Sania School Visit

I was so proud of Sania today, visiting her in the classroom for the first time. Well, not the first time. As we were easing her integration into Montessori, I tried all sorts of things to get her to transition from the hallway to the classroom. Without screaming bloody murder, that is. I would go with her into the classroom, sit with her while she wrote me or her mother some nonsensical note, have her show me one thing before I left. Anything to get her to go smoothly.

Of course the secret turned out to be not have either of her parents drop her off at school. Counterintuitive, yes, but it worked.

So I didn't know what to expect when I went to Sania's classroom today. She's only two months after her third birthday, and she has been here for six months. Reid started at this Montessori two months after his third birthday.

Sania was amazing. She was self-assured in the classroom, confident walking around getting the work from different places and going through the paces carefully, like a good Montessori student. She has learned well in this environment. Reid took to Montessori well, and we see he is less interested in kindergarten than he was in Montessori. Sania seems to have even more intensely taken on the lessons of Montessori. She's careful and diligent about her work. When we met with her teacher a few months back -- Sania was still having freak-outs at drop-off at this point -- Ms. Casey tried to convince us that despite the morning episodes, Sania is a good student and concentrates on her work the way a four-year-old might.

So I swelled with pride as Sania did the work in the classroom. Tracing and recognizing letters, carefully making a little gesture -- every time -- with her fingers before following the shape of letter tiles with her fingers, building puzzles and cleaning up after herself without being prompted. Really something. (And something completely different from home.)

Reid wasn't like this on days I visited his Montessori classroom. My presence there was a distraction, somehow, and he easily lost the focus on the thing he was supposed to show me he was excellent at doing. He seemed to misinterpret the purpose of the day, somehow and wanted to show me how he did something instead of just letting me watch him do something. He was never as confident in the classroom as I saw Sania be today. They're two different kids, with different strengths and emphases. Reid is simply the most tender, nicest human being I've ever met. He's kind to people, and does the things that we wish we would do without thinking about it. K told the story of one of Reid's friends from his funny little drama class who lives with a disability. I remember the kid from their final play; he uses a walker to self-propel and gets into a wheelchair at times, too. Reid and K saw him at the pool, and Reid, without prompting (K didn't know that Reid knew the kid), went over and said hi, and asked if the kid had a good time in the pool, just regular stuff. And K says that the kids mom, well, you can imagine, she lives her life thinking about the way kids are treating her son -- she has to and no one blames her for it. And here's Reid, doing the thing that I wish I was a good enough person to do. Just because of the sweet soul he is.

Sania may not be like Reid in that way. She's more no-nonsense, and has a picture of what she wants to see happen more fully articulated in her head that I think Reid does, about pretty much anything. They are two unique, amazing little people who live in our house. They are about as distinct as two siblings can be. Today's school visit reminded me of that.

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After the classroom visits, we had the trike-a-thon, which was eh. Even Sania thought it was silly, and all the kids were smashing into each other with more than the average abandon. There were kids who insisted -- for the entire half-hour -- to grind it out counter-clockwise, recklessly hooking passing tricycles with their two-wheeler training wheels and taking them down to tears and fresh trepidation about biking. I wore a hat this time, after two years of sweltering trike-a-thons with Reid, who usually faded before they were finished as well. Sania retired to the playground, still on the kick from the classroom of doing whatever she would normally do and demanding I see it. Their playground is lame, though, and Sania put it through its paces and then seemed ready to go back to class, have a snack, get on with things. That's my girl.