School days

When you have a baby (or adopt one) school seems like a very far off thing. And then all of the sudden it is time to start Kindergarten and your like.... what the heck just happened.  And then you get all nervous and emotional about it and worry about if they are going to be ok. Then they start and it seems like no big deal.  It is kind of a roller coaster of emotions raising kids.

So,Esther started kindergarten 3 weeks ago, just like that. As far as we can tell Esther is loving it and is doing well. We worry about her because she is not super outgoing and does not like to talk very much (except around us). So we are worried that she won't ask for help when she needs it or she won't find friends easily. In fact that is the thing I pray for and hope for most, is that she will find good friends. I think that may be one of the most important things to a happy and fulfilling life is good friends that are a good influence.  One thing we are not worried about is her doing good in school and being a good student.  She is very smart and very well behaved.

Most days we get spotty details of what happens throughout the day. Here are some of the highlights:

• She loves riding the bus. There was no hesitation the first day (even though we were worried about it). One day she said she even rode at the very back of the bus. The downside of the bus is she gets on at about 6:55 every morning. Clara also loves to walk with us for Esther to catch the bus and to pick her up at the end of the day at the end of the driveway. 
• She gets chocolate and strawberry milk. On the first day of school when we asked her what her favorite thing was she exclaimed "I had chocolate milk 3 times today!!" (Breakfast, lunch, and after school program snack) Up until that day she had only had chocolate milk 2-3 times in her life. We now encourage her to choose white milk at least once a day.
• She also gets bubblegum as a reward (something she had never had before). As a reward for good behavior and following the class rules, her teacher gives a penny for students to get a gumball out of a gumball machine. She got her first penny the second day of school (very proud parents) and knew she was not allowed to have gum previously so she brought her penny home instead of getting gum (very, very proud parents). We told it was ok for her to have gum (we had just never rewarded the girls with candy) Since Esther is quiet, keeps her hands to herself, and always listens to the teacher she has gotten quite a bit of gum.
• She likes the extra classes they do weekly--Art, Music, PE, Health, Library, and Computer Lab
• So far in class they have just been working on writing letters and numbers, learning about shapes and colors. All of that is a review for Esther since she knew those things when she was 2-3 years old. But she says she loves doing the worksheets.

We hope she continues to enjoy school. We have Parent/Teacher Conferences in a couple of weeks. We are very interested to hear her teacher's perspective.