Today, a snow day, she has gone through all her school reading skill level books (level 6, for those familiar with such things), and is looking to delve into some higher level books. She read Puff the Magic Dragon today along with the CD, her eyes following the words as she heard the song. Once she learns to recognize a word, it is almost instantly added to her sight words. Her recall of words on sight is really quite amazing.

On her school evaluation, Kelsey received all IMs (Independent Mastery)and DMs (Developing Mastery), mostly the former. Her Spanish, art, and music teachers also gave her IMs. Considering that she just began this new school in mid-November, after 3 months in public school, she is doing phenomenally. She’s ahead of her class in some areas, catching up in others where she doesn’t have as much experience. We’re going to work on getting her up to speed on the Wilson Reading exercises that the other kids have been mastering since August — although Kelsey knows her phonics pretty well, knowing the method the other kids use will help her confidence when doing phonics exercises as a class.

The choice to put her into this school was easy. Paying for it isn’t, but we’re managing. Seeing the results — a child ecstatic about learning, voraciously reading and questioning and experimenting, HAPPILY going to school and fitting in with kids whose parents also give a damn about their children’s education — has been one of the most satisfying, validating experiences of being parents thus far.

I’m sleeping at night.

I think my sleeping issues began a few weeks after Kelsey started school at the public school, when I started feeling unsure and unsafe. I’ve been waking up at 4 every morning. I wake up in a panic, go and check on the girls, then try to go back to sleep. I would seldom if ever get back to sleep after my wakefulness. And I was uncomfortable, like every muscle in my shoulders and neck were twitching and pulled tight. I never considered that it was stress. I figured I pulled something. But now I think most of that pain might be one-part arthritis in my collar bone from a childhood injury, and the rest may be stress.

It’s really no wonder I’ve been so wound up. After the first incident at her old school, when I found Kelsey standing out by the pick up line alone with no supervision, I’ve been paranoid about being even a few minutes late in picking her up. Like, severly paranoid. You know, sometimes when you run by the store to pick up milk and bread before school lets out, and your younger child has to go to the store bathroom, and of course she has to, errr, spend some time on the potty, and you end up having to race across town doing 70 so that you are there to pick up your child on time so that she doesn’t get snatched by some stranger?

*breathe*

And now, if I’m running a little late, I know that her teachers are still THERE, in the classroom, and that Kelsey will be there with them, or else she will be out playing on the playground, with supervision.

So, I’m sleeping once again. I still wake up at 4, go check on the girls. Listen to their sleepy breathing/snoring. But then I go back to sleep. And I sleep until the alarm goes off.

I feel RESTED. More able to deal with stress. My kid is safe when she’s in school.

And did I mention that she’s happy? But that’s the next post….

1. When she asks you if she can go to another school.
2. When the school and/or teacher has acted in such a way that you fear for her safety — physical or emotional or both.
3. When, 2 days into beginning a new school, she still shows no separation anxiety or sadness about the transition.

This isn’t a trick question, and, yes, all three apply in our situation.

Kelsey now goes to a school where learning takes place. Where, instead of countless repetitive worksheets and daily homework, she is taken for walks in the woods and learning to speak Spanish. Instead of being punished for acting like a child, she is encouraged to develop skills appropriate to her understanding. This doesn’t mean it’s a discipline free for all. They are accountable for their actions, but they aren’t being asked to perform tricks for candy. Making peace and negotiating situations are taught — just as they are in our home. Good behavior isn’t rewarded with plastic trash from a treasure chest. It’s just… taught.

I can already see her self esteem shooting back up to the level it was before we began public school.

The kindergarten class is called Sunrise, and her classroom is filled with montessori-type learning materials. They learn through hands-on exploration. They do experiments and are encouraged to express themselves through always accessible art supplies. And they are learning how to treat one another, to form a community and learn how to interact with each other. It’s really what kids should be doing in kindergarten, not trying to satisfy the politicians and learning to perform well on tests so that the number crunchers can measure and judge if adequate yearly progress has been achieved or not.

Most importantly, the teachers get to teach. When Allen and I toured the classroom and saw the dynamic process of teachers teaching and students learning, we both ended up in tears. This is what kids are supposed to be getting at this age.

Learning at this age is a spontaneous, messy, explosive act of discovery, not a regimented, structured thing that can be easily graded.

We are so happy to have found this school. And truly lucky that there was a spot available. This was the right thing to do, and we have no regrets. Here’s what Kelsey did this week. Look at the “Of Note” section to read about our welcome.

I’ll be returning to work shortly, and I can feel comfortable knowing that K’s in a good place.

Kelsey has all satisfactory and outstandings on her first report card. She knows her letters, is a good beginning reader, is excelling in areas such as math and art, and is socially mature and making good choices. Her learning at school is really an extension of the years we’ve worked on these same things with her. But it’s all coming together so quickly, and she has confidence in her abilities and is doing great.

