the latest

This morning I was talking to a neighbor at the bus stop.  His daughter is in Rachel's class, and was last year, too.  He told me his daughter wasn't enjoying 1st grade, and wanted to know if Rachel was.  I told him yes, that she was.  I asked why his daughter wasn't enjoying it.  He said she said it was "boring," but he didn't know what she meant by that, and wondering if there was something more going on.  He said it didn't sound like she was being picked on or anything like that, but he wasn't sure what she didn't like about it.  It just made me really thankful for my happy girl who is just enthusiastic about everything.

Yesterday she got off the bus bubbling over with excitement because they had music class!  In kindergarten the only special class they had was gym, so this was her very first music class, and she just loved it.  She went on and on about what they did (listened to the music from the Olympics and did some motions, and played some rhythm games with scarves and bean bags while listening to music). 

She's even more excited about having art class this year, which she hasn't gone to yet.  She loves to draw and color and has expressed some interest in taking an art class somewhere, but I can't find one, and even if I did, it would likely be too expensive, but I'm happy that she'll get to have art class at school.  Last year our school district had a levy which failed, and then passed the second time, but if it hadn't passed, there would've been no art (or music or gym).  This fall there's a group trying to repeal a previous levy, which would make lots of drastic cuts again.  I'm so nervous.  Seeing how excited she is about these specials, I know it would break her heart (and mine) to have them taken away.  Ugh.  I hate money and levies and everything having to do with it. 

Rebecca had her second dentist appointment this morning.  You may recall that I didn't take Rachel until she was five (at the advice of my own dentist) and it was horrible, so to avoid this with Rebecca, I started taking her at 18 months, at the advice of Rachel's pediatric dentist.  That time she cried the whole time.  I wasn't expecting much better this time.  But she did go with Rachel and me a couple of weeks ago when Rachel had her checkup, so she saw Rachel sit in the big chair, lay back, get her teeth cleaned, etc.  When we told her this morning that she was going to the dentist, she was happy about it, and talked about it all morning until it was time to go.  She got a little nervous (I know because when she gets nervous she puts her hand over her mouth!) when we started walking in, but she talked to the hygenist a little and even sat in the big chair by herself.  The hygenist had me pick her up before she laid the chair back, because she said that usually freaks little kids out, and then had me lay her down on the flattened chair.  She was a little skeptical at that point, but she laid there and held my hand.  She liked the sunglasses they put on her before they turned the light on.  She let the hygenist clean the top half of her teeth before she started crying this time.  The hygenist then had me pick her up, put her on my lap, and lean her back into the hygenist's lap, like we did last time, to finish up the cleaning.  Rebecca hated it from that point on, but the crying at least kept her mouth open so she could finish cleaning.  But both the hygenist and the dentist said it was a huge step for a two year old to lay in the chair and get half of her teeth cleaned.  So hopefully we're on our way to avoiding a repeat of Rachel's issues.  I think the fact that she saw Rachel go through it a few weeks ago was helpful, because a couple of times she said, " Just like Rachel!"  So she definitely remembered.  Yay!