Having never dropped her off in a classroom, picked her up in a cafeteria, packed five lunches a week, laid out clothes each night before bed, and worried about whether or not she brought her jacket to school, this is a whole new world.
I have had the opportunity to help out in Isabella's classroom each week, have lunch with her, and two weeks ago, attend her first field trip to the pumpkin patch. Leading up to that day she was excited and then worried about riding the bus. The day before her field trip she told me that she didn't want to go to school. I told her that she had to go and that the next day would be her field trip. She told me that she didn't care...she didn't want to go anyway. Turns out she was kind of anxious about that bus ride. I told her that I would follow in my car and would be able to take her home from the pumpkin patch but that wasn't good enough. I asked her about what made her nervous and this was it: "There are too many rules for riding on a bus. I don't know if I can do all those rules."
And then it all made sense.
I think this pretty much sums up all of her hesitance in regards to trying new things. Isabella is afraid to break the rules.
We had a nice talk about it and the next morning she hopped on that bus with a coy little grin that she has adopted everytime I watch her in a school setting. She had fun, she told me what they talked about on the bus, how it felt and most importantly the fact that they didn't have to wear seatbelts. That was a hard one to wrap her brain around.
It's still strange to see her in this environment. To see her interactions with friends and teachers. Her confidence continues to bloom and her reading and desire to read just blows my mind. I see a lot of myself as a school age child, in her. I get her in this element. It's crazy.
Halfway through the field trip she was pretty tired. She was sprawled out across my lap on the hay ride up to the patch and then back down. She prefered to watch rather than play and once she found her green and orange pumpkin, she was content to sit on the steps and wait for the other kids.
She is comfortable in her classroom and relaxed with her teacher. She loves to learn and participate and loves to "do work."
We had parent/teacher conferences Thursday night and as Ryan and I pulled into the school parking lot and walked the sidewalk up to her classroom, we absolutely had one of those "is this for real?" moments.
I will be cliche and talk about how we "just brought her home from the hospital." But for real. We did. Just yesterday she was learning to walk and spoke with a lispy little voice. And now. Now we're old or something...going to ParentTeacherConferences!
We remembered eagerly waiting for our own parents to come home from conferences to report back all the things that were discussed. I recalled the nights and days spent conducting the parent/teacher conference. It felt strange to be on the other end. Honestly, I think I prefer the parenting end to the teacher end and the sense of pride we walked away with was for sure, the best feeling.
We walked back in the door at home and Isabella flashed us one of those sly grins again as if to say "so tell me all the things she said..." Isabella is doing wonderfully. She has adapted, she is learning and growing leaps and bounds and we collectively decided that the most important thing has presented itself: she is happy.
Therefore, we are happy.
This week she has her Fall Party at school and she can't wait for Halloween. She chose to be Pocahantas this year and we've been doing a lot of watching and reading to understand her story. Declan tossed his idea of being her "boyfriend" and is now going to be a black widow spider. Quinn's costume was decided yesterday as I sifted through Isabella's closet, willing something to jump out at me. Luckily that ridiculously expensive ballet costume that she wore (for a mere 2 hours) at her recital last Spring just so happened to look like it would fit Miss Quinn. And it did and now she is a ballerina. Or if you ask her, she twirls her hands around and says "I being this! Like this!"
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