She’s writing words now. We sound them out together, and she figures out the correct letter and writes her words. She is a fast learner, and she remembers what she learns. She’s reading everything in sight and is hungry to learn more. She isn’t getting enough math in school, or science, but we cover these at home, and she is adding numbers and doing sequencing, fascinated with science, doing experiments all the time to discover what happens when you add ___ to ___ and then shake it up and put it in the freezer. *grin*

And the suck? Let me bullet them for you:

• Kelsey is having anxiety. She’s so nervous about the discipline structure of the kindergarten classroom that she doesn’t want to go to school. She is afraid of having to move her name from GREEN to YELLOW to the horrific RED, signifying one isn’t following the rules of the classroom. Staying on GREEN all week qualifies you on Friday to go into the treasure box for a cheap prize. Anything less gets you nothing. She has been on yellow once, and she was devastated, crying for hours. And despite my trying to make everything OK, she is now nervous about going to school to face the possibility of getting on YELLOW.
• She is having trust issues with her teachers. Last week, Kelsey came home from school and told me that her teacher had asked the class to laugh at a fellow student whenever he was doing something bad. These kinds of stories are hard to corroborate, I know, but it seems like a strange story for her to come home with. I believe her. There are a number of children in the class who seem to have discipline problems, and they are very distracting. I’m sure the teachers have their hands full. But I had to tell my child NOT follow those instructions, as it’s hurtful and mean, and that she needed to trust her own instincts about what is right and wrong. I never thought I would be teaching my 5 year old to rebel against authority. I was saving that lecture for age 12 *grin*.
• We are concerned for her safety. A few weeks before, I was running late picking up Kelsey from school. I expected to find her in the office, waiting for me, but when I pulled up to the school, she was standing in the pickup area all alone, looking forlorn and very confused. I slammed my Jeep in park and ran to her, asking her why she was out by the pickup zone (where anyone could just pull up and grab her) all alone, and she was confused, afraid that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be, but not understanding where she was supposed to be waiting. Allen and I called a special meeting with her teachers to discuss this safety issue, and they assured us that two older students (second graders) had escorted her to the office, but Kelsey must have left the office looking for me where I usually pick her up, and no one saw her go or noted her presence in the office even. The school has since changed its policy, and all students are brought to the office and checked in by a teacher. This still doesn’t help us sleep well at night, though.
• Kelsey is stressed out. She has homework every night in kindergarten. Last night (Friday night), she panicked at bedtime because she thought she hadn’t finished her homework. Her school didn’t meet AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) this year, so there will be even more homework to get the stragglers up to par so that the school can meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind so that they won’t lose funding next year. Most likely, the extracurriculars will be severly cut, things like P.E., music, and art. The children can expect endless repetition of worksheets, drilling them on the basics that are being tested. Children who know these will not be learning anything extra. Excellence isn’t rewarded. Only progress from poor to satisfactory.
• The expectations for how a 5 year old is supposed to act in school are unrealistic and developmentally inappropriate. We learned yesterday that there is a new discipline program at school, one that is set to begin on Tuesday. First, children cannot speak in the hallways. They must stay to the right and stay in line. They may only do the silent wave to others in the hallway, and must do anything that another adult in the hallway asks them to do. Good behavior will be awarded with tickets. Tickets will be put into a box. At the end of every month, the principal will randomly select two children to participate in a free McDonald’s lunch with the principal as their benefactor. Second, in the cafeteria, children can only speak to others when the music is playing. They may only use their quiet voices and speak only to the 6 people who sit at their table. They may not get up to, say, pick up a packet of ketchup they forgot when going through the food line. If a table is being too loud, a teacher will put a red cup on the table, signifying that they may not speak again until the cup is removed.

Children are, in essence, being trained to stop acting like children. They are being turned into machines. This school is transforming our easygoing, fun-loving, eager child into an anxious, withdrawn, hesitant child who doesn’t want to go to school.

We’ve decided to put her into a private school. We COULD wait for next year and hope that we make it into one of the charter schools or maybe make the random selection at one of the magnet schools, but we’ve decided that we can’t leave our children’s education to chance.

My gall bladder sucks big stinking monkey balls.

I’m back on the fat-free diet in my increasingly rather masochistic desire to keep my internal organs intact. AND I just started antibiotics to combat a particularly nasty bout of bronchitis. So I’m coughing my guts out, and said guts are already rather ouchy.

Now is NOT the time to tell me I have to soon relinquish my older daughter to some impersonal school system, trust in people whom I don’t know, happily. When the principal begins her well oiled tirade on Sunday night regarding how best to insert my precious li’l kid into the beaurocratic machinery of grade school, she may just find my well sharpened clog protruding from her trachea.

