Kindergarten

I think Amelia is a bit ambivalent about Kindergarten.  She was so excited this summer to FINALLY be a kindergartner and begin teaching the younger children and doing the kindergarten work.  But now that she's finally arrived, she's having mixed feelings.

The first week she told me Ms. Avril, her beloved teacher since she was 3, made her cry.  This is curious, since Ms. Avril is one of the most peaceful and loving human beings you will ever meet.  As it turns out, Ms. Avril did make her cry --- she told Amelia she had to do some K work and could no longer choose just the "little kid" work as Mia calls it.  It was too much for her to take, leaving the comfort of the familiar.  It was good that she got that little push and she soon began enjoying giving lessons and doing new work with the math.

Today I happened to check the work of a little friend of hers in another class and there were tons of math papers in it.  I asked Amelia if she chose a lot of math work this week.  She immediately said, "Oh sure.  I did.".

Then a pause.  "Well, just a little."

Another pause.  "Perhaps I didn't choose any math work this week"

I love the way she uses Perhaps.  It comes out a lot when she's talking to us and never fails to make us smile.  I'm pretty sure she got it from Ms Avril, who is South African and speaks in a clipped, warm British (to my ears, but actually South African) accent.

Then she showed us the globe she had made instead - push pinning all the continents into shapes, gluing them in the right  place, labeling them (is that really her handwriting so neat already?), stuffing the globe and then finally sewing it after it was laminated so it could be hung.

Perhaps no math, but lots of Kindergarten :)

CDC Success!

This morning was a bit hectic loading all of Olivia's stuff into the van (including the high chair); but well worth it in the long run.  The nurse was there when I showed up and took Olivia directly from me while I was bringing in everything.  I noticed she took her and played with her a bit, showed her a fish tank, and sat with her in the room to play with Olivia on her lap.  As nice as it was, I am assuming she did it to get a feel for what Olivia's capabilities are.  I later found out she stayed a couple of hours at the center and was there when Olivia's meds were drawn so there would be oversight. 

Susan (our cognitive therapist from EDIS) was there after lunch and checked in on Olivia and the classroom to make sure things were running smoothly.  She later called me with an update and report on how things went.

I went to go pick her up and the staff all told me how much they loved having her and what a great baby she was and to bring her back anytime... I think they were vastly relieved to find out how normal she is.  The caregivers in the room told me they hadn't expected her to be so mobile and to be able to sit up.  Not sure why they felt that way; I told them she could sit up but could not sit alone on a chair- she would fall over.  It's not that she doesn't have the muscle strength to sit on the chair - it's that she doesn't understand how to sit on a chair.  She can't keep her balance because she's not sure where her body is at in space on a chair yet.

The greatest thing about the CDC today was the caregivers telling me she was repeating sounds they made and babbling a lot; and she waved "bye bye" on her own to a woman she didn't know who was leaving the room.  SHOCKING.  I am so impressed!  I talked it over with Susan and mentioned that I thought it would be a good idea to bring her there once a week for socialization and she agreed with me.  The only negative was that she didn't sleep at all.  They could not get her to lie down.

Oddly enough, when I brought her home and put her down for a nap, she only took about 1.5 hour nap.  She woke up ok, but really reacted poorly to situations in the house.  She actually got a frown on her face and cried, a real fussy cry, for about 15-20 seconds several times when she was with mom for no apparent reason.  It honestly startled the heck out of both of us, and we started checking her whole body over to figure out what was wrong.  She turned out to have an enlarged node on the back of her neck/head area.  We called the doctor and were told it was a "shoddy lymph node" and to just watch it.  I'm not even sure what that is at this point. 

All in all, a busy day.  I took Amelia to a going away luncheon with bouncy house for the woman who coordinates playdates in the neighborhood; then drove her over to Creative Stitches to finish sewing her shorts with Grandma.  After they came home we went to an Oyster Roast put on by the battalion at Elliot's Beach, complete with another bouncy house and bonfire.