First Day of School!

Friday was Maggie’s first day of school!  There were some of the jitters for me that I think everyone assumes come with your child first leaving you.  But on a whole I was just excited.  Maggie has a new vision specialist, Laura. She’s taking the place of Sandra, and teaching the toddler level children in our area.  Sadly Maggie was not at all eager to go to school. We’ve been prepping her all week telling her how much fun it will be, then she just woke up cranky. Go figure. Pause on the porch for the obligatory first day of school picture!Whining all the way there until Laura showed her a huge bin of beans! A sensory bin, where the kids get to scoop and bury and just have fun. We have a small box of beans at home that I hide toys in for her to search through and find. It was the perfect thing to comfort her with familiarity. They spent a lot of time walking around the room and touching the different little tables and chairs and art easels and toy kitchens.  There was tower building time, when she just emptied the bin naming the shape of each block as she took it out. Then playing clean up and counting them all as she put them back in the bin. It makes a big difference if you’re playing clean up than if you are picking up your toys. One is a fun game and the other is an arduous task.Maggie was thoroughly excited with the trampoline. It is square and has a handle, where ours at home is round and I have to hold on to her.  I wonder if there is an attachable handle we can buy for our little trampoline.  It would really save my aching arms.After an hour we all took a trip to the play ground. Which she didn’t want to go to, and I realized I’d never called it a playground, it was always “the park.”  Once we’d established that they were essentially the same thing, she was thrilled. The slide, the bridge and the swing were all played on. Laurie was able to come for the last half hour and work with Maggie on some mobility.  Maggie received her first cane in November, and has taken to it like a fish to water.  She loves walking around with it, and singing the many songs Laurie has taught us about the proper use of and terminology for the cane.By the end Maggie really felt comfortable and I think she had a good time. She’s been talking about the things she did at school, so that means it stuck out in her mind. Yay! Thank you Laura and Laurie! I think she’ll do well next week when Ella comes to class as well. We’re excited to meet a new friend.