Yesterday she marched me to school as the leader, while also holding my hand, amid the cars driving by to go to work. She giggled as every car drove by, and answered all my babbling advice with "I know it" (emphasis on the word "know").
"Don't forget your sandwich is in the white box in the bottom of your lunch bag."
"I know it," she replies.
"Remember to ask for help to open your juice if you can't do it yourself."
"I know it, Mommy."
She knows so much these days.
Dropping her off was easy enough. She stood very patiently in line as the kids who ride the bus were coming. She didn't wiggle too much, push anyone, or cry for me. Every so often I saw her eyes wander the sea of eager parents, looking for me I assumed. And each time I met her gaze from afar and gave her a smile and a little wave.
As the children started filing into the building she looked worried, and I reminded her that I was coming, too, to help her put her things away and find her seat. The classroom was crowded with all our grown-up bodies plus the tiny ones, and E and I had a hard time finding her cubby at first. Once we did, we placed her gym shoes and art shirt in the proper spots and proceeded to find her seat and table. It was all so exciting for us.
As she was sitting in her seat, listening to the morning announcements, we heard that they were announcing birthdays for the summer children in kindergarten. Sure enough, they announced her birthday and said all the birthday kids could come to the office to get a birthday pencil. She loved that, and that helped her feel excited about her day even more.
She was nervous, and a little confused with the process because at the Montessori school she could start working on a project right away - a project of her choosing to last as long as she wanted. Naturally her first instinct at kindergarten yesterday was to go play in the toy kitchen, but I had to explain to her gently that she could play when the teacher said it was time to play.
I'm hoping the structure of the classroom will help her a bit. Eleana is very independent and likes to do her own thing uninterrupted, and therefore is sometimes hesitant to do what we ask her to do at home.
This year will be a great year for her. She loves her teacher, we love her teacher, and she has some exciting things going on now.
I only need to figure out what I'm going to do with all this spare time.
2 comments:
Luke wants to know if you've seen any whales yet. So exciting, starting school! Luke says, "I'm going to go to kindergarten, too!"
Awww! No whales yet! We live right next to the Chugach mountains though, so we are more likely to see moose on a regular basis. Soon, hopefully before winter hits, we want to go on a glacier tour! Eventually we will do a whale trip, too!
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