It's awesome. Really. Sydney's learning so much, having a good time and we've really seen some really big improvements in just over 2 months since she's been there.
The Pros?
1. Her speech is greatly improved! She's speaking in much more complete sentences, is better able to communicate and her frustration level has gone way down. Some days I'm stunned by the things she says to me. She isn't quite there yet she's come a long way.
2. Her motor skills have exploded. We had some feeding issues and feeding herself was still very challenging for her. Some of it was simply because she much preferred being fed, I think, and she wasn't very motivated to do it. Seeing other kids feed themselves was all she needed and within a week she was exclaiming, "I do it, Mommy! I do!" Awesome.
3. Absence really makes the heart grow fonder. I go pick her up and she reacts like a rock star walked in the room. She literally screams, then drops whatever she's doing or holding and knocks anyone or anything out of the way to get to me. The other kids have started doing it too and one little boy in particular runs over, grabs my leg and squeals, "Mommy!" Let's just say I look NOTHING like his Mommy. May she never walk in and see that.
Of course, we won't talk about the time when Daddy and I went to get her and I walked in and she started running over and then she saw her Dad, screamed LOUDER and ran right past me into his arms. Can you say Total Daddy's Girl?
Now she alternates between that and bursting into tears when I walk in like she just had the worst.day.ever even if I could see her having fun before.
Was #3 really a pro? I'm not sure.
4. Besides the social and conversational skills she's developed, she's really learning a ton and we know what she's taught everyday so that we can reinforce it with her.
The Cons?
1. Oh.Em.Gee. The Drama! She went from being a kid who would bump her head or hurt herself so badly that I would gasp and she would look around and go right back to whatever she was doing. Now? Everything is a crisis. Everything is an emergency. Everything requires urgent attention. Every "boo-boo" needs a band-aid and she didn't even know what a bandaid was until she started school! She didn't even get actual band-aids after vaccines.
2. The whining. It took me a while to realize that it started right.after she started school and people, my child manages to sound like a sick cat when she whines. She asked for something and would whine until she got it, even while seeing it being prepared. Every question was a whine. Thankfully we seemed to have passed that phase!
3. The Defiance. To be fair, sometime around April she seemed to have realized she was actually two and she started testing the boundaries but man did it get worse when she saw how other kids behave! Brian and I have really had to re-work our discipline strategy lately and it's been quite the experience
4. THE SICKNESS. I knew she would get sick once she was around kids. I was prepared for it. Turns out I wasn't. In June 2008, she had one cold and not so much as a fever since. I mean, she's been through teething and the discomfort it brings and she's felt warm but she never had an actual fever. In two months, she had what seems like two colds, random runny noses, 2 days of a very high fever and lethargy and some more unpleasantness that I won't get into.
This is how unprepared and inexperienced we are. The day she had the fever I went to girlfriends and was like, "help! help! what should I do?" It was total 'sky is falling' here. I'm usually a google first and ask questions later girl but poor baby was the sickest I had seen her since she left the hospital and it was total panic up in here. B was no better, he raced home and held her all evening. Such amatuers we are!
One of her teachers took the following pics so they are pictures of pictures:
She does her curriculum based stuff in the morning and then motor skills and play stuff in the afternoon. The day they were doing this was the first and only time she couldn't care less when I walked in the room. She did not want to leave! Go figure.
They were playing dress up. What is she supposed to be? A crazy homeless person?
