One Week Down

We have survived the first week of school (actually, the girls have thrived and I am the one who survived).

Madeleine has delighted in being reunited with her friends and is enamored with her new teacher.  She comes home each afternoon with an assortment of stories, most of which are ones doting on Mrs. "C".  She looks up to her with such admiration and wants to follow in her footsteps by becoming a teacher someday.  I would love to see her follow through with that career because I think she would make a fabulous teacher! 

Audrey is doing incredibly well also.  I adore how excited she gets when she removes the papers from her backpack and I have come to look forward to listening to her tell me about the worksheets she has completed during the day.  My favorite being the one where she had to identify the letters "A" and "a" in a bowl of letter soup.  I loved hearing her explain that "d" is not an "a" because it has a long line, not a short line. 

Audrey is still struggling to finish her lunch within the time allotted to her.  Every day last week her lunch box contained an uneaten PB&J as well as the barely eaten remains of her string cheese.  However, she always manages to eat her desert and fruit.  One afternoon I found more than the leftovers of her PB&J and string cheese in her lunch box.

She said "I snuck my seal into school". 

She does look a little sneaky.

Now that Madeleine is a third grader, you can always find her with a nose in a book.  It usually only takes her a couple days to finish a chapter book.  I love her new found joy of reading, especially because I never enjoyed reading as a child.  I never had the attention span for it (still don't unless it is a really good book).

On Friday I met the girls for lunch and doing so confirmed their uniquely different personalities .  

Audrey did not want to sit by me, she wanted to sit by her friend.  There was a problem, however.  Her friend was eating hot lunch and had to wait in line.  Since there is a "no saving seats" rule, our table filled up fast and in her mind the only thing separating her from her friend was me.  I must have explained five times why she couldn't sit by her friend, all the while the clock was ticking, counting down the minutes she had left to eat.  I finally asked her if she wanted me to leave and I was not prepared to actually hear her say yes.  To her dismay I had to stay because I was meeting Madeleine afterward.  I eventually made peace with her by saying we could look for her friend on the playground.

Unfortunately we did not find her friend right away, but once we did that frown turned upside down!

Something else worth mentioning is that she has yet to learn the names of her classmates, instead she calls them all Friend.  "Hi Friend"! or "Goodbye Friend"!  This is something we are working on.  I also had lunch with Madeleine.  Unlike her sister, she was very happy to sit by me.

Even though she no longer needs to wear her leg brace, her activities are still being restricted.  She cannot participate in PE or play on the playground.  Keeping this in mind, I brought a deck of cards with me and we got a group of girls together to play Crazy 8's with.  She felt pretty cool, making me feel like I was pretty cool as well.

I'll use the above as my segue into an update on Madeleine's knee.  She is getting around great, but doing so like she has a peg leg.  Her next appointment with the orthopedic specialist is on Tuesday.  Steven and I are afraid that if she is still walking that way come then she will be referred to a physical therapist.  We have been working with her to remember to bend her knee, but it's as if she has forgotten how to walk.  Her leg was kept straight in the brace for so long causing her to habitually walk straight legged without it.  I am praying that we don't have to work with a physical therapist as we've been told it's time consuming and expensive.  I sure wouldn't mind prayers from all of you as well.

I am feeling very thankful for a wonderful start to the school year.