So this week has been quite a doozy!
Here is an overview:
It started on Sunday with the hedge trimmer accident (which has hindered my blog and emailing since I am missing a finger)
Then Monday, Torrey let me know that work was slowing down so he wouldn't be receiving very much overtime (we were using overtime to pay for adoption #2).
Tuesday, one of my daycare clients returned to original sitter
Wednesday, Carter looked ridiculously exhausted before school and refused to go into his class so after a cry fest in the office, I decided to take Carter home with me to see if taking a nap would clear up his dark circles.
Thursday We visited the preschool next door to see if Carter was comfortable but they were on their way to the pickle factory for a field trip so I was only able to observe for a few minutes.
Friday we decided to officially withdraw Carter from Kindergarten but the principal called trying to change our minds.
Here is the nitty gritty...each one if manageable on its own but all in one week is VERY stressful:
Monday: Torrey had been working a TON of overtime at work *60-80 hours a week) which put us on par to pay off ALL of our adoption costs by the end of 2009! This news didn't hamper our adoption efforts though...we will most likely have to take on more debt for a longer period of time or be very aggressive in applying for grants. I may also have to go back to working at the Y a couple of shifts.
Tuesday: 6 weeks ago I started watching my friends daughter. She had been going to the same sitter since birth but the sitter thought she didn't want to babysit anymore. The sitter changed her mind and my friend decided to take her back to the original sitter. I totally agree that it was the best choice for her little girl! If I had to make the same decision, I would definitely do exactly what she did. It has put more financial strain on us and Wuby has not been doing so well with it. It is one more difficult change in her life and she has acted out all week because of it. She was afraid to go to preschool and I had to reassure her for about 5 minutes that it was her choice to go or not and that I would be back to pick her up. At home she get board more easily so she finds herself doing things she knows she shouldn't be doing.
Wednesday: Carter woke up a bear even though he went to bed at 8:30 and woke himself up at 7. He fussed the whole morning about not wanting to go to school so I tried to walk him in. He refused to go in and the teacher never came to help him come into the room. So I walked him to the office to get the office's opinion...where I burst into tears not knowing what to do! The principal wasn't in so the sweet, wonderful secretary listened to me go on and on and said she would pass on my concerns. I decided to take Carter home with me to see if we could isolate what exactly was wrong. It was a transition for him because I have a fairly strict schedule at home now (which has improved Wuby's behavior immensely) which includes only 45 minutes of TV (no Wii) scheduled snacks and a mandatory nap. He had been used to my laisez faire style of parenting with many, many field trips. Nap time failed miserably and ALL were cranky. Torrey was thankful I brought him home though because he was concerned about Carter before school.
We discussed at length our options and Torrey took the lead to say that there doesn't seem to be a "Right" answer in this situation. Carter is academically and socially ready for Kindergarten without a doubt. He is attentive, energetic, and responsive in class. He has made friends without any issue. However, at home is exhausted, emotional, and out of sorts. He has the horrible dark circles under the eyes and lashes out at people (mostly Wuby). All of which are not usually characteristic of Carter (except maybe fighting with his sister but usually there is less fighting between them). This leads us to believe that for one reason or another is his not physically ready for FULL DAY Kindergarten. Since half day is not available this really limits our options. So we leaned more toward taking Carter out of Kindergarten but wanted to check how he would fit in with the Preschool kids.
Thursday: During the 10 minutes before the kids left for the pickle factory Carter walked in without any problem and sat reading books with the other kids. He will be the TALLEST in the class by about 3-4 inches (right now he is the 2nd tallest in Kindergarten even though he is the youngest). He will also, likely be academically ahead but they work more on writing (Carter's main weakness). The preschool director assured me that it was completely acceptable to keep a child out of Kindergarten with an April birthday. Her own son who is now in college had a birthday a week before Carter and is doing wonderfully now. (We obviously are advocates for holding boys with Summer birthdays back a year since we did it with Noah but were not sure with a late April birthday) So with 2 hours to kill while Wuby and Landon were at preschool. We headed to the library for 3-5 year old story time. There Carter was very attentive and answered the librarians questions with enthusiasm (much like in Kindergarten I am sure). The music teacher stopped me to ask about Carter and told me that he waited to send his daughter because she as nervous (ready academically), and now she is at the top of her class in High School (I love to hear this). Nap time went better and we had some WONDERFUL family time with the "old Carter" back. At Carter's request we ate a picnic at the park and played there until bedtime. That night we continued to sway back and forth on the issue since he is very much academically ready but always came back to the dark circles. We settled again on taking him out of K.
