This awesome boy has had such a good few months. Over the last few years, Andrew has definitely had his struggles. He struggles mightily with disappointment, he needs a consistent schedule, and he has thrown more fits than both the other boys combined. That being said, I think he is finally growing out of his rocky patch. We still have occasions when he melts down, but these meltdowns are getting fewer and not nearly as often. We have definitely learned his triggers and have done our part to try to remove those triggers, but I think he is also growing up and learning to handle things better.
One of his biggest triggers is when his bedtime routine is disrupted. Andrew thrives on one-on-one time, especially with Jonathon. Since he doesn't get to see Dad as much, he loves having quality time with him. Nothing will send Andrew to tears and frustration faster than being told it is too late or he has to go to bed without their routine. Jonathon and Andrew have established a fun habit of reading books together at night before bed. Andrew is supposed to read for school, but he was fighting it a bit and always wanted Jonathon to read to him. He was perfectly capable of reading, but I think he liked the special attention. Jonathon came up with the genius idea to switch off reading sentences with Andrew. It keeps Andrew fully engaged, and he also gets to listen a bit as well. They have reread Harry Potter 1-3 this way, and are now starting on book 4. It is fun to hear them upstairs reading using funny voices and expressions. Andrew has always been a good reader, but I really think he has grown leaps and bounds in the last few months because of being able to read consistently with Dad.
Another big trigger is doing chores. For some reason, he feels like I am picking on him any time I ask him to do a job. We have very clear expectations about what the kids need to do on a daily basis, but I sometimes still struggle with his whining and moaning about having to work too hard. One thing that has helped this has been his friends. He has two great friends who live just 2 doors down on either side of our house. Graham and Henry are good boys and come from great families. I fully support the friendships and try to encourage play time and limit the screen time he would otherwise want. Andrew has learned that he can only play with friends when chores (bedroom, piano, homework, scripture study) are done, so he has been much better at coming home from school and hurrying to get his work done. As long as he knows the clear expectations, we don't usually have too many tantrums. But if I ask him to do an extra chore... oh boy!
This same thing is true of his morning schedule. He knows that he can't watch cartoons in the morning until he is completely ready for school. He will wake up, get dressed, and get all of his school stuff ready before I am even done making breakfast. I can't complain at all because it has made mornings so much smoother.
If I could teach him anything that he really needs to learn, it is resiliency. I wish I knew how to help him keep trying when things go wrong. He struggles with frustration if he fails at anything, and feels like everyone is picking on him if anyone corrects him. I am still working on how to help him, but in the meantime, I like the progress he is making in other areas.
Andrew is in the Portuguese program at school and is doing so well. He is funny because sometimes he loves Portuguese because it makes him feel special and other times he gets frustrated because he doesn't understand everything that the teacher is saying. His teachers have told me that he is at the top of his class, but he still gets down on himself when he can't say what he wants to. I'm sure this is super common when learning a language, so we just try to encourage him and give praise when he is successful.
Andrew is extremely good at reading and spelling. This week was the first time that he missed any spelling words on his PRE-test. Haha! It came as a surprise when he came home and said that he had to do the regular spelling list this week because he missed two words. As for reading, he has already passed the level that his teacher keeps books for, (level N) so she said he would just have to get books from the library instead. The books that she did send home, mostly Magic Treehouse books, were read in less than an hour and sent back the next day. I hope he keeps loving books.
He is also doing so well on the piano. We had a rough two years on the piano because both of our piano teachers had babies during the year and had to take a hiatus. That meant that Christian and Andrew only took lessons for a partial year before having to change teachers. It was hard because they would forget so much without regular practice. I tried to step in and teach them, but I have never found much success with teaching them myself because there is a lack of consistency and respect concerning the lessons. At the beginning of this year, I found a new teacher that we adore. She only charges $10/ lesson and she comes to our house. Hallelujah! It has been life-changing to not have to haul the kids all over for lessons. I love hearing their lessons from the other room, and I love how kind and positive their teacher is. I hope we get to have her for a long time. For his Fall recital, he played "Little Indian Lance" and nailed it. He is only one level below Christian now and has a natural talent at the piano. If I can only keep him from getting frustrated when he doesn't play a song perfectly, I think he can go a long ways musically.
This year Andrew played soccer for the second straight year. I didn't even write about his soccer experience last year because it was so depressing. His team was pretty terrible and the season was so hard to get through. His coach (Nate Powers) was great and Andrew learned a lot, but the team didn't have anyone that could score a goal, so the season was so long. Throughout the 8 games, the entire team only scored one goal. I don't generally care about winning and losing, but when we got beat by 8 goals every game and had to endure the other teams laughing and joking about our ineptitude, it got old really quickly. It was all we could do as parents to keep Andrew going to the games. He did better than I did though, and Jonathon ended up taking him the last 3 games so I didn't get too annoyed by the lack of sportsmanship of the other teams. I understand some kids don't have great manners, but I wish the coaches would have stepped in and stopped the showing off and put-downs.
Because of the problems of last year, I was hesitant to put him in soccer again, but he said he really wanted to do it, so we signed up. This year was much better. His team was completely average and they won some and lost some, but it was definitely a much better atmosphere. His coach (Ashleigh Tataipu) was mild- mannered and kind and she never yelled or got frustrated with them. I was impressed with her ability to teach and promote positive goals for the team. Neither Andrew nor Christian are exceptional at sports because they both lack aggression. They both were content to chase the ball around rather than attack and drive the ball to the goal. Andrew was the same this year, but overall, I saw a lot of improvement. The only hard thing was the insane schedule. They had one practice and two games every week for the month of October. By the end, I was so glad it was over. Andrew handled it pretty well most weeks, but there were a few times when he would say, "I hate soccer!" because his practice was taking him away from something else he wanted to do. In the end though, he really liked playing, he loved his teammates, and I feel like he became a better soccer player. I really couldn't ask for much more of the experience. 
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