Waiting for Hari

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What a rough day yesterday. I am not sure why having a teacher tell me that Julia might not belong in kindergarten right now was so upsetting. It threw me into a funk for the entire day. All I can figure is that I felt that my carefully crafted plan – 3 months off from work to settle Julia into our lives, a good school, full day kindergarten after the new year, and a happy family visiting Cheshire for Christmas – was dissolving before my eyes. All I could think of was that I had less than a month to get this right and how was I going to do that if Julia was not settled!

Actually Julia did not have a terrible day. Yes, school was tough yesterday. She is more comfortable there and so she wants to take charge, and anyone standing in the way of that will feel her rage. We went home after school and just stayed inside and worked and played. She loves going to our dirty basement and uncovering old stuff that is much more interesting than her clean toys. I did wash and ironed napkins. Julia discovered the spray bottle that I use to spray the cotton linens that I iron. I showed her how to spray the napkins before I ironed them and she had a good time helping. She also sprayed herself by mistake in the face and then had even a better time helping and getting wet. And we had a chance to talk about wet and dry.

We sorted her toys, putting all the doll clothes of any size in one box, putting games in another box, and putting some very simple board books in each room of the house. Julia loves order and loved deciding which book belongs in which room. We also played with the magnetic dolls and clothes that Claudia brought over on Sunday (Thank you Claudia, for the shower of gifts! She loves the Mexican dolls too, although she wants to take off their clothes. Confusing to have some dolls whose clothes come off and some that don’t). We changed the clothes of the two flat magnetic dolls over and over and over and by the end even my old paperdoll-loving self was satisfied.

When I was cooking, I cut the acorn squash in half and wanted to see if she could clean out the seeds, etc from the center. I put the compost container on the floor and gave Julia a tablespoon. She set to work, squatting down, cleaning the squash, picking up any seeds that fell on the floor and getting a towel to clean up any mess that she made. We have not discovered the range of her skills and competence.

But back to my own problems of the day. I wrote of what happened in school on my yahoo message boards and received three great answers. The messages forced me to think about all the changes that keep on coming – a winter coat that someone is always telling her to keep on or take off no matter if she is hot or cold, leaves falling off trees and the shape of our backyard changing with the seasons, days off from school and weekends when schedules are completely different, to name three current changes. They are also expecting her to act as if she had always been at school after only two weeks doing the full 2.5 hour session.

Yes, they are expecting too much too soon. They either need more patience or we need to find a better situation for Julia. The idea drove me nuts yesterday.

I woke up this morning with lots of thoughts. First, that Julia is doing really great. She is practicing her English constantly, even going out of her way to tell us that things she sees look like words she is learning about, she has skills (like cleaning the squash) that she cannot tell us about yet, and her tantrums and rages are getting a lot less at home. Second, that I am not going to change her out of kindergarten until the term break. I have to have a place for her to go and have worked on transitioning her to that place if that is the appropriate thing to do. Three, there is the Park View Preschool the Matthew went to just around our corner and loved. It is a small program with lots of personal attention. I will check them out.

Julia’s class went to a play today – talk about lack of regular activity. The note that went home said to prepare the children to have good performance manners. Well, we did talk about it. What she understood is another story. I said I would pick her up at any time if her behavior deteriorated. It’s 9:45, and so far no call. I do think that the kindergarten Julia is going to is a good place, and I believe that the teachers and administrators are saying what they say out of concern for my child. We may all just need to re-tool.

posted by Suz @ 9:43 AM