Berkeley's Kindergarten Graduation

On June 19th, Berkeley graduated from Kindergarten.  She had a great year.  It started out really rocky.  She wanted to ride the bus to school which worked out just fine for me since Finley would still be sleeping at that time of the morning and the bus stops right at our drive way.  The first two months of school were horrendous.  Tom & I would walk her out to the bus stop and as soon as the bus would arrive she would cling to me and cry hysterically.  I would have to carry her onto the bus and a 6th grader named Ashley would save a spot for her and take her from me while I literally peeled her legs and arms off of me so I could run off the bus and the driver would close the doors behind me.  Occasionally, Ashley would let Berkeley call me from the bus on her cell phone and Berkeley would just sit on the other end of the phone sobbing while I tried to talk to her.  It was awful.  One day I finally lost it and came in and started sobbing that I couldn't do it anymore.  Tom just hugged me and tried not to cry too.  Having a 7 hour day away from home and riding a "very loud bus" on top of it was a bit of a shock to her system and it took quite a while to adjust to it.  She would come home completely exhausted and starving every day.  She learned an awful lot, though, so I see why they changed it to all day.  I think it is beneficial to them, but it's hard on the ones who don't go to day care all day and are used to being with mom. 

We had a couple of parent/teacher conferences throughout the year and Mrs. Pringle would always rave about Berkeley and her attention to detail.  She always tried very hard on all her work and raised her hand in class often which surprised us.  One of her pictures was hung on the "wall of fame" at school so we had go and view that, of course. 

The day before graduation I was invited by the teachers to come to a special "Student of the Semester" assembly because  they nominated Berkeley for student of the semester.  She stood in front of grades K-3, walked  up to the principal and shook his hand when he called her name to accepted her award.  It was weird, I could totally remember doing that in those same types of assemblies as a kid.  I was kind of surprised she went up there.  She is just surprising me left & right these days :)

For the graduation program, the kids sang 8-10 songs that they had learned in music class throughout  the year.  Each song had motions and we all couldn't believe how much the kids had memorized during the year.  They did a really great job.  When it was all over, my mom went up to Mrs. Pringle and introduced herself as "Berkeley's Grandma."  Mrs. Pringle said "Oh, I adore Berkeley, but you probably already know that, don't you?"  My mom said "Well, not in so many words."  Mrs. Pringle said, "Well, I really adore her.  She has been such a great student to have and I have really enjoyed her.  She has come such a long way this year."  I thought that was a nice compliment for my very timid and shy girl who struggled so in the beginning.  We were blessed to have Mrs. Pringle.  Berkeley wishes she could have her again next year.  So do I.  She is a very special teacher. 

One of the other mom's came up to me and said "Your Berkeley's mom, right?"  I said yes and she said her daughter has sensory issues and really didn't like school at all because it was just all too much.  She said the only person her daughter was ever able to connect with was Berkeley and Berkeley's name was the only one her daughter ever mentioned.  She asked for my number so the girls could play together over the summer.  I was a little stunned that two different moms from two completely different schools both had kids with sensory issues who were only able to connect with my kids.  One in Oliver's class and one in Berk's.  I wonder what that means?  Maybe they are just used to me...maybe I have sensory issues because sometimes all the chaos and noise is just too much for me too :)  I say that jokingly, but I really do get overwhelmed in really loud, chaotic situations so maybe I have trained my kids to be sensitive to others who are overwhelmed.  Who knows?  I have lots of issues :)