Report card time

Below is part of a ranting email I sent to my brother in law Mark the first time we ever received a report card from Cresset for Olivia. She has now received her first report card as an official preschooler. Again the thought of someone reporting on her measuring up still causes me to stop and say - huh... well... Really??? But that probably has to do with my issues of superiority and nothing to do with Olivia and preschool report cards.
This time around she got a lot of Satisfactories and some Goods and a couple of Needs improvement. One of her needs improvement was on addressing her classmates by name. OK she knows their names she just fails to use them. Half the time she calls me Dad and Eric Mom. Also she likes to make up names for people as well. Shouldn't the teacher just know that when she says raka she means Katie?? Really is it that hard to keep up? Ok so maybe the problem is that she just likes Pro nouns better than nouns. And who can blame her. Pros do usually make more than the average player so obviously they are more important. All that aside we have been working with her on using peoples names. She does introduce herself to other kids and she does ask their names. She just never remembers them. Perhaps my superiority complex is rubbing off on her.
One more thing on the report card. The teacher praised Olivia up and down for her imagination. I would have to agree with the imagination part. She can tell a story like no other kid around. There is action, there is adventure, there is drama. She just has a hard time ending the stories so they go on and on and on and often the ending is - "I will tell you the rest latter"
The teacher also said that "between her sucking her thumb and her imagination it is often hard to get her to stay on task" Now most parents would be concerned about this. In fact Eric right away was - she has to stop sucking her thumb and we need to work with her on listening and obeying. I gave a little smirk and thought - way to not conform!!!!! Again the superiority thing.
Anyhow read the bit below. It still humors me and I look forward to wigging out the first time Jack gets his report card - can tell about his posture since he never sits still but is a great climber and hardly ever speaks.
First Report Card
Olivia received her first "report card" from her two's and three's class at
Cresset. When Eric was preparing his report cards I had this fleeting
thought of - will O get a report card? and I kind of laughed and thought
the idea was absurd. The next week Eric is pulling a report card from her
weekly envelope and at first I was rather horrified by the whole thing.
She is 2 and 1/2. What should she really be trying to measure up to? Half
of the card had satisfactory marks and the rest were needs improvement.
Apparently she has bad posture and she doesn't cover her mouth when she
sneezes. No doubt all of this reflects poorly on me as a mother. Here I
thought just getting her to sit in a chair until she was excused was an
accomplishment but apparently it is only good if she is sitting up straight
as well. Who knew? And yes it is true that she does not always cover her
mouth when she sneezes but she will get a Kleenex and blow her own nose.
But was "blows her own nose" a category on the card? No. See if only I
could have had the card when she was born. Then I would have know what it
was she needed to accomplish by age 2 and 1/2. Of course I started to rant
about this to Eric, the teacher, the man who has to grade students
everyday, and he reminded me that she is the youngest in her class and she
isn't expected to be able to do all the things on the card. Instead we
should look at it as, these are the things we and the school are trying to
help her learn and do. OK I am cool with that. And then I saw the one
excels mark on the report card. She got a check plus in singing. "Olivia
loves to sing and knows all of our songs." It is true. She is always
singing. And singing means she is happy and joyful and that must mean I am
not harming her too much with my bad parenting skills. So all is well.
Well, all is well as long as she keeps singing. If she stops singing
hopefully she at least replaces that with standing up straight. If not, I
will just have to sigh and move on.