So Long Kindergarten

Photo Credit: The Photo Guys

I just can’t believe Yo-Man graduated kindergarten today. It seems like yesterday he was insisting on only peeing outside…and constantly asking to play hide-and-seek. He’s constantly making me laugh at the same time challenging my patience. Yo flew into our lives on May 14th, 2012. His due date was the 13th, which happened to be Mother’s Day but decided to torture me and wait another day. When he did decide to evict himself he was out in a little over 3 hours. Scared the crap out of me and my epidural didn’t even kick in until he was already born. I kept yelling at the nurse that I could still wiggle my toes and he couldn’t come out yet. She told me to shut up and push…I’m fairly certain she would’ve slapped me if she thought I wouldn’t sue her. Ever since everything has been on Yo’s timeline.

He still has the chunkiest cheeks and the craziest hair.

Yo couldn’t say his name correctly for the longest time. He kept saying Soy-yo instead of Sawyer. Thus we started calling him Yo, which morphed into YoYo. The 2 years he was in preschool he would not answer to Sawyer. He would not write his name, Sawyer. He was YoYo. He even would write his name with the dash between the two Yos. No matter how often we would remind him that his name was Sawyer, he would just say ‘No mom, you named me Sawyer, I named me YoYo.’

Yo is constantly coming up with crazy ideas. He is definitely the brains behind any shenanigans the 3 amigos get themselves into. He’s not afraid to say it like it is. And his biggest claim to fame is finishing all 500 Frye’s Sight Words for kindergarten within 3 weeks. He spent the first month of kindergarten frustrating his teacher to no end. He was bored out of his mind and kept saying he was too smart for kindergarten. Turns out he wasn’t wrong. We met with his teacher, the vice principal, and the principal to discuss his behavior and how to meet his needs. Turns out his reading level was at 2nd grade as well as scoring off the charts in every other subject..except for handwriting. The principal wanted to skip him ahead to first grade, to which we promptly turned her down. Yo may be brainy, but he is one of the youngest in his class and needs that age group to help him mature (more on that in another blog post coming). Thankfully his teacher was able to push him and challenge him and realize he isn’t a defiant child, he is an advanced child…not because of anything I’ve done. His intelligence and cleverness came with him and it honestly scares and challenges me more than anything else I’ve dealt with as a mother.

Yo tests my patience and intelligence on a daily basis. He likes to remind me that he’s the smartest in the family and states that he already knows everything. He routinely likes to tell his older brothers that mom and dad think he’s the smartest in the family…totally not true, and we have definitely NEVER said that.

But so far, he lives his life the way he wants and could honestly care less what anyone else thinks. If he wants to wear a beanie in 110-degree weather, he will. If his goal is to pee over our 6ft high cinderblock fence, he will try his darnest to accomplish this. If he wants to out read the entire kindergarten class, he will do it. Anything he sets his mind to, he accomplishes it. He’s my little man and is my biggest fan and harshest critic. I sure love him!