Day 2: Vast improvement

Today was my first day of Kindergarten. I spent from 10:00am - 2:45 pm in the Kindergarten class that I will be assigned to this year. I was so nervous last night and this morning. My mentor teacher is very nice and it was a pleasure to finally be working with kids. I also felt so close to Cole all day, because I knew 30 miles away in his own school, he was doing much of the same things. The elementary school that I'm at is beautiful and clean. The classroom sizes are great, as well as the design of the school. It is easy to find your way around campus. I love my class. The kids were all eager to meet a new face. They kept coming up to me for hugs, wanted me to help them with tasks, and kept telling me I'm "pretty". Yeah, I think I picked the right grade, they are all so sweet at that age. I jumped right in and helped my teacher, I helped the kids, kept them on tasks and read a story to the class. There are two boys that are special education and one learning disabled boy. The boy that is autistic has an aide that is with him most of the day. The other one has aspergers. He hasn't been fully diagnosed yet, so he doesn't have an aide. He is smart,but very disruptive. He has difficulty following directions and angers easily. He had several outbursts directed at the teacher and the special education aide assisting the autistic child. I spent the majority of my day helping him. He was very sweet to me, even at times clinging to my legs. My teacher thanked me profusely for attending to him throughout the day. I'm so exhausted from being on my feet in dress shoes (YUCK) and bending and squatting throughout the day (not to mention kickball at recess) but I loved every minute my day. I'm am again so very thankful that I have a wonderful healthy child. There are a total of 16 special education kids in the Kindergarten group and as the year gets started many more will be diagnosed with other learning problems. It's sad to know that these sweet kids will struggle with this difficulties throughout their lives.

Cole's second day of class went well. He was excited to be up this morning and eagerly waited for the bus. We reviewed his room number before he left and apparently he had no problem finding his class. He said his day was "FUN! FUN! FUN!". He went to music class today. He was very interested in hearing about my first day and we compared stories as we made dinner. So we both were off to a better start today.