The Naked Kid

Today was Cooper's Fall Program at Mother's Day Out.  I have been so excited about this day, but I've been a little nervous too.  Karl and I have been thinking of various scenarios of how this could go.  

Would he get on the stage and cry because of all the people?

Would he make his teacher hold him?

Would he cry if he saw us?

Would he run off stage if he saw us?

Would he keep his costume on?

Would he keep his clothes on?

Would he participate?

I am happy to report that he did great and was beyond precious and stayed fully clothed while on stage!  The younger kids performed in the first part of the program.  The really little ones were pumpkins and the two year olds were turkeys.  The kids were so adorable!  I didn't put up a lot of pictures from the program because I try not to put up pictures of other people's children, but here are a few of our little turkey!

 He walked right up on the stage and sat down!  It wasn't where he was supposed to sit though, so one of the teachers came and got him.  We laughed!

 He scanned the crowd searching for us.  He knew we were supposed to be there.  Even though he didn't see us, he just sat there looking and saying, "Mama.  Daddy.  Mama..."

 He was so happy when he found us!  I couldn't believe he spotted us though!  We were up in the balcony on the second row.  He kept telling his teacher and pointing to us.  At one point, I really was afraid he was about to hop off the stage and come to us!  We got so tickled watching him watch us!

FYI-this is all during the program...his participation in the songs and dances wasn't great, but it appeared that all the children were more interested in creating their own personal performances for the audience!

 When he wasn't pointing to us or talking to his teacher, he was rolling off the steps of the stage, cleaning up the leaves on the ground, and occasionally clapping or dancing.  But then he spotted an outlet!  It was covered with tape, but that didn't stop our kid.  He pulled that tape right off and started examining it!

It was such a cute performance, and I was really blown away by how hard the teachers and staff had worked to make it so special.  As the younger children exited the stage, the director said something about how pumpkins roll and turkeys get really excited at Thanksgiving--that summed up their performance!  The kids seemed to have so much fun though.  The older children were dressed as pilgrims and Indians and were much more focused on their singing and dancing than the little ones! They were all super precious!  

After the program, we went to retrieve our pumpkins, turkeys, Indians, and pilgrims from their classrooms and get their fall artwork.  Y'all know I am a complete sucker for handprint art!  I just love a cute handprint turned into something else!  I think I was just as excited about seeing Coop's artwork as I was about the program because the other day he had some paint on his hand and under his nails, so I knew this was going to be good!  His teachers did not disappoint!  

I love this!  I don't know if they read a story to go with it or not, but I have a little farm book with lift-the-flap pictures.  One page says something like, "Who pecks the corn on the farm?"  Then you lift the flap, and there's a turkey.  If I was still teaching, this would be our craft to go with that book!

 This looks like they had a stencil that went over white paper and they painted over it.  He's posing by the teepee in the Adventure Room.

 His precious Thanksgiving placemat that I will save forever and ever.

 A closeup of the picture on his placemat-this was on Farm Day at the end of October.

They also finger painted a turkey and added feathers to it and made a fall wreath.

I love all his little crafts and am so proud of him (and his teachers)!

Now an explanation for the title of this post:  Cooper has two teachers in his class.  One of them is very, very sweet and has always been very tender and kind with Cooper.  The other is great too, but she's just not quite as friendly and nurturing.  She's also the one who got on to Cooper for not keeping his clothes on last week.  Well, she wasn't there today, so they had a substitute who hadn't subbed in Cooper's class yet.  After the program, we went in his room to get our little turkey and all his awesome artwork, and his substitute teacher came over to tell us how sweet he was today.  That meant so much to me because I normally don't get any feedback about how he was that day.  She said she called him Naked Kid all day because she didn't know the kids' names yet.  Karl and I burst out laughing!  I told her we'd been working on that at home, and she said she thought it was fine and that it helped her today with remembering who he was!  When it was time for lunch, she told us she said "Here's Naked Kid's lunchbox, I mean Cooper's!"  That made my day!  I loved that she wasn't upset with him or us and even seemed to think it was very funny too!  We have so much to be thankful this year, and the fact that our little boy didn't use the Fall Program as an opportunity to strip today is definitely on my list!