Miss Maddie

I'm joining Ruth Ayres to Celebrate this week at her blog Ruth Ayres Writes.

Today I'm celebrating my daughter Maddie.  She is currently attending her first friend birthday party/play date.

Before I tell you about this, I should back up a little.  Maddie is my third child to go off to school.  They all attend school in the district where I teach, which is by choice.  Both of my older children had the same kindergarten teacher, which we happen to love and who happens to be one of my best friends.  However, as this school year approached, we were faced with a dilemma at school.  We needed to reduce our 5 sections of kindergarten to 4.  My friend took the opportunity to save the rest of us who didn't want to leave kindergarten to loop with her class and move to first grade with them. 

Talk about a bittersweet deal.  It made the reduction to 4 classrooms much less messy than it could have been, however it meant that my third child would not have her as a kindergarten teacher.  Keep in mind that Maddie has severe food allergies.  I was already nervous about her starting school and now the teacher of choice for us is out of the question.  Anxiety.

So, after much careful consideration, we decided that Maddie would be in my kindergarten classroom.  Deep breath.  Yes, I was going to be her teacher.  I had reservations about it but was also relieved to know that I would be able to supervise her first year of school with food allergies. 

It's really been a lot of fun to watch her grow and develop literally right in front of my eyes.  I've been able to watch her make new friends, grow from a quiet little thing to someone who speaks up for herself and isn't afraid to tell the "big bully guy" to back off (proud mommy moment!) and everything else that happens in kindergarten.

She has truly blossomed this year.  She has become great friends with another child (who also happens to have similar food allergies, very cool that they found each other) in our class.  J is about as sweet as they come and her parents are really great too.   She is having a birthday party today and she invited Maddie to come.  Maddie was so excited!  I am pretty sure she spent the last 5 days or so bouncing around and telling everyone about how excited she was to go. 

My husband took her to J's house this afternoon for the party in the 4-wheel drive because the weather is pretty nasty.  We were not about to disappoint her by not taking her but now we are dreading the trip to pick her up! 

Anyway, I am celebrating the fact that my quiet little lady is enjoying herself at her bestie's birthday party.  I love that she has a great friend, that I trust her parents who are very aware of how serious food allergies are, and that more and more every day, she is becoming a beautiful, independent little lady.  I'm so proud of her and so happy for this new birthday party/play date adventure for her.  I can't wait until she gets home so I can hear all about the fun time she had.