I heard a lot of things about Clover starting the big K. People were full of suggestions to make it easier. Encouraging words from parents that had been there before and teachers that had been on the other side were heartwarming and helpful. All of the other comments I had heard...not so much. Just like any other time in your life, people are going to say something about it. Sometimes these people mean well and don't realize what they are saying could be taken every which way but the right way. Those people I have given the benefit of the doubt. Cuz I'm nice like that. Then there seems to be the group of people that increase the anxiety you didn't even know you had.
The not so positive things I heard before starting:
You are going to freak out.
Have you started panicking yet?
The guys at work are worried about what you are going to do once Clover starts Kindergarten.
YOU ARE SOOOO GOING TO FREAK OUT! (yes, all caps was necessary)
So let me just say that I am not really the freaking out kind of person. I am usually pretty cool, calm and collected (most of the time). There are times where I get upset, complain or vent. But there have been few times I have freaked out. I also have this glitch in my personality where I feel the need to correct people's opinion of me. I have to prove them wrong. I realize that this glitch has been around for awhile. For example: my chemistry teacher in high school told me he didn't think I would get that far in the class. I walked out of that class with a high B/almost an A. So hearing that all I was going to do was freak out did the opposite. I'm not sure if I didn't freak out because I really wasn't that worried or because everyone only told me that I was going to.
I think the anticipation of Kindergarten was the worst. Yes, I will admit I was a bit nervous. Especially when I realized that her Kindergarten was indeed ALL DAY. It was way easier to plan out the day knowing she would only be in class for three hours. Oh how times have changed. Having people to run my worries by helped. There were a lot of people I
reached out to that calmed my nerves down and I appreciate that.
Clover was apprehensive at first. Mostly because she thought she was going away to school. Like boarding school. I think she got this idea from Harry Potter. So when we talked about school, she thought she was getting on a train and going away. Preschool helped with this. She finally figured out that we do come back for her every day and she gets to come home and sleep with her "babies".
Then the big day came and went. We went down and dropped her off and she kissed us and waved us off. The first couple of days we didn't linger. I know from my teaching days that sometimes it confuses them and makes it worse. The second day she kissed me and told me "I'm going to go and play with my friends Mom, you can go now!" and ran off. I loved that she was so independent. She has been from the beginning. Part of me was a little sad that she didn't need me but I was glad that she was loving her new teacher and classroom.
The only hiccup we had was on the sixth day. She asked me how many more days she was going to to have to go to school. I let her know she had about 10 more months. She looked a little shocked. I think she figured out that it was a long term thing. That morning she begged me to stay until the bell rang and got teary eyed when it was time to line up. My heart broke. I really didn't want to leave her. But the grown up voice in my head told me that I had to. I wanted to hover when she went into her class but I resisted. So I emailed her teacher to check in on her instead. Of course, she was fine.
I was pretty lucky that she adjusted pretty quickly. She is my social butterfly so she loves making friends. She even likes that she has classwork to do. The one thing we need to work on is helping her to learn that it's not okay to interrupt her teacher. All in all she is doing great.
Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm doing just fine too!
No comments:
Post a Comment