Christmas Concert/Holiday Program/Winter Celebration Season, and William the Whiz

We have survived Christmas Program Season! Wow! And you know, it was surprisingly pleasant - we've learned a few things over the years, if you want to be able to see anything - or have a seat - you must arrive EARLY. Like, if they say 'bring your child between 5:15 and 5:30', that means 'be at the school at 5:10 to claim your seat in the auditorium'. And we did it! Of course, it helps that we are no longer toting infants around - I actually had a seat to myself, no one sat in my lap, and no one fussed either. And of course, the fact that the iPhone is an amazing tool for entertaining children for hours helps. Angry Birds anyone?

Anyway! Sarah was up first! Her preschool does a lovely program every Christmas and Sarah did a terrific job singing in front of a PACKED church - that girl is a natural performer, if I do say so myself! She's the one I always catch singing a song, whatever she's doing :)

Next up was William! We walked into the school and there was his friend Harrison, wearing the same exact sweater  :)

William sings it loud and proud, in fact at one point Matt and I looked at each other, pretty sure we'd heard him bellowing out the words. William, while not always singing, is the one who will comment on any music playing and let me know whether he likes it or not.

And then we have Evie, here with her friend Katie :)

Once Evie found us in the crowd, it seems that she spent more time watching me while I took pictures than she did actually paying attention and singing. Srsly - in every picture I took, everyone else is looking out in the crowd and Evie is looking directly at ME :) Silly.

See what I mean??

So we made it through! And enjoyed it, without having to SHUSH anyone, or walk a baby around. I tell you, the light at the end of the tunnel is definitely getting brighter and we have happy family times ahead, I hope!

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While waiting for Evie's program to start Wednesday night, an interesting thing occurred: I had passed William a little blank notebook and pen for him to doodle with, and a few minutes later he handed it back to me with three math problems on it. I laughed, answered them & passed it back. Matt then wrote some problems down for him to see if he could answer. They went back and forth with this, with Matt writing more and more complex problems & William mostly getting them right.

Here's the thing that's kind of baffling us - although I guess it shouldn't, as his grandfather has a PhD in Physics - William is 7 years old and in the 1st grade. He's learned addition and subtraction, and in class they are now working on fractions. He's self-taught himself multiplication by studying the table in the back of his marble composition book that they use in reading class. I have no idea where he picked division up from, it's like he's absorbing math out of the air through osmosis or something. Is math out there in the air? And why didn't I get any of it? He's asked why he can't be in Evie's math class, since they are doing multiplication and division and he understands it.

I kind of envy William in a way, it must be nice to be SO GOOD at something so early, that you sort of have that path ahead of you already to follow. I'm positive he will end up in some sort of math/science/engineering field, whereas I stumbled into business and really have no desire to go back to it should I go back to work. Of course the flip side of that is, William is always thinking about MATH, which makes it difficult to get him to focus on anything else, like his reading homework. Or eating dinner. Or finishing the shower he started 45 minutes ago. Who knew multiplication could be so fascinating??

I guess tomorrow I will be calling his math teacher to see what can be done to make sure he's challenged and learning. Note to Granddad, be ready for William to call if he gets stuck because surely neither Matt nor I will be able to help him in the not too far off future!