grrlTravels

1 - 2 - 3 SPIN!

Tuesday was backwards day at school. Well, it was Tuesday of Red Ribbon Week and Tuesday meant wear your clothes backwards. Something to do with just saying no to drugs. I don't really get the connection, but I don't get a lot about school just yet. [In fact I feel so disoriented by it all you would never guess that I made it thought 7 years of grade school myself. Granted it was during the dark ages, but it should count just the same.] I just thought about what they could wear, put the clothes out the night before, and dressed them backwards and sent them to school. E. was giggling with anticipation. Wearing your clothes backwards is The Funniest Thing Ever!

Except it wasn't backwards day. Backwards day is next week. The preschool teacher wrote a note saying it was backwards day, but she had her weeks mixed up. Thus, E. was the only kid in his class who was backwards this week.

Z. was not the only child in preschool to be backwards, and in any case she has decided to embrace the backwardsness of it all anyway. You will recall that she was struggling with school. Baby bird did not want to fly. I was waiting it out. One day I sent her in with an obnoxiously large "necklace" crafted from orange ribbon, the left over plastic wrapper from the 4x6 photo paper, and two photos of Z., one with K. and one with me. We talked about the necklace, how Mama and Baba always loved her and always thought about her and would take her to preschool and would always, always, always pick her up too. About how if she felt sad or lonely at school she could look at the photos of us and think about us and know that we were coming soon to get her.

K. and her teachers loved the necklace. It was the best idea EVER. Nevermind that I had read about similar ideas online, that the idea totally and completely was not mine and I probably would have taken 14 years to think of it on my own. I took the credit graciously and sent her into school wearing it.

It was a miracle necklace. One day she hated school and the next she was fine. Seriously. The teachers said that she looked at it frequently during the day and that she seemed to feel like it was similar to the ID cards that the teachers wear around their necks. With the necklace she began to do a few little things in the classroom, like playing at the centers. She didn't cry any more. One day she unpacked her backpack by herself. And she would wear the necklace at home too, after school. Huh. Who would've thunk it? You never would, if you had seen the hideous thing strapped around her neck.

After a bit she stopped wearing it. I continued to send it in her backpack, but the teachers said she didn't need and it and that she was continuing to make progress. All good. Amazing. Wonderful!

And then she came home wearing it Monday and yesterday and today. She plucked it from her folder in her backpack of her own accord on Monday and put it on. And then she refused to unpack her backpack. Or do centers. Or participate in class or interact with the other preschoolers. It seems the miracle was rather short lived.

We aren't worried. We know that backtracking is normal and especially so for Z. As long as we continue to see progress we aren't going to make any major changes. I may think twice about dressing her for backwards day again next week though. A little more backwards will see her crying and clinging to my leg before school. And I do not want to kick her out of the nest again. It's taxing, the kicking. I think instead I shall work on a better looking necklace. One with a nest and a baby bird. And some glitter. Everything is better with glitter.

That's all I've got for you. Everything's better with glitter. Bye now.

Posted by grrlTravels at October 22, 2008 4:03 PM