Kindergarten Character

September 20, 2013

So, here we are…at the end of Grace’s second week of Kindergarten.

And it’s ending with a note from the teacher to me letting me know what a character she is.

Hahaha.

Oh my. She really is the opposite of her brother. At the end of HIS second week of Kindergarten, he came bouncing off the bus with a certificate saying what a good role model he is and thanking him for always doing the right thing. Grace? She’s a character. That can go either way.

Hahaha.

So, the email requires a bit of build up so you can get the true picture of how her first two weeks went.

Last week, she loved it for the most part. Happily got on and off the bus each day. Gleefully recounting her days. Telling us all about her new friends, and what playground equipment she’s been conquering at recess. Giving us updates on how her outfits and hair dos are going over. (For real. She really does this. Unprompted. And I am not even good at doing her hair, so this trend is worrying in more ways than one.)

Last Thursday was Back to School night. Her teacher mentioned she was crying as she came into the classroom, and upon asking why, Grace informed her that her stomach hurt. For Grace, this means anything from I need a trip to the ladies’ room to I am scared or nervous or otherwise uncomfortable to I ate too many noodles to my stomach really does hurt.

The last two weeks have presented a lot of firsts for her, so deep down I knew she was probably just nervous, but I still worried that she was sick or had a food allergy (Haha. This is how my mind works. What can I say!). My deep down feelings were right – we ultimately found that she’s pretty much saying her stomach hurts when she’s nervous or is otherwise too embarrassed to explain her tears, so we’ve been encouraging her to use her words vs. crying wolf about sore bellies. This week, it’s been a great way to get her to open up and talk about what’s on her mind. (And we’ve found out that one time she missed Daddy, another she didn’t like Gavin’s plan for who was sitting with whom on the bus, and still another that Gavin didn’t say hi to her teacher, he only waved. I can’t make this stuff up.)

Since last Thursday, we’ve had two emails about classroom tears, and a few updates on how frequently she asks to use the bathroom. One day, she asked to go eight times. EIGHT TIMES! Hahaha. Oh my word. We checked in with her old pre-school teachers to see if this amount of  ladies’ room frequenting at school was normal for Grace. It isn’t. We figured. She’s probably just testing the boundaries to see what she can get a way with. (Ok, “we” didn’t check in with the pre-school teachers. Kenny did. And being Kenny, he explained the situation and asked them ‘is this normal, or should I worry that she’s sneaking off with the second graders for some smoke breaks. Really. And then we wonder why we have ‘characters’ for kids.) Once we get her consistently using her words vs. ailments to express herself, we’ll be working on dialing back the tears and bathroom visits and using words to explain catalysts for those incidents, too (and hopefully cut back on both in the process!) Ah, Gracie. She really does keep things interesting.

All this to share the icing on the first two weeks of Kindergarten cake.

Yesterday’s email was entitled “Today”.

And it read:  “Your Grace is quite the character!  I introduced a game today (4 corners).  Grace was the winner.  I turn around and she is doing a victory dance.  Then she says she needs to take a victory lap and goes around the desks.  Cracked me up! No mention of tummy troubles and only went to the RR 3 times.” Signed, Grace’s Teacher.

OH DEAR HEAVENS.

It’s going to be a long 13 years for Kenny and I, we fear.

Send vodka. And Tums.

Hahaha.

(P.S. I will say that I love that her teacher is working with us and keeping us informed on how things are going. Overall, she said Grace is great, really seems to love school and has a cute personality. Yeaaaaaa.)

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