Friday: While making Noah's lunch in the morning I burst into tears seeing Carter's empty lunchbox and asked Torrey again if we were making the right decision. At that moment he gave me such clarity that we were making the right decision. If the dark circles are exhaustion then he needs to wait until next year for K because no 5 year old needs that much pressure (there is plenty of time for that when he is in college or 30). If the dark circles are from allergies and they could get worse as the doctor suggested then he will need to be ahead academically because Torrey knows from experience as child who had allergies and has them now that the medication and allergies themselves can leave you in a fog from September to early November which will make it difficult for him academically later on.
So I called the school saying that we intend to withdraw Carter from school. Then sent off an email detailing our stance on Carter's physical readiness for Kindergarten. I bawled like a baby at Bible study that morning but felt like we were making the right decision. I felt like God was giving me more time to help Wuby & Carter's relationship after a long difficult transition this year, and let Carter know that I care about how he is doing and listened to him.
The principal called that afternoon to say she was disappointed that we decided to pull him out. She also offered to move him to the class we had requested at the beginning of the year (our teacher preference had been ignored like all of the other parent's requests). This was an interesting option since we had been battling his current teacher about inappropriate homework. The other teacher fits more with Carters' personality as a warm, bubbly, affectionate teacher...while his current teacher is very stern. I told the Principal that I would discuss the option with T but we would likely stay by our decision because of his lack of physical readiness for ALL day Kindergarten. After even more discussion we decided to call T's brother who is in college to get his opinion of being the "oldest" since he started K at 6 with a b-day a week after Carter's. He said he liked it because he could drive first and didn't remember any negative effects. So after 9 months of wavering and a full 2 weeks of agonizing decision making we are going to give Carter another year of preschool. And somehow with the financial blows from Monday and Tuesday we will work on affording it. But it all comes down to the fact that our children are our main priority and we may have to make some more sacrifices but we know we have make the best informed decision possible.
Here is an overview:
It started on Sunday with the hedge trimmer accident (which has hindered my blog and emailing since I am missing a finger)
Then Monday, Torrey let me know that work was slowing down so he wouldn't be receiving very much overtime (we were using overtime to pay for adoption #2).
Tuesday, one of my daycare clients returned to original sitter
Wednesday, Carter looked ridiculously exhausted before school and refused to go into his class so after a cry fest in the office, I decided to take Carter home with me to see if taking a nap would clear up his dark circles.
Thursday We visited the preschool next door to see if Carter was comfortable but they were on their way to the pickle factory for a field trip so I was only able to observe for a few minutes.
Friday we decided to officially withdraw Carter from Kindergarten but the principal called trying to change our minds.
Here is the nitty gritty...each one if manageable on its own but all in one week is VERY stressful:
Monday: Torrey had been working a TON of overtime at work *60-80 hours a week) which put us on par to pay off ALL of our adoption costs by the end of 2009! This news didn't hamper our adoption efforts though...we will most likely have to take on more debt for a longer period of time or be very aggressive in applying for grants. I may also have to go back to working at the Y a couple of shifts.
Tuesday: 6 weeks ago I started watching my friends daughter. She had been going to the same sitter since birth but the sitter thought she didn't want to babysit anymore. The sitter changed her mind and my friend decided to take her back to the original sitter. I totally agree that it was the best choice for her little girl! If I had to make the same decision, I would definitely do exactly what she did. It has put more financial strain on us and Wuby has not been doing so well with it. It is one more difficult change in her life and she has acted out all week because of it. She was afraid to go to preschool and I had to reassure her for about 5 minutes that it was her choice to go or not and that I would be back to pick her up. At home she get board more easily so she finds herself doing things she knows she shouldn't be doing.
Wednesday: Carter woke up a bear even though he went to bed at 8:30 and woke himself up at 7. He fussed the whole morning about not wanting to go to school so I tried to walk him in. He refused to go in and the teacher never came to help him come into the room. So I walked him to the office to get the office's opinion...where I burst into tears not knowing what to do! The principal wasn't in so the sweet, wonderful secretary listened to me go on and on and said she would pass on my concerns. I decided to take Carter home with me to see if we could isolate what exactly was wrong. It was a transition for him because I have a fairly strict schedule at home now (which has improved Wuby's behavior immensely) which includes only 45 minutes of TV (no Wii) scheduled snacks and a mandatory nap. He had been used to my laisez faire style of parenting with many, many field trips. Nap time failed miserably and ALL were cranky. Torrey was thankful I brought him home though because he was concerned about Carter before school.
