Monday, August 30, 2004
"Schoolgirl Update"
Well, I have been so wrapped up in Sierra's new life as a kindergartener that I haven't made the time to update my blog...sorry folks :-)
Sierra's first day was last Wednesday. The poor little thing - she was already out of her element last week because Haywood was away on a business trip for the week, so getting her to bed on Tuesday night was hard. For now, her bedtime is supposed to be around 9 (I know that might seem late, but trust me, if you know Sierra, she normally goes to bed much later and gets up earlier - she is just one of those kids that doesn't need to sleep for 10 hours a night.) Well, after a variety of "crises" (i.e. delay tactics) I managed to get her settled in with the light off by 10:30pm. Not even one minute later, she began screaming out - she got stung by a wasp that had somehow found its way into her bed :-( I felt so bad - I gave her some ice and calmed her down and then she finally settled in.
With that rocky end to the evening, I was a bit nervous about getting her up in the morning and doing her new morning routine all in time to catch the bus. But she was perfect the first morning and has been every day so far. She gets up promptly at 6:40a, eats breakfast while watching a few minutes of tv, brushes her teeth, gets dressed and then we spend the rest of the time taming her hair, which is sometimes hard if it had still been wet when she went to bed. Then we drive to the top of our road to catch the bus by 7:26.
So far, she likes school and has met several friends. She did wonderfully the first day, but on day two and three, she cried at school several times, missing me. (It's interesting to me because she is definitely a daddy's girl in a lot of respects, but now because she is used to him being at work all day, she doesn't feel that she is really away from him while she is at school.) I thought the adjustment might be hard for her since she has never been to daycare, but after the first day went so well, I thought we might have lucked out. But on the afternoon of day 2, the teacher called me and told me Sierra had been teary-eyed on and off several times during the day, especially when it came to getting on the bus in the afternoon. It's so hard for me to think of her being upset at school and me not being able to comfort her. After she got home, we talked and she told me it would really help if she had a picture of me to look at when she got upset, so I put one in her book bag. The next day, she still cried a couple of times, but she said it was much better and she told me she missed me at lunch because they aren't allowed to take their book bags to lunch. I did pick her up from school on Friday because the long bus ride seems to be contributing to her distress - she views it as "that much longer" before she can get home. She did bring home a picture she had drawn of us during the day. The sad thing was that in the picture, she and I are both crying. Friday night, she cried and said she never wanted to ride the bus again and she repeated this on Saturday. This of course worries me, because we're getting on a morning routine that doesn't really have time figured in for refusal to ride the bus, etc. I have asked her every possible question about the bus and all responses have been postive, other than the ride being a little long, so I know there are no mean kids or other things specifically bothering her. I have decided that I will pick her up one day per week, but I really can't drop her off and pick her up every day because it would take about 2 extra hours to do that and I feel that she really can do this. While I want to be supportive and comforting to her, I don't want to be a crutch that allows her to stop developing and getting past having separation anxiety....so i have to be somewhat middle of the road - of course if it were up to me and I wanted to be selfish, I would pick her up and drop her off everyday so I could spend more time with her, but I know that she needs to be able to do this because the reality is someday I will work again and most likely in the other direction from where her school is, so it's better that she get into the routine early.
The interesting thing is she has not said anything about not wanting to go to school and she really seems to be enjoying it there so far - it's just the to and from that seems to be the problem. She really likes her friends and said they comforted her when she was upset. All except one little girl who actually said, "If you don't stop crying your mommy's NEVER going to pick you up!" Grrrr - a real kick 'em when they're down little girl. I know this kind of thing will happen from time to time, but the kid in me wants to wring that little girl's neck! I'm sure she is either jealous that Sierra got some attention from the teacher or maybe she doesn't have a good relationship with her mother or have a mother at all, but whatever it is, I'm glad Sierra has made the friends she has so far.
I'm anxious for her to get home this afternoon to see how things have improved for her - I know she'll do better and better each day.
