One Missed Call

The other day as I left work, I checked my phone, as one does, and saw that I had one missed call. I also had a voice mail message.

I listened to the message and it was from Ms. F, the teacher’s aide in O’s kinderkids classroom.

She said cheerfully, “I’m sorry I missed you. I was just calling to give you a report on how Olivia is doing in kinderkids. I’ll try to get in touch with you some other time.”

Ahhhh, how could I have missed this call? Now my entire evening would be plagued by worries about whether the report would be a good one or a bad one. Egads!

Olivia seems cheerful enough each evening after her three hours at school each day. She still gives her one-shoulder shrug if I ask what she learned. But she will tell us what she had for snack each day. And she’ll tell me whether or not she used the bathroom at school.

She won’t tell me if she talked to her teachers, though. And this is the area that worries me the most. She went through her entire year of preschool without ever uttering a single word to either teacher. I know. I really, really know.

She spoke just fine with her therapists, both the physical therapist and the speech therapist. But the teachers? Not so much.

I couldn’t take just sitting around waiting for another phone call so I emailed her teacher the next day to check in.
Her reply was lovely:
Hi Tommie,
Olivia is doing very well. She will respond when I ask her questions even if it is very quiet. She comes up to the board and counts with me. She tries to sing along to the songs. I can see her lips moving and she is really quiet but I know she is trying. She smiles and I can tell she is having fun. She works with the other children as well. So far I am very happy with how she is doing. Keep working on writing her name, count with her, and practice ABC’s. Reading to her each night is wonderful as well!! If I have any concerns I will contact you. If you have any feel free to contact me through e-mail or phone anytime.
Thank You

Whew…She’s talking, to her teachers, in the classroom. Okay, so we need to work on volume, but this is just the second week and she’s TALKING TO HER TEACHERS!! Yes, I’m shouting because I’m so proud of that girl. She’s matured so much in the past year and she seems to understand WHY she’s in that classroom and she’s not squandering her time there. She’s learning and she’s talking.

So we’re going to keep on reading and counting and singing the ABCs. We’re going to celebrate every single hurdle she overcomes, starting with talking to someone who is not biologically related to her.

I don’t expect every school report to be good but it’s nice to have the first one be this positive.