Big Week for Ben

We'll start at the very beginning; a very good place to start.

Ben started school Monday, as stated in the previous post. We left The J's with Gramma Zornes and headed off to take our tour. We were shown the nurse's office and told Ben would be pulled in there later in the week for height and weight. Then down the GORGEOUS hallway to see the art classroom (art class once a week, taught by Mr. Cruise whose son is in Ben's class) and the library (huge). We were told that the special classes are Art, Computer Science, and Music each once a week, and P.E. twice a week (they're currently learning bowling, which will culminate in Disco Bowling at some point). Then back the way we had come and down another hallway to see the cafeteria (carpeted, brave souls) and the playground (massive) and finally to Ben's class. His teacher, like every teacher at the school (and in Relief Society, come to think of it) is adorable. Total model material. Sometimes I worry we've moved to Stepford by accident. Anyway, as soon as we were in the doorway there was cheering, which was rad. The gal giving us the tour said the kids here react differently to New Kids since they're not such an oddity. So when somebody new moves in, instead of being a pariah, he's the kid everyone wants to meet and sit next to. Ben walked right into that classroom without a backwards glance. Sigh.

Wednesday he had his first piano lesson in months. There's a gal in the ward who used to teach band at a local junior high, then left to have her first baby, and now the baby is 5 1/2 months old Mommy's going back part time to teach trumpet at the junior high down the street from us. She also teaches trumpet and piano privately and comes highly recommended. She also needed someone to watch her baby for an hour or so on the two days she teaches at the school. So once again Ben's getting lessons on trade for services: I get to goo at a baby (GIRL!) for an hour twice a week, and Ben gets piano lessons in return. He'd been talking about it since we got here, so this works out perfectly.

Friday morning Ben told me about his big Thursday: He finally did get pulled into the nurse's office for height and weight, and they also checked eyes and ears. And very casually he told me how funny it was when they checked his eyes because they put a fish over one eye so he could read some letters, and when they put the fish over his other eye he couldn't see them! This with a "Isn't that funny?" sort of presentation. When he saw my look of concern, he started the CYA, thinking he was in trouble for failing a test or something. "It's okay, Mommy. I remembered the letters from before so I could tell the nurse!" Aw, great. Plus, when he's in CYA mode, I can't get any useful information out of him from that point. "Did she give you a paper, or talk to you about it or anything?" Shrug.

Well, I had everybody ready for school so we could all go see "Friday Morning Live," the school's weekly assembly/pep rally. So I figured since I'd be there anyway, I'd just pop in and ask the nurse what was up, or if she had even noticed anything (sometimes Ben can be really slick). And she had noticed. She said one eye was having to work really hard to make up for the other, and was writing up a recommendation to send home that he be checked by a doctor. Her assessment: right eye 20/30, left eye 20/60. Should be interesting to see what comes of it! I just feel bad that I had no clue.

Friday Morning Live was cute. Lots of music and dancing and cheering and shouting and drumrolls and awards and the principal actually was allowed to sound jazzed that there was no school Monday. The kids got to scream and yell their approval at the notion. The coolest part to me, though, was when they led the kids in this sort of drill-team-ish run through of measurement approximations. I learned a few things myself: a decimeter can be approximated by the palm of your hand, a centimeter by the tip of your pinkie, a yard from the tip of your nose to the end of your outstretched arm (actually I knew that from my House of Fabrics stint), a mile is "way over there," a kilometer "way, way over there," etc. But the biggest new of Friday by far was......

Ben lost his first tooth on Friday!

That is, he was showing it to a girl during class, and it was hurting a little bit, so he pulled it out himself. This, from the child who panics (I mean real, true, super-irritating panic) if we want to examine so much as a bruise. Whatever. Anyway, it was cute because he got to go to the school nurse and get the tiny plastic treasure box for his tooth that I vaguely remember from my own tooth-losing days.



Then came the scary part. "Mommy, is the Tooth Fairy for real?" Aw, CRAP. I handed that one over to Daddy, and the Meeting of Minds that took place at my dinner table was a wonder to behold. Matt will have to blog it, because I was only barely able to follow it myself. Suffice it to say that Ben eventually logicked (that word comes under protection of English Is A Living Language) out that the Tooth Fairy was person's job, not an actual winged fairy. It was good, because it's the truth, but still holds magic and mystery since he doesn't know who it is or how it's done. And the first thing I heard Saturday morning was this adorable little squeaky "Daddy! The Tooth Fairy IS real!"

This led to the final big First of the week: his first tithing payment. I'll post a picture if I can learn how, because he wrote his name on the envelope and it's adorable. They teach a different writing method out here called the D'Nealian Method, which is basically cursive without the connectors (instead of the stick-and-ball technique), and since it's new to Ben he basically just puts curlicues on every letter he can.

Big week, indeed!