Monday, September 27, 2004
Tonight was Holland Hill's "Back to School" night for kindergarten and 1st grade. I had such a good time. It wasn't anything special but it was so fun to go sit at Hunter's table and meet the parents of the kids he sits with and flip through his "journal" and see the picture he drew for me. His teacher, Mrs. Bunkoci, was really cute and did a great job introducing us to kindergarten. She talked a little about discipline and punishment and that she always goes to the parents first. And then, if that doesn't work, she'll send them to "time-out" or take away recess time, etc. She was looking at me the entire time and although I felt a little awkward (now everyone knows I've got the troublemaker) I also thought it was kind of funny and just smiled at her the entire time, thinking "Go ahead. . .whatever it takes to get him to settle down. . .I'm behind you 100%." Up until now she's sort of made me nervous--she's VERY strict and matter-of-fact and I've always felt like she thinks I'm a rotten mother. She's never said anything but I'm just used to the friendlier approach--you know, the "hi, let's chat" kind of thing. But she hasn't been giving me a whole lot of anything to work with. Tonight made a big difference. We got to chat and I think I finally convinced her I'm alright. Or maybe I just convinced myself that I'm alright. Either way, I feel like we made a connection and I feel a lot more confident in approaching her with questions or problems or whatever.
Anyway, when I got home Hunter was anxiously awaiting my report and was very interested in what I saw and what Mrs. Bunkoci said and what we did. One of the parents whose daughter sits next to Hunter said she loves Hunter and that he's so cute and smart. She said she and her mother were in today to be "guest readers" and that Hunter was so funny. He was telling her how to get to our church and our house and that he was doing a better job than she would have done herself. She said all of the sudden her daughter, Jenna, has been interested in learning how to draw hearts and after seeing Hunter's journal she said now she knew why. Hunter's journal was 30% pictures and the rest was filled up with "I [heart] u Momme" over and over again. When I told Hunter that Jenna wants to learn how to draw hearts, he immediately started trying to figure out how and when he was going to teach her and decided that during "centers" might be a good time. Mrs. Bunkoci said he's so smart and that he's always the first one done with his homework and she tries to get him to write more words but he always complains that he's too tired. I mentioned that he's kind of lazy and when it comes to doing anything, if we want him to do it, he won't. But if we let him alone, he usually will do some pretty amazing things. She agreed. We were at the store the other day and he spent about 3 minutes staring at a sign, silently sounding out the words until he could read the entire sign, word for word, no mistakes. But, if I had asked him to read it to me, he would have refused and whined about how his legs are too tired or that he hasn't had a snack for a whole 15 minutes and he's going to whither away to nothing if he reads another word.
I feel really blessed to be where we are right now and to be in such a great school district. I was so stressed about sending Hunter to school, with his diabetes and all, but they've taken him in and done a great job and I'm very grateful. So thanks to everyone who's made this possible and helped make going to school such a great experience for myself and Hunter.
posted by Shana # 10:14 PM 
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