Painting with Batman

Suddenly, in the last month or two, Oscar has become interested in visual art – drawing, painting, coloring books, you name it. He’s pretty sophisticated in his grasp of colors and shapes, too.

Probably has something to do with Elsa and Lizzy, the two of his classmates that are really up to speed with him in terms of communication. They’ve long been the painters at his school. Each morning, we find them in their smocks, with their brushes and their butcher paper. Until very recently, Oscar, if he took any interest in paint at all, was more interested in smearing it on himself than pushing it around on a piece of paper, but that’s changed. For awhile, he was always asking Jen and I to draw something for him – usually superheroes. Then all of a sudden he started drawing himself.

My mom the amateur painter would be proud.
He’s also starting to write letters. He can write his name, and he’s pretty good at guessing the spelling of words – not always just through memory, either.

We had our spring parent-teacher conference a couple weeks back. His teachers said he “has exceptional comprehension and enjoys dissecting ideas and arguments,” and has “amazing communication skills.” His favorite time of day is lunchtime, when he’s able to use those strong conversational skills with his classmates.

He’s still pretty adult-focused, though, and displays a lot of attention-seeking behavior. He also “gets stuck in dramatic play” and sometimes “has to be pulled out,” which may prevent some peer bonding. On the other hand, there just aren’t that many of his peers who can communicate on his level. Mostly, though, I blame Batman.

In any case, you can see where the transition to pre-K this fall is going to be tough, and we just got some disappointing news on that front. New York assigns its scarce pre-K slots through a lottery. Basically, you submit a form stating your preferred schools and around Memorial Day, you get an email telling you which one you got into, if you got a placement at all. We didn’t get into the one we really wanted, which is right behind our building, there’s a lot of kids he knows there and he’s been looking forward to going there. We did get a seat at a decent school within easy walking distance (though nothing’s really easy at 7:30 am). We can always apply to our first choice next year, when there will be plenty of kindergarten slots.