Thoughts on a Thursday: Preparing K for Kindergarten

This is my 5 year old, for those of you that have been around a while you might remember how I struggled with her birth, with the guilt over requiring a c section because she was stuck. How I was robbed of bonding time by jaundice and requiring of a bili bed in the hospital, how it hindered breastfeeding, and so I pumped for 3 months, until I got my ‘fight’ back. How overwhelming it was to have one child to take care of, and how I just wanted some sleep…

…and I really want to laugh. Then, of course, it was not even remotely funny. Eventually I quit that blasted pump cold turkey. I used it again only to pump enough for her when I had surgery, and then went on to feed another baby for nearly 2 years.. and a third for the past 4 months and no pumping. I got it. And when the third had jaundice, I just kept at it and got her taken care of…and took the fact that we didn’t get any choice at all on when she was born in complete stride…I’ve learned a lot in the last 5.5 years…

So, of course, has my oldest.

Some bad, some good. Mostly educational. I spent from September 1st to December 1st attempting to teach her how to sit still and focus on a task. It wasn’t until she built up a lot of confidence (through being told she was doing a good job, trying hard, and actually putting the effort into it) that she started improving in all areas. Part of that was me starting to ask her for help with Casey. Just in the last couple of weeks, she has really bloomed. I want her to be the best version of herself that she can be. I try as often as a teachable moment occurs to remind her of how older children treat her and that she should be as kind to her toddler sister as she wants to be treated. I asked her not to answer questions immediately when they come on TV (I refuse to feel guilty about letting my kids watch TV that encourages them to explore other languages and other educational topics) so that her younger sister could give it a try. I sit nursing the baby and see if Brennan can answer the question and if not, then Keeley can. Maybe it’s watching her sister learn that’s helped as well. I’m sure she wants to be able to know more than a 2 year old! ..and perhaps she’s just aging out of a lot of the acting out. She doesn’t want to be seen as a baby and knows that ‘real’ school is coming. 5 year olds aren’t terribly good at logic, but even the 2 year old KNOWS that if she throws a fit ‘she gets in trouble’… just having them say that out loud diffuses a LOT of the issue. Being able to verbalize possible consequences is an awesome learning tool. I have no idea if that’s what other people do, but so far both of them have learned this particular skill and it’s been invaluable….and maybe it took me giving her a break and allowing her to pick her exercises (within reason) from what I give her for a month as to which she wants to do on a particular day (for instance I printed out a ton of spring/st patricks day activities and she worked at her own pace)…and letting her read, do puzzles, watch tv and play with toys several days a week instead of pressing her to sit still helped… and maybe just maybe it was that she has gotten to ‘stay up’ during nap time and get some 1:1 attention that she wasn’t getting before. Instead of causing trouble for 2 hours, she watches tv, or reads, or plays educational games on the tablet, or tries to get her baby sister to smile. She’s doing older kid stuff that her toddler sister doesn’t…and maybe me seeing her in this way has led to a lot of the changes above. She cried at one point and told me that she didn’t feel like she was getting enough ‘praise’.. (obviously we’d had talks about getting positive and negative attention and how her sisters get praise for pooping in their diaper or the potty, respectively, but that she’s bigger and needs to do more than just use a facility in order for us to be impressed-lol). I never thought much about it before, but I guess in a way she was feeling quite invisible. Even though I was sitting with her and helpin gher for 2 hours straight, she didn’t find that ‘enough’…Other friends take their kids for ‘mom dates’ one on one, and I figured my husband doing the 1 on 1 was good enough…I guess I was wrong-the kid who was ‘treating me so badly’ was really just wanting time with mom. Again, not logical. Instead of seeing her as a pre-schooler who needs to learn to sit still, I’m seeing her for the big kid she’s slowly been turning into. Since I see that now, I’ve been giving her the extra attention during quiet times and giving her things to do to help me out, and she’s growing like a plant to water. Do we still have fights over ‘just do a couple of math problems okay?’ Yes. But I think a summer of running and playing outside, and enjoying watching her baby sister start to move and grow will make a huge difference in her maturity.

So…we’re all learning and growing together. From being an unsure twenty something who didn’t even know how to feed and care for one child, to a thirty something with 3 kids and a lot more experience, I still find I have a lot to learn.. and my other 2 kids will benefit from this learning, too. I’m not sure if all of this was preparing her for Kindergarten, or preparing me for it… but it wasn’t until the last couple of weeks that I realized that I’m ready. I was worried that she wouldn’t be able to handle a classroom, or that she would fall behind, but now that she’s adding and subtracting, I feel like those basic skills will take her pretty far if she actually tries, and that knowledge has eased my mind. My husband doesn’t want to let her go (he doesn’t want me to home school her though, either)… but I’m getting ready. I’m more ready than he is at this point. She needs FRIENDS. She needs activities that I can’t provide for her. She needs to get along with other people. She needs to experience doing things without mom and dad there to catch her. It’s incredibly scary..and back then when it was all terror and why does she cry, this seemed so far away.. and now, it seems just.. right. She’s got the basics, she’s excited….

and today we have our screening…

fingers crossed she is put with a teacher ready to handle our sassy, smart, sensitive girl.