First Grade Woes

When we picked Liza up from school yesterday, I was half expecting her to come running out with a huge grin on her face so excited to tell me all about her first day. This is not how it happened! She comes strolling along, looking so down trodden and sad. I couldn't understand why she wasn't happy....she had just finished her first day of first grade!!! This was a day she had been looking forward to all summer, first grade was all she could talk about for weeks before school started.

When we got home, after the longest walk of my life....I swear! I don't think the kids stopped whining about how tired they were, or how it was going to take forever to get home, seriously....buck up child!! Anyway, when we got home I sat down with Eliza and she told me she is not ready for first grade, that she is too slow. She started to cry and tell me how they were doing some alligator thing and she was still on the little a when all the other kids were above her. I told her she is doing great and everyone struggles during the beginning, but she will get it. She was depressed the rest of the day.

I emailed her teacher to ask her if she knew what had happened. I got a reply and apparently they do handwriting at the end of the day and because Eliza was so tired she took it hard when the teacher was trying to help her write her lowercase a's. She got stars for her excellent capital A's but her little a's still need some work. Eliza is a lefty and so for me to try and help her has been a challenge.

This morning when I got her up to get ready, she started bawling again and said she is too dumb and she is not good at first grade!! I almost cried myself, it hurts so bad to see my baby think so little of herself. I tried to help her understand that because she is a left handed person, writing may take a little while for her to get the hang of. She still cried and said she didn't want to go to school, she wanted to go back to kindergarten. I had her call her grandpa so he could tell her how smart she is and how some things are going to take a little longer than others. I figured, Mom doesn't know what she is talking about so having it come from Grandpa it would mean more. And it must have, because when she got off the phone she was back to her normal happy self and singing her first grade song!

Hopefully today has been a better day for her and when we pick her up she will be so excited about school!!