This Is Really Happening...

"Being a mother is learning about the strengths you didn't know you had, and the fears you didn't know existed."

~Linda Wooten

On April 11th, I took little miss to her kindergarten screening.  Walking in I could see that Annabelle was a nervous nelly.  Her eyes were big, and she was chewing on the edge of her sweater.  Perfectly natural, walking up to the front door of a big elementary school- the school she'll be attending in just a few short months, but as a mommy I wanted to comfort her and take those anxious feelings away.  

We walked in and nearly ran into the Principal, who was very sweet- He invited Annabelle into his office to take a look.  He had a lot of Buckeye mementos in his office and when AB saw them she said, "Daddy would really like to live in this room!"  We moved on to the screening in the library.  After a quick picture with me she was taken off to do a few different stations.  She was hesitant, but I knew that as soon as I was out of eye shot she would be great.  Crazy how much you want to just hold their hands through anything new and scary...  Yet, inside you know you have to force them to let go and teach them to be brave-  

Annabelle is a smart girl, with a lot of personality.  It didn't take much waiting before I knew she was letting her personality shine!  The nurse came out to me first saying she'd done a sight and hearing screening.  She told me Annabelle said she needed the volume turned up on the left side during the hearing exam.  The nurse said she noticed that Annabelle sounded congested and asked her if she had a little cold.   Annabelle's response was, "No, I have allergies to tree pollex (pollen) and the trees are growing leaves so it's making me sneeze and cough and this and that..."  Yep, that's my girl!  

The next person to come out was Mrs. Walther to tell me that Annabelle was such a sweet, smart little girl.  She said there was a lot of wiggling going on during their screening.  I told her that focus was a concern for both Nick and me.  We just have it on our radar- she may mature and be fine, or she may need some extra help in that area.  We will just have to wait and see.  Mrs. Walther also said that she's a natural leader (which is teacher positive talk for bossy-lol) The example she gave was when she asked Annabelle to build a tower with five blocks on the bottom and Annabelle's response was, "Actually, when I build towers I really like to do it like this..." - and when it was time to move to the next station, Annabelle said, "I will come when I'm all finished building with these blocks."  

The last person I talked to was the guidance councilor.  She was doing a color activity with the kiddos and explained that she'd asked Annabelle to name the colors and then team them up together however she thought would look nice.  This is when AB explained to her that she was putting pink and orange together and red and yellow together because they are 'hot colors' and she'd put the purple and blue together because they were 'cold colors'.  "If I mix a hot color with a cold color they will make a brown color and that would not be very pretty."  The GC said- "I think you have an artist or maybe a fashion designer on you hands.  She just gave me a lesson in color."  

Finally we had a guided tour around the school by two 2nd grade girls.  As we walked down the hall Annabelle said, "Mommy you stay back here behind me and the girls."  

The only glitch in the entire morning was the parking ticket!!!  Dang-it!  When we pulled up to the school it was raining sheets of rain.  I could see that I was not parked on a yellow curb but couldn't read any of the signs.  When I came out we found a ticket on the window and a sign right in front of the car that said, "No Parking on school days from 8am to 4pm.  WHOOPS!!