"School"

I posted below that Brianna and Micah had their first day of KAD- AKA "school". I had posted earlier asking for advice and venting a little because I was very frustrated with their placements. I was told they'd both been put in classes a year behind their age group which put Micah in the infant room and Brianna in the same class she was in last year- the 1 yr olds. I made a point of NOT saying that this was a church program or anything else because I didn't want to hear "Churches are the worst for that"... but still, that's definitely what spawned my SN ministry survey. Thank you all who replied to it (it's on the right if you haven't replied yet). Many of you that have been following along for a while or know me personally of course knew what program I was speaking of though... and after I received the advice I was looking for, I 'unpublished' that post. So if you go looking you won't find it :)

A few days before Emma's open heart surgery I went in and talked with the nursery director, whom I have a LOT of respect for and who I'd e-mailed with a few times after hearing from a third party about what classes my kids were in. She and I sat down and talked for a good hour and Mike popped in on us because he was setting up some network lines and just happened to come in while we were meeting :) Seriously! LOL

Anyway, she and I talked about her concerns as well as mine and different options for the kids, reasons for different things, etc. I was pleased to have the open conversation because I'd much rather hear what someone's thinking then have them act on it without talking to me about it. I won't go into all the details here, but we did find what we thought would be a workable solution for both the kids. Micah would go to the infant room for the first hour while the 1 yr olds are dropped off and then go to the gym. Then he'd go to the 1 yr old room the remainder of the day (3 hours) and do their craft, songs, etc. Brianna would be in the "younger 2's" room, which was newly formed because of the overwhelming response in her age group. She'd likely be the oldest in the class, but only by 1-2 months and that seemed like the perfect fit.

Fast forward to Tuesday, their first day of KAD because Fay canceled all school the previous week. Brianna did great. No problems except she wanted to climb up the slide instead of going around back. She got her fingers stepped on and hopefully that'll help her learn her lesson :) I think she'll do fine in there!

Micah, well, it didn't quite work for him. He spent the morning in the infant room and through a series of... well, I don't know because I heard a few different theories, but whatever reason, he never got moved up. He also slept for 5 minutes in the middle of the morning then napped from 11:30 until I picked him up at 12:30. I asked that they please not let him nap and talked to both the infant room and 1 yr old room teachers about him moving part way through the day. Then I took Mr.ITookHalfANap home and he grouched the rest of the day, took a late nap, then was a bear at bedtime. So... his day didn't exactly work. He didn't end up with the socialization I was going for and he also ended up with a backward schedule.

Today I dropped off Brianna and she carried her lunch box into the room, gave them her crackers she'd brought for a classroom snack and was off playing when I peeked back. I stopped in on the 1 yr old room to drop off Micah's diaper bag and lunch box and asked what time they get back from the gym, just to make sure I was telling the infant teachers everything correctly. Well, they aren't going to the gym. Most of the class is too young :) Micah started his day in the 1 yr old room and as long as he did well today he'll continue to do so until they decide to try the gym. I did leave an open end that if 4 hrs in the 1 yr old room is too much, they could bring him to the infant room. But... everyone knows not to let him sleep!

I'm headed out to get them now, but I wanted to share the POSITIVE outcome we had with this program, and the JOY that it was for me to work through it with the nursery staff that really do what what's best for all of the kids :)