Sophie Goes to Kindergarten: An August Beginning for My Kid with Down syndrome

(NOTE: OK, I’M TAKING MY FRIEND PAM’S ADVICE AND PUTTING “DOWN SYNDROME” IN MY HEADLINES, ALTHOUGH I INSIST IT MAKES THEM CLUNKY AND RIDICULOUS. IT’S AN EXPERIMENT.)

Yesterday was Meet the Teacher Day.

We’d already met the teacher(s), so we just paid a visit. I’d like to report that Sophie was an angel — that she didn’t take off her shoes, rifle other kids’ stuff or try to steal fruit snacks. In fact, Ray reported she’d been in “ball buster” mode all day, repeating everything Annabelle said (don’tcha just hate it when your sibling does that?) and generally causing trouble.

By 4 p.m., napless, she was in fine form. Considering that, she was pretty good, although at one point I did have to pick her up and plop her in the middle of a table in Annabelle’s classroom, to keep her from wreaking any more havoc. (That’s a theme I have going, unfortunately: confinement. Crib, bathtub, car seat, changing table, now a high table in the classroom. I’ve got to work on this. More on that later, I really do promise, starting with The Crib.)

Sophie already knows Ms. X, but they had a lovely tete a tete (several, actually) and while she didn’t tecnically meet any of her classmates, we got to eye them and everyone looks nice, if much,much bigger. Somehow I thought that when Sophie was actually ready for kindergarten, magically she’d be much closer in size to her peers. Uh uh. She’s half the height of some of these kids, or it seems that way at least.

The big calendar on the wall was a particular draw, probably because it looks like the calendars in Sophie’s pre-school classroom. She found the pointer and played teacher, running down the days of the week. I pointed and said, “Hey, Sophie, what does that say?” (Fully expecting a wrong answer, or no answer.)

“August,” she replied, in a “no duh” tone. She then correctly identified “Thursday”.

Maybe we’ll be okay.