids). We are looking for Alex to catch up to the other kids in his grade and maybe even leave them in the dust in First Grade! His interest in learning greatly increased toward the end of the school year. Mrs. Pitkin chalked a lot of it up to his age. Alex is one of the youngest kids in his grade. But I know the truth – he just needs to figure out when to curb his inherited silliness! The boy is just full of the wiggles and giggles!

Speaking of silliness, Alex had 3 girlfriends during kindergarten… all at the same time! Grace, Jovie, and Jasmine were his girlfriends. At the end of the year, Jovie moved on to be Beck’s girlfriend. Another little girl named Toti would chase Alex around trying to kiss him. He openly disliked her as a result.

Alex is still horrible with names. He started with Adventure Club in the beginning of June and noticed a boy from the previous summer at the YMCA. I said, “Did you remember his name?” His simple reply was, “No! But Marty remembered mine!” He also came home last week saying he had a new girlfriend but failed to remember her name when prompted. A few days later he said her name was Emily. Geez.

Alex is awesome at mazes and recognizing patterns. He has a love of nature and weather. He made the connection why I planted specific plants where I did in the backyard because of sunlight requirements. I was super impressed with that! He recognizes birds by their song/coloring. He knows how to read the clouds. My kid might end up being a botanist or something!

We’ve become friends with some neighbors up the road and Alex has particularly bonded with the son, Erick. They are very close in age, Alex is only 2 months older but Erick won’t be starting school until this fall. The boys laugh and challenge one another to climb higher and faster. They also both love the skate park. They will most certainly become skate boarders at some point. It’s fun to see them join forces and just disappear, completely uninvolved in everyone else. It’s easy to spend time with the Mazon family and they are literally right up the road. Sure makes life a bit more fun just to drop in on someone for company to the park!

I was able to join Alex for various events and lunch times through-out the school year. I helped with a Valentine’s Party, chaperoned a field trip to Oliver Kelly Farm, and helped over lunch the first few weeks of school a few times. I would just pop in to join him for lunch weeks or so! It was awesome to be able to see how well loved he is first-hand. The kids are so welcoming! The staff at SEA is pretty amazing so they were always pleased to see me. Then the last week of school I brought Anna with to lunch at SEA school. She was so excited! Alex was so proud to have her there and was introducing her as “my baby sister Anna.” He was also whispering to her that it would be her school too one day.

Alex is an amazing protector of his sister and potentially her biggest fan. They have sleepovers on the weekends about once a month. The only hang up is when Alex is ready to go to sleep and Anna isn’t! That boy needs sleep!! He also needs milk. Lots and lots of milk. He is starting to make supper requests too like Cheese Soup, Orange Chicken, egg sandwiches, and fish. He really couldn’t be any more adorable or any more unique.