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| Hurricane Riley and His Big Brother Rex 1st Day of School Fall 2012 All Saints Catholic School |
Anxiety, fear, nausea, excitement, pride, thankfulness and more pride! Just a few of the emotions that have swirled through our house over the last few week. Riley starting Kindergarten has been an anxiously awaited event for the entire family.
It feels like all the therapy, preschool and hard work has been leading up to this one event, Riley successfully starting school. I know that we will change the definition of success for Riley as he grows and I am sure we will always question if we are using the correction measurement of success but for today the measurement is his ability to independently navigate Kindergarten at All Saints. I know that the bar is set high, but most days I am confident that he will leap to meet any bar set in front of him.
In order for Riley to attend All Saints, where his older brother Rex is in the 4th grade, we had to agree to provide and Aid or someone to be with him the entire day. We were very lucky to have found a great sitter for the boys this summer and she agreed to go to Kindergarten with Riley. Emma, a recent graduate, is a certified teacher that had a short window of time she needed to fill before heading off to Japan to teach. The timing couldn't have worked out better. We started with the assumption that Emma would be with Riley for around 6 weeks and then we will negotiate to reduce the amount of time that we needed to have someone with him at school. I was hopeful that we could fill the shortened hours with volunteers. What can I say, sometimes my rose colored glasses work better than others.
Riley has had an two amazing days at school. Poor Emma is bored out of her mind and we are daily adjusting our plans as to how long she may stay at school. I'm guessing that Riley will test things a bit more as he hits the wall of exhaustion and gets more comfortable. The more comfortable he becomes the more he works the system. It will be an interesting year I'm sure but it is sure off to an amazing start.
Emma spent the majority of today in the library so Riley could be on this own and the teacher could really see how he would behave. They had a little issue with Riley not wanting to come in from recess. Apparently he didn't want to stop swinging. Problem solved when the teacher simply picked him up and removed him from the swing. Obviously he needs to be able to listen to all directions but at least he complied after she picked him up. The issue that seems to be repeating itself is him playing in the bathroom. The classroom has a 1 person bathroom with a sink and it appears to be too appealing for Riley to pass it by. He loves to play in the water and an unsupervised sink is a temptation he is going to have to learn to resist.
These two example are how silly and "typical" his behaviour can be. Unfortunatley because of the choice we've made for Riley's school it doesn't feel like he can be typical. He is being scruitinzed and evaluated constantly. Any other child it is assumed they will start Kindergarten and finish the year in the same classroom at the same school. Riley doesn't have the luxury of that assuption. He has to prove that he is able to be there. The logical part of my brain knows that the little quirks in his behavior are common in other 5 year olds but other part of me wants perfection. I want him to be the role model child in class so I can scream, "I TOLD YOU HE DESERVED TO BE HERE" followed with a very mature "nanny nanny boo boo" to those that doubted Riley's amazingness.
So there you've been on a short trip along the emotional rollarcoaster we travel on around here. I'm sure that this year will continue to be a rollar coaster of emotions but for today a feeling of pride and calmness surrounds our decision for Riley's school.
Is it possible that Hurricane Riley is about to be down graded to a Tropical Storm? Gale force winds might pick up at any time.
Stay tuned this could be an interesting weather pattern to track!
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| Settling in at his desk |
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| I choose BROWN |
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| Riley and Mrs Theilman |
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| My handsome boy! |
We all want our chldren to be perfect. But,Mary, you have to give him some slack, he is his father's son! We had our own set of squalls with Justin too!! He took so long at the beginning of recess putting on his winter clothes that he never got outside! Riley will test the waters just as he should. Gramma Debbie.
ReplyDeleteAw, I hope Hurricane Riley is NEVER downgraded to a Tropical Storm! Who doesn't want to stop swinging, I mean come on now? I think it's interesting just how much we expect out of these sweet little 5-year-olds...Eventually they'll figure out he's a rock star who has this school thing down pat.
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