Lucas Camilo

Lucas has been loving school lately, and in a much more interactive way than he did in the fall. Back in October, after spending the whole morning quietly taking everything in at school, he’d come home and — with a little prompting — chat away about the songs, the books, and what each of his teachers did.  Since he could be so reserved at school, we started to worry tha his teachers and classmates might not know what a brilliant and hilarious kid they had in their midst.

But recently the reports we’ve been getting from his nurses and teachers is that Lucas has become a chatterbox. He often uses a microphone at school, and for the first time ever they had to turn down his volume down on Tuesday to let the other kids get a word in over Lucas’s singing, reading, and general monologuing about the day.

We’re not sure what caused the shift, but it may possibly have been January’s Book of the Month. Lucas is a HUGE Eric Carle fan: he’s memorized The Very Hungry Caterpillar AND The Grouchy Ladybug in English and Spanish, and we just might lose our minds if we have to fetch and read Panda Bear, Panda Bear one more time. Well, much to Lucas’s glee, Lowell preschool’s January book of the month was Brown Bear, Brown Bear (by Bill Martin Jr., pictures by Eric Carle).  All month long he’s been telling us about reading it at school, wishing we had a copy at home.  It turns out that he’s also been doing brown-bear-brown-bear inspired art throughout the month, coloring and gluing animals that reflect the story (brown bear, red bird, yellow duck, purple cat, etc.)  On Monday he brought the culmination of all his work home with him — a spiral bound version of the book with his art, complete with a title page that says “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, by Lucas Hanson.” You’d think he’d written the next great symphony, we’re all so proud around here. And Lucas is proudest of all. He reads the “by Lucas Hanson!” with absolute delight.  And then proceeds to read the book to himself or anyone who will listen over and over and over again, pointing out how he glued the feathers on the bear himself! (feathers = brown felt.)

On Tuesday we heard that his class would be celebrating Valentines day the next day  (no school for Lucas today), so we figured Lucas shouldn’t be left out of the festivities just because we hadn’t bought any valentines.  Slightly delirious and feverish, Krista helped Lucas cut out pink and purple hearts and then spell out the names of each of Lucas’s classmates (Have we mentioned he loves spelling?  But since he’s three, this was a slow undertaking.)  We then threw some more heart and other stickers into the mix and packed them in his backpack so he’d be ready to Valentines it up with the best of them.

But it turns out we got the memo wrong — Lucas was the only kid who took Valentines to school.  But his wonderful teacher turned it into an opportunity.  She let Lucas hand out his valentines, making it a special occasion for each kid to come over to Lucas, letting him show off how he had spelled their names.  We’ve worried that the other kids in his class don’t know how to play with Lucas (or possibly that the teachers don’t know how to make it happen), so it felt especially nice for Lucas to reach out and share his love with each of his classmates.