When we finished potty training with Noelle, which I swear it feels like it was only a few months ago (I mean nights included,) I really thought that there couldn't be anything left that would be so darn agonizing and hard. Then she started pre-school and I thought my life had been changed forever, for the good. She was in school with kids she loved and doing little crafty projects and learning how to write her name and for a while the world was on its axis the way it should be. Unfortunately the stars always find a way to become unaligned and then we have to come up with a new plan because the same old thing just isn't cutting it. Noelle still loves school, and her teacher, but my gut tells me she needs more than that. You see she comes home and shows me what she's done and all I can imagine is that she blew through it in two seconds and then played the rest of the time. I might be mistaken, but she needs some sort of academic challenge. We're past colors and numbers and shapes. She needs to figure out what numbers represent and start learning some sight words.
So after much discussion, and a lot of emotional gut pangs, we decided we'd pull her out of her current pre-school class and try something different. She of course doesn't know this yet and won't be happy come November. I'm terrified. What if I screw her up? What if....we're not friends at the end of this experiment? (When Noelle is mad at me she tells me we're not friends, but that she still loves me. Nice huh?)
So with some encouragement from other moms doing the same thing we're going to give it a go. My goal is that she'll be a strong reader by this time next year and that she'll understand that when you have five cookies and your dad eats two, you'll only be left with three.
And all you who might be worried she won't be socially fantastic, don't worry your pretty little minds. We'll find some creative social outlets for her through playgroups and other things we have planned.
