We discussed a lot of things and she shared how lucky she thinks she is that she has Gabriel in her class. She said he is smart, funny, compassionate, and well above his age in wisdom. We talked about how much he has learned in 6 months and how she believes he's more than prepared for Kindergarten. What a great report! I'm very proud of him.
Just as any parent teacher conference, she also gave me a couple of suggestions of things he can work on. Thinking it was going to be something academic based, she surprised me when she asked, "How does Gabriel eat at home?" Catching me off guard I said, "Well, he eats a lot and he always cleans his plate." She then said, "Have you noticed how fast he eats?" and I replied "Yes, I guess I have." She said, "I'd like for Gabriel to work on slowing down when he eats." She continued, "Here at school Gabriel is always, and I mean always the first one done eating, even when we purposely serve him last. Then he asks if he can have more." It was then that it hit me. He does the same thing at home. I guess it is usually because we are racing out the door in the morning or oblivious to what is going on at night after a full day of work, but it is true.
Gabriel is always the first one to scarf down his food and he can eat two heaping bowls of cereal before I can get half way through mine, and I'm a pretty fast eater too. Ms. Stacey and I then talked about how his fast eating may be a something he doesn't realize he's doing, but is a behavior he learned from when he was still with his birth mom and having a meal wasn't always a guarantee.
I know Gabriel doesn't worry about having food with us, because, well, we have food all the time and I don't think the boys have ever felt hungry since being with us. But Ms. Stacey brought up a good point, if from the time you were born and for the first several years of your life, food wasn't always a sure thing, I too would probably respond in a similar way.
I told Ms. Stacey I would talk with him about it and together at home and at school we'd try to create a new habit for him. When I talked with Gabriel about eating slower and how Ms. Stacey and I were going to help him together, he was all for it. He said, "Mom maybe I can even beat Michael on being a slower eater." I laughed because with Michael we have the exact opposite problem... the minimum amount of time it takes Michael to eat a meal is 45 minutes (no joke).
So on Monday with every meal I'd set a timer and ask Gabriel to spread out his meal over the timer (that was Ms. Stacey's suggestion and it worked!). Gabriel celebrated as it took him an entire 7 minutes to eat his lunch. Then for dinner we set the timer to 10 minutes and again he was successful. On Tuesday morning when I dropped him off at school, I whispered in his ear, "honey remember to eat slowly okay?" and off he went.
Everyday this week I picked him up he said, "Mom, I ate slowly" and then for dinner he'd ask, "Mom, can you set the timer for me?"
And then today when he came home, he came running in the house screaming, "Mom!!!! MOM!!!! MMMMOOOOMMMM!!!! where are you?" I responded and in he came running with a piece of paper. He yelled, "Mom, look what I got!" I turned around to see him proudly hand me this ...
 |
| Can you tell how proud he is? |
 |
| In case it is hard to read it says, "This award is presented to Gabriel for "eating slow" on 1/21/2011 signed Ms. Stacey." All Meals-- Great job! |
Although I don't ever remember my pre-school, elementary, middle, high school or even college teachers ever giving out an award like this, I'm so very proud of Gabriel for getting it. It shows me he's an eager learner and willing to try very hard to improve himself.
What a wonderful little boy and I'm so lucky to have him and Michael as my sons.
Until next time,
Angie
No comments:
Post a Comment