Garrett is in Kindergarten now, and he's just thrilled to be going to the same school as his older brother. Pre-school was really dragging him down, I think it was cramping his style a little bit. He had lots of days where he just didn't want to go, he was literally bored to tears with the subject matter. He's a smart little son-of-a-gun, I'm expecting great things from this kid. There's no telling where his brain will take him! We've got to keep his mind energized and thriving. He's been reading since he was 2, so re-hashing the alphabet in pre-school was starting to become counter productive. It was a great school, but I feel like we could have done more to cultivate his gray matter. I mean, he was reading books about he solar system to the class for show-and-tell, and it made him sad that the other kids weren't "in to it" like him. Toward the end of pre-school, I think he was feeling like he was a little bit different, and he may have been masking some of his intellect at times to fit in better. His buddies were all into Transformers, and Garrett would play with them at school, but when he got home he would say "I know that Transformers are not real. They are boring." I'm thinking "Wait a minute! I liked Transformers!! What the heck?" Oh well, scratch that one off the Santa list.

Now that he's in Kindergarten, he has a new batch of friends and a specialized program to keep him moving forward. It's great! He loves school again. He seems a lot happier all of the time now, not as moody or dark like he was. I'm sure the Feingold diet has helped that tremendously, but it also has to do with his new found "liberty of thought". For whatever reason, he feels safer in Kindergarten to let his ideas be known, not to conceal his extraordinary grasp of concepts beyond his years.

The very first time he met his teacher is the best example of that. It was open house night, and parents were meeting the teachers in the classrooms while all the new kindergarteners were playing in the cafeteria. After we met with his teacher, we brought Garrett in from the cafeteria where he had been sitting at a table with crayons and a paper. After a bashful introduction, he shyly handed his new teacher what he had been working on - a complete map of the United States - and she kind of stared at it in disbelief. The conversation after that was priceless, I'll never forget it:

"This is neat Garrett! Did you trace this from a book or something?"
"Well... I used a crayon and I just remember." He said sheepishly.
"Wow! Really? Were you looking at a picture of a map?"
"Well... kind of. I think about the pictures from Google Earth on my computer."
(by then her jaw was on the floor)
"This is incredible! You can do this from memory? How do you start it?"
"I know Kansas goes right in the middle, then I add states when I think of them. I messed up with West Virginia."
She was laughing in a confused kind of way.
"Hey, it looks pretty good to me Garrett! Maybe I'll have you teach the class about maps for me."
"Well, I think I'm too little. And this just looks silly because Hawaii isn't really right by California. It's far away in the Pacific Ocean."

Garrett's a funny little thinker - a deep thinker. He's almost always deep in thought. Sometimes he has trouble with the shallow thinking stuff, like getting dressed. He'll be at the chalkboard, toiling away on some made up number game, and I'll tell him to get dressed for school while handing him his clothes. Ten minutes later I check on him, and he's wearing one shoe and a backwards shirt - nothing else! It happens all the time like that. He's like a nutty little professor. There's so much going on in his brain, I think the little tasks get lost in his ocean of ideas. 

Gavin is a Cub Scout - a Wolf Cub, to be exact. He is so proud of this fact, and it has really been an empowering experience for him thus far. He says things like "Cub Scouts don't do it like this, they do it like that." and "That's not the Cub Scout way."

He has a "Hygiene Chart" that he has just become obsessed with. His fixation (autism driven?) on this chart has really helped his independence. He has to check off each box everyday, like drinking water, brushing teeth, bathing, etc. As soon as he wakes up in the morning, he climbs down from the top bunk and goes straight to the chart taped to the wall in the bathroom to check "Get enough sleep" off the list. Then he goes to the kitchen and gets a cup of water to check off the Drink Plenty of Water box. All of a sudden he's taking care of himself without any prompting! Just knowing that the chart is there with unchecked boxes is enough to get him moving in the morning.

Becoming a Cub Scout almost instantly gave him a new sense of pride. I'm not sure what did it, maybe the Cub master that came to school recruiting new 1st and 2nd graders? Gavin seemed pretty energized by the sales pitch, and came home that day demanding I take him to the "sign-up" meeting. At the meeting, the same fellow that spoke at school was there giving his speech to the parents and sons. I was just excited to see how focused and attentive Gavin was to this seemingly boring lecture, and all the whispered questions/comments he was peppering me with:

"Can I get a hat?"
"I will need my own flashlight."
"Do North Carolina bears eat Cub Scouts?"
"Are girls allowed here?"
"I need to earn lots of patches!"

Stationed prominently behind the pacing and prattling Cub master was a giant, 4 foot trophy for the Pinewood Derby. Many of Gavin's questions revolved around this glittering object of desire, and who could blame him? I had never seen a trophy like that, certainly it must be from the world championships or something. It stood at a true four feet tall, no kidding. And with a dazzling golden Pinewood Derby car at its apex in the wheelie position, looking like it was about to launch into orbit, Gavin was absolutely captivated by it. "Dad - we have to make a car that will win that trophy. We have to."

My experience with Cub Scouting was somewhat lackluster. I remember enjoying the time with my Dad, but it was nothing like they advertised in the brochure. Our pack never did any of the camping, canoeing, BB gun stuff in the 2 years I participated. It was all just knot tying and little crafty things. I was more into sports, and scouting eventually didn't fit into the schedule. Gavin has had a tough time with sports, and real trouble with the notion of teamwork, so scouting is a great way to condition him to the idea of cooperation and helping others.

He is starting to get the concept of being an unselfish, altruistic Cub Scout already. He really wanted the hat to wear, so everyone would know he's a scout. I said, "Ok, let's get you a hat that says 'Cub Scouts Rule' on it! Wouldn't that be sweet?" He looked at me with a deadpan gaze, pitying my foolish lack of the Cub Scout perspective, and said "You can wear that hat, Dad. A real Cub Scout would never wear a hat like that."

Ok, so here's one of the items from the lunches I was writing about. I figured I better go ahead and post some photographic proof after my rave review. This pig was an entree in the boys' lunch on Tuesday. Sara made an extra one for Bodie, so I actually got to see one in broad daylight before it was packed into a lunchbox! Normally I only get to see the tattered remains of what Sara created, after G and G get home from school and I rummage through their uneatens for a quick snack.

I presented this pig to Bodie at lunch, he got the biggest smile and uttered one word, "Piggy". Then he promptly picked off the nose and ears and popped them in his hungry little mouth. Next he picked up the rice ball, and I guess he didn't like the sticky texture since he set it right  back down. Thanks be to God for that, too, because I was starving!

He didn't get a second chance at it. I gave him an apple and slammed that pig like there was no tomorrow.