Monday, September 30, 2013

Embarrassing Moments

It often happens that the little ones will do (or in Kiddy#1's case 'say') something that could be quite embarrassing as I'm sure many parents go through.  Well tonight was no different!

We went out to a local restaurant where they often throughout the meal would play some loud country-like song (cannot remember the name of the song now) and all the waiters will start doing a dance and the kids will join them.  Kiddy#1 LOVES this!  She was in the play are when the song started playing.  I was standing with her at the time and danced with her.  I was holding her hands waving it up in the air while she was standing in front of me.  Next moment she pulled me forward while stepping on my right foot!  Yup, you've guessed it, I nearly ended up on my face!  Luckily I could stop myself from hitting my face on the floor with my hands so ended up on my knees...  Needless to say, I retreated to our table when I thought it was safe to try and give a few steps forward.  Of course I could win an Emmy Award for pretending that I was completely fine.  Well, I will be ok, but my ego is definitely down the drain!

For the rest of the evening I have tried to 'blend in' to my surroundings hoping that not too many people noticed what had happened earlier...

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Moving Classes

This year Kiddy#1 started in a class at her nursery school that was exceptionally big and the age difference of the kids ranged between 2 years old and 4 years old.  Even though the age gap was big and Kiddy#1 was one of the younger kids when starting out in this class, she did really well especially in her art work.  In September a new teacher joined the school and the speech therapist who is seeing Kiddy#1 suggested that Kiddy#1 be moved to that class as there will be a small amount of kids in the class and Kiddy#1 might calm down a bit if the class is not as "busy" as the one she was at.  I knew it would be younger kids in the class, but assumed it would be the younger ones from the class she was at.  Clearly I was mistaken as I only realized afterwards that it was actually the older kids from the toddler class that went to this new teacher's class.  In other words Kiddy#1 is much older than them.

In Kiddy#1 previous class her art work was outstanding.  She loved building puzzles, anything between 24 and 40 pieces.  About two weeks ago I asked to see her art work to see if the change to the new class affected her schoolwork.  I was shocked when I saw the way she was colouring in!  From being one of the best in her class, it now looked like the pictures were coloured in by a 2 year old who just started to learn to hold a crayon.  We realized that she was copying what the younger kids were doing.  After a long meeting with the school principal and manager we decided to keep her in that class a little longer, but not let her sit with the smaller kids when they do art work.

Last week I overheard the old and new teacher discussing Kiddy#1's report for the term.  Apparently she refused to build a puzzle bigger than 8 pieces!  That is when I realized that not only is her art work falling behind, but so is everything else.  So I requested that from today she be moved back to the older class.  What does it help her being calmer, but her school work is falling behind?

I'm so nervous about her getting confused and feeling left out if she keeps moving from one class to another so I'm just hoping that it wouldn't upset her too much.  At least I know that she loves this teacher and it hopefully won't take too long before she adapts to being in the older class again.  Most of her friends are there so hopefully that would help too.

With regards to her speech coming along, she is doing very well and has improved so much over the past three months.   From not understanding much of what she was saying in July, we can have a conversation with her and actually understand her.  She gets less frustrated because she doesn't have to keep trying to make us understand what she is saying.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Injuries at school

When do you decide that enough is enough?  Three weeks in a row our little one came home badly bruised from incidents that happened at school and most of them unnoticed by those supposed to supervise.  Now, nearing end of the year, it seems that timing wouldn't be ideal to move schools.  So once again it was brought to the school's management's attention that it is completely unacceptable that these things literally happen weekly.

The school's concert is coming up soon and excitement is in the air.  This is one of the reasons making it difficult to move schools now.  We are nearing the end of the year and have therefore decided not to make a change until then.  Also, it is a big move for a little one to go from one school to another, so it might be easier on her if it happens after a school holiday.

I am not a paranoid person who thinks that children will never get hurt at school, especially if you have a 'busy' child, but surely at one point one realizes that the amount of injuries they get at school is not 'normal' nor acceptable.

In the meantime the hunt for a new school is on.  I have realized once again how important it is to get as much information about schools as possible before enrolling your child.  Although we had done this each time with different schools for our two little ones, it seems like it would be best to maybe get opinions from professional people dealing with these schools i.e. dance teachers, therapists, etc.  Although they might not say anything bad about specific schools, they might just tell you about schools that are good options to consider in their opinion.  Other parents who have kids in schools one might consider is also a valuable source of information.

For your own peace of mind it definitely makes sense to ask around as much as possible so you can make an informed decision.