libby cries - no, WAILS - every morning when we pull up to that curb and open the car door to let hannah out at kindergarten. honestly, i feel the same way i'm just better at controlling my feelings. i don't think i will ever get used to dropping hannah off and watching her walk off into school. though i don't scream and kick my feet (promise) i DO tear up every day.
hannah does seem to enjoy school but it has been a BIG adjustment. some mornings she says she doesn't want to go. she says that the days are just too long and she misses us (i agree!). but i tell her that she needs to go and be with her teacher and her friends and that the day will go by so fast and i'll see her soon. they have a color chart that tells how they've been each day, and she's been on the good colors every day. she comes home very proud when she moves up to blue and purple, the best colors. i've seen her mature a lot, even after only the first week, and she is learning so much and so fast. she's getting great at writing her letters and a lot better at knowing what sound each letter makes. and she is interested in doing it. sometimes she will ask me how to spell a word, like flower, and i will spell it out and she'll write it, all on her own. it's really cool to see her changing like that.
she has had a couple of challenges these past few weeks. the first week, in particular, she was very scared by some pictures on the walls near the lunchroom. she would come home and not want to go into any room in the house by herself, and she said she was having bad dreams. she was just all-around terrified. i could tell the pictures really worried her, so i walked her in one morning to see the pictures and to talk to her teacher. i found out they were illustrations from the book the teacher from the black lagoon, so i borrowed the book. i hoped reading it would take some mystery out of the story and show her that it was all just silly make believe. but after my first read through of the book that morning to libby, i decided it would just scare hannah more. it really is a pretty terrible book and not one i'd want to read to my kids. so i just told hannah that the monster wasn't real, of course, that it was just some kid's dream and i tried my best to make light of it. we did mention it to the principal at the open house, but the pictures are still hanging up and hannah, thankfully, hasn't talked about them in a while and she doesn't seem as scared as she was though she is still apprehensive to go to the bathroom alone.
speaking of the bathroom... she doesn't like loud flushes, even though not many other loud noises seem to bother her. something about the ominous public toilet does her in. so there were a few days where she would come home and run to the bathroom, and then she would tell me that she held it at school all day. i told her that wasn't good for her body and i talked to her teacher about it at open house. mrs. mcdonald said she would make sure that hannah was going to the potty during the day.
i am thankful that hannah is pretty good at telling me what happens during her day. she told me something one day that i was just FLOORED by. she said that they had a drill where they had to turn off the lights to their room, and be very quiet in case there were "any bad guys or spies on the roof trying to get in." ugh, just thinking about it makes me want to bawl. how the world has changed, even just since i was a kid.
i was excited that hannah was going to kindergarten, and i knew she was ready too. but that second week of school, with the scary pictures on the wall and the terrorist drill, i felt like the weight of the world was on me and i became very sad. it just all hit me that, well, now she's in the real world. i have to send her out there in the real, scary world and i can't be there to protect her all the time. this is not preschool anymore. it's not handprint artwork and nursery rhymes and singing prayers before snack time. i am still trying to get used to it, but i don't know that i ever will.
here are some pictures from the first week. as you can see, time apart has made the sisters happy to be reunited each afternoon! here's also a picture of her daily schedule and the scary monster on the wall.
