I am going to answer the questions that some of you have sent my way – all interesting ones and luckily all ones that are sharing-appropriate, but then this happened today:
I don’t know how it’s possible but this one photo just highlights, for me at least, everything that we love about Lily’s school experience.
I would be lying if I said that we weren’t incredibly disappointed last year when Lily was not accepted into the integrated kindergarten program at The Bloorview School Authority. We were so convinced that it was the right program for Lily and while we didn’t waste anytime looking backwards we also weren’t overly enthused about her placement within the TDSB. Don’t get me wrong, we were thrilled beyond words when we were told that we were all in agreement and Lily would be placed in the diagnostic kindergarten program that is housed in our home school – she stays in her community, she gets to know other neighbourhood kids, and we can walk her to and from school everyday – but it was still bittersweet.
This means though that I have to be the first to admit that we were so wrong to be disappointed. This school: her teacher, the support staff, the entire school community is exactly what we wanted for Lily and we can see her thriving. The school is tiny and so everyone knows Lily – kids say hello to her when we walk through the playground, staff from the other classes know her (and Jess and I both), and when we’ve had to call about something, all we have to do is say that it’s “Lily’s mom” calling and they know who it is. But it’s the staff in her actual classroom that blow me away. The picture above captures so much of it: They’ve taken the time to attach the flag to her walker because it’s Rememberance Day and they know she won’t hold and wave it. Miss Dawn has just walked her to and from the bathroom – letting Lily walk both ways in her walker (even though that would probably take half an hour) and encourages her the entire way. Because Lily’s hair is so fine it falls from her ponytail quite quickly, so Miss Dawn fixes it everyday with clips that she brings from home and they always match whatever Lily is wearing that day. You can’t see it but there is banana on her face because Miss Brenda realized that she likes banana’s so she brings one to share with her each day so they can practice eating. On Halloween, instead of bringing her candy, the staff bought her little light-up toys instead, which she is now obsessed with. They have just taken the time to get to know her as an individual – what motivates her, what she absolutely hates. And they do it with joy – or at least they do a great job of faking joy in front of us. They smile when she comes into the classroom and are so excited to show us photos or videos of what she’s been working on. It feels like we’ve grown Team Lily We are so incredibly happy with how it all turned out and love seeing in her that she loves going to school. She gets so excited every morning and more and more we can see her actually engaging with her classmates, and all of them are so lovely towards her too: they always come say hello and goodbye and just treat her like one of their own.
So never have I been so happy to admit that we were wrong – it’s a great price to pay to eat a little humble pie.