Getting ready for Kindergarten

Last week was Emily's kindergarten roundup and she had been anxious and scared to go the whole week. Every morning, she would wake up and ask if that was the day to go to her new school. I would tell her that it was still a couple of more days and she would sigh and go back to bed.

I have also been anticipating this myself, only because I have been curious as to how Emily will handle being in an environment where she is not the boss and will have to listen to the teacher. You see, Emily is the baby of the family and used to ruling the roost. She can be a bossy child and I've been trying to break her of this habit for years with no avail. We also never did the preschool thing to get her ready for a school environment. I figured that she would be in school long enough in her life and wanted to savor her time at home as long as I could. She has been around kids her whole life for the social skills thing (and I will be explaining this later this week) but she really hasn't been away from me so that would be an issue as well. So, I was interested in seeing what a taste of being at school would be like.

When the day finally came for us to go, she was excited. When everyone arrived and were settled in, the principal announced that the children would go with the teachers in another room while he talked to the parents. Emily's eyes got big as saucers and she instantly grabbed onto my arm. All I could think was, this isn't even the first day of school yet.

I told her it would be okay and to go with the nice teacher, and I watched as she hesitantly followed the other children in her group out the doors of the gym.

I tried to listen to the teachers giving their welcoming speech, but all I could do was wonder how Emily was doing. Was she planning her escape to come find me? Was she bossing the other kids around? Was she telling the teacher what to do?

After an hour of listening to each teacher speak, we were given a tour of the school. I'll tell ya, of all the years that I've gone in that school, it never seem so big as that night. I'd rather have pins stuck in my eyes then wait any longer to see how my child did and if there were any other survivors.

They finally led us to the library where she was and there she stood, in one piece, and so were the other little kids. She smiled when she saw me and then ran up to me. I took her hand and we started to walk out, when a little boy ran up to her and waved and said bye to her. She made friends with another kid tonight? There may be hope yet!

As we walked to the car, she rambled on about what they did and how many kids there were. I sighed with relief and wondered if kindergarten would not be bad after all. But, my dreams of not getting calls from the principal were put on hold, when we got to the car and she turned and looked at me. She proceeded to tell me that she didn't like that the teacher wouldn't let her tell her something while she was talking. Then she wanted to let the teacher know something later and she wouldn't let her tell her then either.

Good luck, Ms. Teacher. You've met your match this fall.