Homework

 

Monday was Gracie's first day back at school after being sick and her first day attending without me. Sigh.

Yes... this is what we have worked for, hoped for and waited for, but when it came time to pull into the drop-off parking lot at her new school, I had to tell myself not to keep driving! It's not that I wasn't excited for her - - there's just something a little unsettling about dropping her off, watching them wheel her down the hall and knowing that the next time I see her, I will not have a clue about what happened, but for what they tell me. Her health aid and the school nurse met us at the "drop-off" spot. We got Gracie settled in her chair, chatted a bit and then... off they went... down the hall toward her classroom as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Three hours later, I waited in the same lot for them to bring her back to me. They shared what happened during her day - - what she enjoyed, what made her mad (and what they learned about her from it!) and let me know all of the team members who worked with her. They said that it seemed at one point she realized I wasn't actually there lurking in the wings. I am not sure if that's really true or them being kind and trying to appease my aching "mama heart," but in any case, I appreciated the comment.

When we got home, Preston was so relieved to see her. (He had stayed with John in the morning when I dropped her off and was a little distraught for about ten minutes when I returned without her. He cried and called her name over and over. It was sweet - - but John and I were glad when he moved on to shooting baskets in the backyard!) I unpacked her backpack and in her communication book (the notebook that will be passed back and forth between me and her team), I found her homework... her very first homework!

We completed it this evening. On Monday and Tuesday evening, I had worked on other activities with her that I had hoped would make the homework more "familiar," but she didn't seem impressed with any of it, so it took a lot of hand-under-hand and hand-over-hand help to get this done... but we did it!