We discussed at length our options and Torrey took the lead to say that there doesn't seem to be a "Right" answer in this situation. Carter is academically and socially ready for Kindergarten without a doubt. He is attentive, energetic, and responsive in class. He has made friends without any issue. However, at home is exhausted, emotional, and out of sorts. He has the horrible dark circles under the eyes and lashes out at people (mostly Wuby). All of which are not usually characteristic of Carter (except maybe fighting with his sister but usually there is less fighting between them). This leads us to believe that for one reason or another is his not physically ready for FULL DAY Kindergarten. Since half day is not available this really limits our options. So we leaned more toward taking Carter out of Kindergarten but wanted to check how he would fit in with the Preschool kids.
Thursday: During the 10 minutes before the kids left for the pickle factory Carter walked in without any problem and sat reading books with the other kids. He will be the TALLEST in the class by about 3-4 inches (right now he is the 2nd tallest in Kindergarten even though he is the youngest). He will also, likely be academically ahead but they work more on writing (Carter's main weakness). The preschool director assured me that it was completely acceptable to keep a child out of Kindergarten with an April birthday. Her own son who is now in college had a birthday a week before Carter and is doing wonderfully now. (We obviously are advocates for holding boys with Summer birthdays back a year since we did it with Noah but were not sure with a late April birthday) So with 2 hours to kill while Wuby and Landon were at preschool. We headed to the library for 3-5 year old story time. There Carter was very attentive and answered the librarians questions with enthusiasm (much like in Kindergarten I am sure). The music teacher stopped me to ask about Carter and told me that he waited to send his daughter because she as nervous (ready academically), and now she is at the top of her class in High School (I love to hear this). Nap time went better and we had some WONDERFUL family time with the "old Carter" back. At Carter's request we ate a picnic at the park and played there until bedtime. That night we continued to sway back and forth on the issue since he is very much academically ready but always came back to the dark circles. We settled again on taking him out of K.
Friday: While making Noah's lunch in the morning I burst into tears seeing Carter's empty lunchbox and asked Torrey again if we were making the right decision. At that moment he gave me such clarity that we were making the right decision. If the dark circles are exhaustion then he needs to wait until next year for K because no 5 year old needs that much pressure (there is plenty of time for that when he is in college or 30). If the dark circles are from allergies and they could get worse as the doctor suggested then he will need to be ahead academically because Torrey knows from experience as child who had allergies and has them now that the medication and allergies themselves can leave you in a fog from September to early November which will make it difficult for him academically later on.
So I called the school saying that we intend to withdraw Carter from school. Then sent off an email detailing our stance on Carter's physical readiness for Kindergarten. I bawled like a baby at Bible study that morning but felt like we were making the right decision. I felt like God was giving me more time to help Wuby & Carter's relationship after a long difficult transition this year, and let Carter know that I care about how he is doing and listened to him.
The principal called that afternoon to say she was disappointed that we decided to pull him out. She also offered to move him to the class we had requested at the beginning of the year (our teacher preference had been ignored like all of the other parent's requests). This was an interesting option since we had been battling his current teacher about inappropriate homework. The other teacher fits more with Carters' personality as a warm, bubbly, affectionate teacher...while his current teacher is very stern. I told the Principal that I would discuss the option with T but we would likely stay by our decision because of his lack of physical readiness for ALL day Kindergarten. After even more discussion we decided to call T's brother who is in college to get his opinion of being the "oldest" since he started K at 6 with a b-day a week after Carter's. He said he liked it because he could drive first and didn't remember any negative effects. So after 9 months of wavering and a full 2 weeks of agonizing decision making we are going to give Carter another year of preschool. And somehow with the financial blows from Monday and Tuesday we will work on affording it. But it all comes down to the fact that our children are our main priority and we may have to make some more sacrifices but we know we have make the best informed decision possible.
2 comments:
PreSchoolMama said...
Kimberely,
I totally think you are making the best decision for Carter, and I think he'll do great next year. I was one of the older kids in my gruaduatiing class and look how great I turned out. uh-oh maybe that will put more doubts in your head. I'm sure it will all turn out great.
Cindy said...
What a week!
My DH was the oldest in his class and Justice will be too. DH says that there were many more perks to being the oldest and he is glad that he was. Justice so far is flourishing as the oldest kid in his class.
I hope the new week goes smoothly...a referral would be nice ;)