Abby hasn't let me pick out her outfits since she turned 2 years... so I should have known better than to buy her "school clothes" for kindergarten. But, I did anyway and she still has cute shirts, leggings, and skirts she has never worn. Should have known better.
On any given morning, I have no chance of convincing her to wear certain things. Take last Friday for example... she went through 3 outfit changes before settling on the "right" jeans & t-shirt. Then Monday she wanted to wear jeans, OK, and her red cowgirl boots, OK, but the jeans had to be rolled up so as to not cover the boots and she insisted on a turquoise shirt on top... not OK but I've decided to choose my battles wisely.
Then there are her jeans. She wants to wear jeans
every day. I tell her that's fine as long as they're
clean... another battle. She tells me the clean ones are not soft enough or too long because they touch the top of her feet or not dark enough or they have a hole (I'll give her that one). Are we in high school yet?
On Tuesday morning I had to go in early to talk to Mrs. Webb about some "mean boys" who sat next to Abby at her table, who called her stupid, told her to shut up, put glue stick down her arm, refused to pass supplies to her and what takes the cake is they told her that they'd pee in a bucket of water and she could drink it. (all over the course of a week) Seriously! All this girl has ever been to is Primary on Sundays and preschool with the sweetest teacher with a class full of other LDS kids. This was too much for me and Jon--he said he was ready to punch someone's face in. Great anger management skills honey.
I did have a talk with Abby telling her that she needed to tell Mrs. Webb about stuff like that. Abby had told the boys each time that if they did it again, then she was going to tell. So then instead of doing it again, they'd do something different and then Abby would "warn" them again. Oh the soap opera.
Of course Mrs. Webb moved a whole bunch of seat around that same morning and had a talk with the boys and with Abby about being able to tell her stuff. I met Abby for lunch with Parker (he had his own sack lunch to eat next to Abby) and she told me all about the new seats and seemed very happy about the situation.
On Wednesday morning different drama started all over again. She had a melt down that her heels hurt from wearing the boots the day before, so that meant she could stay home that day. I told her I'd write her a note for flip flops. 30 minutes later I was carrying her into the van with no shoes on because she absolutely did not want to go to school and it was time to go.
I got her shoes on in the parking lot and we (me and all 3 kids) sat with her for the first half hour of class so that she could calm down and stop crying and get in a better mood. She didn't even want to take attendance for Mrs. Webb. What started to calm her down was being able to show me all of the things around her classroom that were hanging up, like last week she made an "Apple Book" and had brought in some purple things to tape onto the color poster of the week. I snuck out and she made it home on the bus just fine.
Abby has had lots of days so far where she hasn't wanted to go to school, but this was by far the worst. When I ask her why, she just tells me that it's a lot of work and that all she has to do is sit there and listen the whole day and be quiet. "What would you do if you stayed home?" I would just play with my toys all day long. Doesn't it break your heart just a little?
On Thursday I started my volunteering in Abby's classroom as the MommyHelper for 2 hours. They call me "Miss Jill" It's kind of cute. So on Thursday morning we had what you would call the polar opposite of what we had the day before. Abby was ecstatic and on top of the world. She want to pick out my outfit and do our hair the same and wear makeup with me. And we were ready for school 15 minutes early!
Today is "Fun Friday" which I hope means that she did not just have to "sit there all day and listen and be quiet!" Of course I know that's not what Kindergarten is really like, but for a girl who's used to 7.5hrs/week in preschool, 30hrs/week in kindergarten is A LOT. I wish we had half day.
