Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Our School

When I came back to Maryland from Hawaii, my goal was to find a home within one week.
We rented the first place I looked at.
And good thing we did too, because it took a couple of days to get the lease worked out, and then a couple of days to get Evelynn registered for school. Everything was done on Thursday, and she was in school on Monday! Phew!
Good thing we knew the area, and we knew which schools we wanted her to go to (we had it narrowed down to three).

All ready for orientation. She was excited!


Tuesday was the first day of school. All day. All by herself. And riding the bus!
She was a little more apprehensive this day.
Since we were staying with friends (our new place wasn't available for a couple of weeks), we had to get up early and drive about twenty minutes to catch the bus at our new bus stop.

You may ask why I didn't just drive her to school, but I'm a big believer in creating as much consistency as possible, and I knew that Kindergarten would be a big adjustment, on top of staying with friends, without Dave, and moving into a new place. I wanted her Kindergarten day to be as consistent as possible with everything else going on. And she insisted that she wanted to be taking the bus to school, so I thought it would be best to start out that way.

(and my bus experience is another post all on it's own, by the way, but after working out a few kinks, we were good to go!)


After she was on the bus, I raced to the school, signed in at the office, and headed towards the classroom. Would you believe that I was the only parent there? Like in the whole school? I guess I didn't really believe it when the teachers at the orientation implied that parents wouldn't be there on the first day of school! I couldn't imagine it. So, I went. And then when I found myself there alone, I was a little embarrassed. And I had to sneak around all stealthy and paparazzi-like to snap a couple of photos and say a quick hi to Evie while she was reading on the rug. Little cutie.

So now that Evelynn has been in school for about two months... we love it! Seriously. The second week of school (after the initial excitement and shock wore off), she started crying a little at school, and missing her mom (that's me). Nothing serious, but her teacher actually called me at home to talk to me about it, and give me some suggestions and ask if there was anything she could do. What a great teacher!

Her teacher has also recognized that she is a little older than most of her classmates, and can read really pretty well, and has given her extra little things to do to keep her from getting bored, which I really appreciate.

Really though, the whole first month of school something would happen almost every day that just made me more and more thankful that we have "ended up" where we are and that Evelynn gets to go to such a great school, and that she got the teacher she got. It has really been the perfect fit for us.

Obviously it isn't the perfect fit for everyone. I have a good friend who has had a completely different experience in the exact same classroom. Isn't that amazing? I'm thankful that things have worked out well for us, because I don't know what I would do if I were unhappy (aside from the anxiety and stress-induced depression). Have you had any experiences with teachers or schools that didn't work for you? What did you do? I'm anticipating that at some point in my children's education (where does the apostrophe go in that? as you can see, homeschooling is not an option, haha) I will come across a situation like that, so I'm just asking for advice in advance.

But in the mean time,... I love our school. It is everything I hoped for and expected and more!

Thankfully, I also love our new home, and we have some great neighbors!

Come visit!


3 comments:

Hizzeather said...

Wow...she's in kindergarten already? They grow up so fast!

I want to hear the other story about the same exact class. :)

Unknown said...

Isn't it funny how that happens? Alisa and I were sharing gym child-care stories and both had completely opposite experiences at both places. As they say, different strokes for different folks!

I can't believe Evie's so grown up and that Alayna will be hopping on a bus and heading off to school next year. Scary! Actually, I may hold her back...are you going to hold Owen back?

Cal said...

Evie looks so much like you in that first picture it's amazing! (That's the first time I've ever thought Evie looks more like you).

I can't imagine what it would be like to have a child in school. I imagine myself to be a little less involved, but maybe that's a bad thing. This gives me something to think about...