Leo's first presentation

Leo gave his first presentation today. The presentation was about what he was like as a baby, as a 5 year old and what he wanted to be when he grew up. He had pictures taped to a poster and wrote sentences about each picture.

The teacher instructed him to look at the audience, not to read his paper, and to use his loud voice. He read off the paper, not looking at the audience, in a quiet voice. The teacher asked if there other things that he did as a baby and he stood there, uncomfortably, shifting around, and didn't answer.

He finished the presentation. Finally feeling more comfortable and less shy, he smiled and said that he climbed to and past Woods Quarry all by himself and that he would have climbed down too except that he face planted.

It was an interesting experience. I certainly never had this kind of practice that young. He was so reminiscent of my own very shy and quiet self as a child. I think I'm going to prep him more next time.

When you're an old lady!

I got back home Thursday night and on Friday, Paul told Leo to enjoy hanging out with me because I was going to leave in 3 days on another trip. I've got three trips this month, which is a lot for all of us to handle. Leo turned to me and said, "You're leaving again? And you're going to return when you're an old lady?"

Leo's second tooth lost!

Of course the first was when he was so small that it didn't count. This will be the first for the tooth fairy.

What I did over vacation

Another school assignment. Over the vacation Leo and Paul went roller skating at the roller skating rink.

New Leo art

I believe the project here was to draw a picture of something that you are good at and to write a sentence saying such: "I am good at putting my feet on my head"

More snow and wind

Today was Leo's second day of skiing. I have a video that I can't seem to upload. It was a horridly windy day, as well as cold, and the kids pretty much didn't want to have anything to do with skiing or being outside. I was really lucky that I was able to transfer Leo successfully to his class - our friend's Carter and Cindy were not as lucky and spent the day teaching their kid themselves even though they'd paid for lessons.

I had scouted for him at the end of the day, this time at the beginner/teaching slopes with the magic carpet and kid's chairlift. No Leo. He wasn't in the hot cocoa hut or the toddler slope either. At the end of the day, the kids arrived and Leo said he'd had a good day.

It wasn't until dinner time that we found out more of what happened today:

• He did the kid's chairlift by himself for the first time
• He spent the last run of the day on the adult beginner chairlift and couldn't get off the chairlift (the instructor wasn't on that chair to help) and started to go down the chairlift!
• On the kid's chairlift, he and another kid were hitting their skis together. He hit his so hard that a ski fell off. He had to get off the lift and ski part way down the hill on one ski.

I know, it makes you wonder if group lessons are the right thing. I guess everyone learns from their wacky moments. I think if I were to do it over, I'd do a few individual lessons and skip the group thing, which involves a lot of standing around in the wind and cold. They learn so quickly that a few lessons each year might be all they need.

Half of 8 is 3!

Paul was singing the Multiplication Rock song of 8: "Double 4 is 8. Half of 8 is 4."

Leo corrected him: "No, half of 8 is 3."

Paul gave him a piece of paper and said, "show me"

Leo wrote an 8 on the page. Then he cut it in half lengthwise with scissors and showed the half: "See? Half of 8 is 3!"

Skiing

Leo had his first of 12 ski lessons at Eldora today. As far as I could tell, the whole youth of Boulder was there, including 6 other schoolmates and a few non-school-related friends. It was a zoo. I got a half dozen runs in, searching for good snow, which was mostly nonexistent.

Anyway, he did really well, a lot better than he does leaning on me for support. The instructor said he was making S turns all the way down the public beginner slopes, which are pretty steep for beginners, by the end of the day. Exhausted, we are all heading to bed, 'cept Paul who didn't come up to the mountains and is going roller skating!