Whatsupwiththejoneses’s Weblog

The past week has been full of firsts for the Jones crew.  Cooper had his official first day of preschool at The Berry Patch. 

It was an easy first day for him since he remembered being there this summer, first for Pirate Camp and then for Outdoor Adventures.  I think it worked out perfectly because he already felt at home there, and did great!  He got a glowing first day report from Ms. Michelanne and Ms. Beth, and couldn’t stop talking about how much he loves school on his way home.  Whew…that is so much easier on me than having a babe who doesn’t want to go!

On Wednesdays he now attends The Little Gym of Edina for their Sports Skills class, where he’ll get an introduction to many sports, as well as learning some basic gymnastic strength-building exercises.  For this class, I get to stay and watch the class from a parent viewing area on the other side of some glass windows.  It’s a nice chance to connect with some other moms, two of whom I had a great time chatting with, and it’s so fun to watch him interact with Teacher Tracy and the other kids.  His class happens to be a class of 7 boys, all between the ages of 3 and 5, so he has a riot!  For the first week they covered gym safety rules, played some dodgeball, learned how to do a spring-board bounce and jump up to the vault, how to hang from the rings, how to use proper form when throwing, and do some exercises where they tried to knock a construction cone out of the middle of a circle by using their new throwing skills.  Coops nailed it!  A couple of days later he got the cutest postcard in the mail from Teacher Traci…

Such a great program!  I’m very excited for both of our Fall schools!

And lastly, this morning was Cooper’s first day of Sunday School!   

D.Jones was a little mopey about having to go to church, but once I rounded up my boys and we were on our way, all was well.  Cooper was a little quiet when we dropped him off, which is so unlike him that we were slightly concerned when we sat in church wondering what he was up to, but I was reassured that his teacher was someone I knew from a prior Mommy Group and she has 4 little ones of her own.  If anyone can handle anything that comes up, I knew she could!

When Doug and I left the service to head back downstairs to his classroom we were surprised to not see any kids in the room at all.  Another parent showed up right behind us and said “they must be in large group over here…”  we followed behind.  Sure enough, about 75 kids, all under 5 were in a big carpeted room, learning songs and listening intently to the woman and man running the program.  In usual Cooper Jones fashion, he was seated right up front by his teacher, and was singing right along at the top of his lungs.  The folks running the show were pretty funny (in an appropriately 3-year old fashion) and Cooper was laughing hysterically and having a ball.  Since Doug never gets to see him at school or at the Little Gym, I could tell he was just glowing with pride and really enjoyed seeing Coops in action.

Apparently, at Sunday School, they also made some sort of “bag monster” or at least that’s what Cooper was calling it.  It was essentially a paper lunch bag, stuffed with newspaper, and with little googly eyes stuck to the outside of it.  Somehow, between church and home, which is all of 5 blocks, the googly eyes made it from the bag to Cooper’s face, and he announced as we pulled in to the driveway, “Hey, check out my mustache!”  Huh.  Don’t say he didn’t learn anything today….

If the first week or two are any indication, our Fall should go quickly and be filled with fun~