Taking It All In

This past week, Olivia has told me twice about what is going on in her classroom. Neither time did I ask her about it, she volunteered the information.

Each day when I get to my mom’s house, I ask both girls if they had a good day at school.

They both usually nod and smile and go about their business.

But on two separate occasions, Olivia has volunteered stories about what is happening in the part of her world that I’m not present for each day.

On Tuesday afternoon she said out of the blue, “Mommy, we have a slide in my classroom.”

I was thrilled by this bit of information and said so. I asked her if she got to go down it.

“We all do,” she answered. “We take turns sliding. It’s fun.”

Then she was done talking about school.

For a day or so.

Last night while she was in the bath, she called me to look at her.

I looked up from the magazine I was reading (what? I have to do something while she’s bathing and there was no clean laundry to fold. Lest you think that’s because it was all put away, no. There was no clean laundry to fold because it was all down in the hamper beside the washer, waiting to be washed.)

I looked up and Olivia was holding a cup to her nose. She said, “The kids in my class were doing this today before snack. They were pretending to be elephants.”

I asked if she did it too.

She shook her head. “I was too nervous.”

Nervous! My child, the one who was not supposed to talk at all if you believe the ‘research’ used the word NERVOUS properly in a sentence.

She continued her narrative, “But the kids had to stop using their trunks to be elephants because the teachers came to pour our milk and we had snack instead of pretending to be elephants.”

Can I just tell you how much these stories about school mean to me? They show how much she’s taking in even if she’s not showing it at school, she’s taking it all in, she’s processing it all and she’s coming home and telling me stories about it all.

I am so incredibly proud of this girl. She’s come so far and she’s got so very much potential to go so much further.