This mood swing is brought to you by Benzonatate, Doxycycline, Tums, and NOT ENOUGH FOOD IN MY BELLY TO KEEP A FUCKING SPARROW ALIVE.

She’s got the soul of Napoleon, the stubbornness of a Capricorn, the temper of a tornado, mixed in with a fair bit of surprising sweetness. She has been absolutely Laurel from day one, and she has never strayed from that course. She is hell bent on bending the world to her will or else spouting tears at the injustice suffered by people her age and size.

Tomorrow is her first day of school. I have warned her teachers of her temperament. I have sized up the other toddlers in the room. I’m a little nervous for them. I’ve requested that she be allowed to do art projects, to have access to markers and other art supplies. The baby dolls and trucks will not occupy her for long. I hope they do her bidding, I really do.

The teachers have let me know of their usual methodologies for dealing with others her age. I’ve been told that children her age don’t understand most of what they tell them or have the ability to communicate their wants and needs or understand what it means to be sorry. I am sending Laurel to school tomorrow with some tips for these people. I’m hoping they don’t just brush me off as some overly concerned parent of a pampered child. Their lives will be hell if they don’t try to make their requests of her reasonable, if they don’t negotiate with her. If they try to take shortcuts instead of using reason and explication as to why she should do something that is required.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not a monster. Laurel does her thing, usually with two fingers in her mouth (her comfort strategy). She is snuggly (with people she has chosen with great care). She is vivacious and commanding (once she feels comfortable). She has a hunger for information and for answers that cannot be thwarted. She is hilarious. She has a great sense of humor. But to get to those little nuggets of wondrous Laurel, you have to earn her trust, be worthy of her notice, explain everything as you would to a 5-year-old.

My baby, my 3-year-old, is going to school. I’ll miss her for those 6 hours that she’ll be away from me per week. And I feel a little guilty, because although I’ll miss her, I’ll be footloose and baby-free for the first time in 5 years! I’ll be the lady in Starbucks sucking down the huge mocha latte, rocking out to U2 and Greenday with earbuds in her ears while she plugs away happily at her laptop. WOOOHOOOOO!!!

We were at the Ice Cream Machine, enjoying some sugary goodness, and I started playing the word game, mostly to keep Kelsey distracted because I could see the crazed hyper sugar-induced evilness just about to sprout from her head. So I began with “I love you more than napkins love ice cream faces!” And I mopped some blueberry ice cream off her face.

That’s the game. It’s simple, but it gets her synapses firing. I start off saying something like “I love you more than ____ love _____.” And she responds by finding something that has some kind of connection, and she makes up her own. She’s very innovative. Here are a few of the connections she made while we were enjoying some ice cream:

“I love you more than the sun loves the trees”
“I love you more than dogs love bones”
“I love you more than fans love to blow”

Wow, I think. She’s really getting it! I’m so proud of her!

I asked Laurel if I could have a bite of her chocolate ice cream, because I’m totally obsessed with ice cream but have to stick to the sorbet or the occasional sherbet because I can’t have fat in my diet. Long story. With tears. Anyway, Laurel said no. So I point off into the distance and say, “Look, Laurel! A bird!”

And, of course, she is still a trusting soul to some degree, so she looks the other way for the bird while I take a huge bite of her ice cream.

A minute passes, and all of a sudden, Laurel says, “I love you more than birds love to fly.”

I was a bit too stunned to say anything. I didn’t expect Laurel, at 28 months, to get analogies. I praised her and tried not to make a big deal out of it. She hasn’t done a repeat performance yet. Maybe it was a fluke. Since I didn’t expect her to get such concepts yet, I really haven’t been including her in the game.

I’m thinking of just assuming I have two preschoolers, and including Laurel when I’m trying to teach Kelsey new concepts. Allen’s Dad keeps reminding me that Allen was reading at age 2. So I’m beginning to look at gifted resources in the area. I think there’s a lot I can do for her at home, but obviously I’m going to need to do some research. If you have any thoughts, please send them my way.

So, today was brought to you by the letter “D”. We played at the playground in the morning, and then we came home to eat dinosaur nuggets. After lunch, we played with dinosaurs, thanks to Poppa and Grandma, who sent us a CRATE of dinosaurs! Then, it was relaxation time, so we all watched the Land Before Time movie. After putting Laurel down for a nap, Kelsey and I talked about the letter “D” and Kelsey actually drew a capital “D” and a lowercase “d”. She’s playing with play-doh now, making snakes.

It’s not what I had envisioned, but there are lots of pluses to preschooling my three-year-old at home. The main one being that, well, I get to keep her just a little while longer by my side before the eventual letting go needs to begin.

Oh, wait… I have another daughter! Silly me. I’ll be fine.