By the way if you've gotten this far...thanks :-) I'm just kind of rambling and since I intend to keep what I write to look back on in years to come, I realize not everything I write is going to interest everybody, but thanks for listening :-)
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Well, I have been so wrapped up in Sierra's new life as a kindergartener that I haven't made the time to update my blog...sorry folks :-)
Sierra's first day was last Wednesday. The poor little thing - she was already out of her element last week because Haywood was away on a business trip for the week, so getting her to bed on Tuesday night was hard. For now, her bedtime is supposed to be around 9 (I know that might seem late, but trust me, if you know Sierra, she normally goes to bed much later and gets up earlier - she is just one of those kids that doesn't need to sleep for 10 hours a night.) Well, after a variety of "crises" (i.e. delay tactics) I managed to get her settled in with the light off by 10:30pm. Not even one minute later, she began screaming out - she got stung by a wasp that had somehow found its way into her bed :-( I felt so bad - I gave her some ice and calmed her down and then she finally settled in.
With that rocky end to the evening, I was a bit nervous about getting her up in the morning and doing her new morning routine all in time to catch the bus. But she was perfect the first morning and has been every day so far. She gets up promptly at 6:40a, eats breakfast while watching a few minutes of tv, brushes her teeth, gets dressed and then we spend the rest of the time taming her hair, which is sometimes hard if it had still been wet when she went to bed. Then we drive to the top of our road to catch the bus by 7:26.
So far, she likes school and has met several friends. She did wonderfully the first day, but on day two and three, she cried at school several times, missing me. (It's interesting to me because she is definitely a daddy's girl in a lot of respects, but now because she is used to him being at work all day, she doesn't feel that she is really away from him while she is at school.) I thought the adjustment might be hard for her since she has never been to daycare, but after the first day went so well, I thought we might have lucked out. But on the afternoon of day 2, the teacher called me and told me Sierra had been teary-eyed on and off several times during the day, especially when it came to getting on the bus in the afternoon. It's so hard for me to think of her being upset at school and me not being able to comfort her. After she got home, we talked and she told me it would really help if she had a picture of me to look at when she got upset, so I put one in her book bag. The next day, she still cried a couple of times, but she said it was much better and she told me she missed me at lunch because they aren't allowed to take their book bags to lunch. I did pick her up from school on Friday because the long bus ride seems to be contributing to her distress - she views it as "that much longer" before she can get home. She did bring home a picture she had drawn of us during the day. The sad thing was that in the picture, she and I are both crying. Friday night, she cried and said she never wanted to ride the bus again and she repeated this on Saturday. This of course worries me, because we're getting on a morning routine that doesn't really have time figured in for refusal to ride the bus, etc. I have asked her every possible question about the bus and all responses have been postive, other than the ride being a little long, so I know there are no mean kids or other things specifically bothering her. I have decided that I will pick her up one day per week, but I really can't drop her off and pick her up every day because it would take about 2 extra hours to do that and I feel that she really can do this. While I want to be supportive and comforting to her, I don't want to be a crutch that allows her to stop developing and getting past having separation anxiety....so i have to be somewhat middle of the road - of course if it were up to me and I wanted to be selfish, I would pick her up and drop her off everyday so I could spend more time with her, but I know that she needs to be able to do this because the reality is someday I will work again and most likely in the other direction from where her school is, so it's better that she get into the routine early.
The interesting thing is she has not said anything about not wanting to go to school and she really seems to be enjoying it there so far - it's just the to and from that seems to be the problem. She really likes her friends and said they comforted her when she was upset. All except one little girl who actually said, "If you don't stop crying your mommy's NEVER going to pick you up!" Grrrr - a real kick 'em when they're down little girl. I know this kind of thing will happen from time to time, but the kid in me wants to wring that little girl's neck! I'm sure she is either jealous that Sierra got some attention from the teacher or maybe she doesn't have a good relationship with her mother or have a mother at all, but whatever it is, I'm glad Sierra has made the friends she has so far.
I'm anxious for her to get home this afternoon to see how things have improved for her - I know she'll do better and better each day.
By the way if you've gotten this far...thanks :-) I'm just kind of rambling and since I intend to keep what I write to look back on in years to come, I realize not everything I write is going to interest everybody, but thanks for listening :-)
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