All the things I've learned from my Junior Kindergartener

Today is Cooper's last day of Junior Kindergarten - I can hardly believe it!  Time has flown by so quickly and in the 10 short months since he's started I have seen him grow and develop in so many ways.  He's now reading and printing proficiently and his drawings actually look like something more than a scribble and a blob.  Most impressive is the social aspects that I've noticed developing - he's really embraced the lessons he's learning about conflict resolution and how to maintain relationships when you're in a heated fight with your friend about how they play soccer or who ate the last granola bar.

I don't want to forget to tell Cooper about how every day of Junior Kindergarten he got up, made his own bed, brushed his teeth and got dressed before coming downstairs for breakfast - he did this without complaint (most of the time) and usually while belting out songs at the top of his lungs.  Adorable!

Cooper has also started to show interest in girls - first he was all about a girl named Summer - what she wore to school that day, what she said to him etc.  Lately he's been talking a lot about a girl named Sammie.  He even made her a love note the other day - "I love you Sammie" - gulp!  Cooper actually told me that he was going to marry Sammie someday and when I asked him why he likes her he said "I just got caught up in her sweetness." - I for one am all caught up in his sweetness.

Cooper's thoughts have also evolved to have a lot more depth.  He's one sensitive kid and has had a lot of hard questions for Peter and I.  The most difficult have been around death as he starts to put together that someday we will die - heavy for a 5 year old.  He asked Peter the other day if we could send postcards to heaven...looking for ways to keep in touch after we die. 

Cooper also came to the realization this year that he really loves his friends - and maybe more than he loves us.  This was more jarring for him than for us.  One day he broke down in the car with Peter and when asked what was wrong he said "I think I like Elliott more than you" - no one was more crushed than Cooper. 

As I reflect on all he's learned this year and all the things that we've learned in the process I go back to the poem by Robert Fulgum - All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten - and I can't help but agree!

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned: 

Cooper - first day of JK 2011

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don't take things that aren't yours.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.