Huber HIGHlights: January HIGHlights { Blake starts Preschool, Weekend Getaway, First Snow!!}

Blake {1st Day of Preschool}

Blake started preschool on January 7th. He LOVED it! I was sad to miss his first day as I was on a field trip with Avery. I think it was probably a good thing to have Daddy drop him off though. His 2nd day he was a little more hesitant to go and I think it was because he was with me. He only goes 3 days a week for 1/2 a day. He thinks he's pretty cool that he gets to go to school like his sisters. His favorite part of school is definitely recess. Whenever I ask him what he did at school he always talks about riding the car outside.

Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam

The 1st Sunday of the month Blake graduated Nursery at church and is now a Sunbeam and in the Primary with the big kids. Allie also moved up and is in Senior Primary so Blake doesn't get to see her. He has done pretty well. Though last Sunday he refused to go. He did fall asleep with Derek so maybe it was because he was tired.

Field Trip with Avery {Cinderella}
I was lucky enough to be able to go on Avery's first field trip of the school year. It was to a Cinderella pantomime in Bury St. Edmunds. If you remember Allie's first field trip of the year was also to a panto, Aladdin. Cinderella was cute but Aladdin was WAY better. The Bury theatre was pretty neat. It's set up so you have box seats.....you can only fit about 5-6 people per box. I was worried we wouldn't be able to see much but it wasn't bad. So glad I was able to go since I didn't go on any last year.

Avery gets sent to the principal's office
So, long story.........Avery had been coming home for a couple months telling stories about a boy in her class hitting her and making fun of her. I never took any action because I know Avery overreacts and exaggerates things. I would talk to her about the things she was telling me and explain to her that maybe it was just this boys way of getting her attention, I told her boys can be a little more rough than girls, asked her if she was sure his "hits" weren't just meant to be playful.......to which she would always say no, he was trying to hurt her. I just still had a hard time believing it since Avery is almost always the instigator at home. She also, unfortunately, likes to get her brother and sister in trouble and does like to tell stories. After Christmas break she came home with yet another story. I might add that everything always seems to happen in her specials classes or at lunch or recess, never in the classroom. Her teacher has the class very much under control and would never let anything like this happen. This new story happened during Art class and the boy was threatening to punch her. She then said that as they were lining up to leave art and go back to class he did hit her and that her teacher saw him do it. She said that her teacher had him hop back on the behavior chart and later called his Mom. Now Derek and I thought this sounded a little more serious especially if her teacher was taking some action (though found it odd that we weren't notified by her teacher). We sat her down that night and had her go into more detail. She really did not want to talk about it. AT ALL. She finally did and also told us numerous stories we hadn't heard before. Like him knocking her lunch off the table and she was forced to get a hot lunch then, and by that time only salads were left (which she won't eat) so she just had cucumbers that day and ended up starving all day. And, he tried to punch her during lunch one day and a friend held up her lunch block to block him. And, he called her "slow" and "stupid" and made her cry. Those are just a few things.
Avery had a field trip the next day and I was going with her. I decided to watch her and this boy interact. Honestly, I didn't see anything go on between them that was concerning. The boy sat right in front of her on the bus and they were both peaking through the seat crack laughing at each other and playing. It does seem that they BOTH like to tease each other, but I never saw anything physical done or anything hurtful said. I still wanted to talk to her teacher so I stuck around after school and did so. She was surprised to hear all of this and had never noticed anything. She also said that she never saw him hit her and never hopped him back on the behavior chart for it. I was so frustrated with Avery for lying about that and I know that her teacher was surely disappointed in Avery as well. She was still concerned especially because Avery has been having a hard time sleeping at night (I have no idea if it is related to this or not), but she said she also tells herself "be brave, be brave" when he does this stuff to her. So, she wanted to get the principal involved. Within an hour I had a call from him and he said he was going to call both Avery and the boy to the office the next day to talk to them. And he did. Avery said she missed all of Mr. Lucas's class (Enrichment, her favorite special just because he's the teacher....she loves him, and so does every other student)....so that means she was in there for awhile. Mr. Shea did call me later in the day to tell me that he did talk to her and that Avery talked more than he thought she would. He didn't go into too much detail but said he does think the boy has been bothering her and that won't be tolerated and it will be put to an end. Of course Avery didn't go into to much detail about what they talked about. She "couldn't remember." She did say that he called her friend, Gigi, into the office to ask about the things that have happened at lunch, which she verified. I'm still not convinced that this boy means any harm to her. I do think he may be bothering her, but I really do believe it's just playful. Or I hope. Now to get Avery to really understand the importance of telling the truth, to differentiate playful teasing and mean teasing, and to know when to get an adult involved or when it would be tattling (because we were informed she does an excessive amount of it!)

Kids say the Darndest Things

One night during dinner Allie declared that I need to open up my own restaurant! I guess she really liked what I had made for dinner (Bacon Cheeseburger Soup). She then named off a bunch of different things that I make that she really loves and that was to be the menu. :)

"I want to smell you!!" This is something I hear at least 15 times a day from Blake. Sometimes I'm not sure if I should worry about this weird behavior or be happy that he wants to take big whiffs of me. I'm just relieved that every time he takes his sniffs he always walks away completely satisfied. :)

I also should mention that Blake is always calling me his princess, always tells me that he loves me, he will even tell me I'm pretty and that he wants to marry me!! The boy knows how to win over his Momma! I have no doubt that he will make an excellent husband to a VERY lucky girl someday.

Little Getaway
The kids only had 3 days of school this past week. We didn't do much over MLK day weekend. We did take them to CurveMotion, an indoor play place. This weekend we drove north to Stoke on Trent and spent a day at WaterWorld, an indoor water park. The kids had a lot of fun and Blake and Avery started getting really brave towards the end of the day (Allie was brave the whole day). We took one picture and got in trouble.....they don't allow picture taking.

Saturday we went exploring some English Heritage sites. We will never tire of playing hide and seek at all of these castles and abbeys!
{Croxden Abbey}