Observing

Today was the day. It was our turn to get a peek into Abby's day at school. Now way, way, way back in the day when I was in kindergarten we used to have parent teacher interviews. Remember attending those? These days it seems Observation Days are the way to go. Or maybe they've been around for a while, how would I know? This school thing is still pretty new to me. So our instructions called for us to be at school for 9 am until 10:30, which is their first nutrition break.

So as if having her Mom and Dad in class wasn't exciting enough, today was Abby's turn to be the "Happy Helper". Her very important duties included doing a head count for attendance, delivering said attendance to the office (after picking a helper to go with her), and posting the weather report on the board. In between all that we got to hear them sing lots of songs, visit their activity centers, and work as a group on phonics and syllables. Her teacher encouraged parent participation during some of the activities which was fine until it was time to do the Macarena, something I've done late at night after a few dozen drinks not stone cold sober at 9:30 in the morning. It was also nice to finally meet all the kids Abby spends so much time talking about. I liked being able to finally put a face to the names she tells me are her "best friends", the one who she says is her boyfriend and the ones she doesn't like much at all.

Towards the end of our time in the classroom her teacher pulled us aside for a short talk about Abby and to give us her very first report card. Abby scored 7 M's and 3 I's. Yeah, I know. Huh? Well the I stands for Independently performs skill. For Abby that is; demonstrates self reliance, attempts new tasks willingly, and adjusts readily to new situations. Those would all be things I still struggle with now and have worked very hard to make sure Abby isn't plagued by my hang ups. So this made me very happy to hear today. Now the M stands for performs the skill most of the time. For Abby that is; follows directions, works independently, cooperates with peers and demonstrates self-control amongst other things.

Her teacher let us know what a pleasure she is to have in the classroom, how enthusiastic she is about being at school and that she can tell how much Abby loves her baby sister (something else that really touched me). Some areas we do need to work on with her are her printing. She's about the middle of the class with that. Also she struggles some days with sitting still and paying attention. This is something her teacher and I have discussed in the past. We have found the worst days follow a rough night of sleep. Abby continues to suffer from night terrors that we do work at trying to keep under control with varying degrees of success since we can never be sure what will trigger one. Also she's a worrier. She expends a lot of energy worrying about what's going on with the other kids in her class. Not in a nosy way or even in a "I want what they have" kind of way. She's genuinely concerned for them. For example when I take her to the bus stop she takes an immediate inventory in regards to who's missing and then the questions start. Where's Tommy Mommy? Is he sick? Is he going to be late? Do you think he's still sleeping? Will he be at school today? And so on. Now that one might be tricky. I'm not exactly sure how I can make her stop caring or even if that's something I want to be doing. I think it's okay if she waits until a little further along in her elementary school career before becoming jaded.