Two days done

Day one - Fantastic!!

The kids had staggered starts - all the kindys in the large undivided room - both teachers were there as well as the Principal, the sports teacher, the English as Second language teacher, and both teachers aides. It was so well organised but still flexible enough to cater to however the kids reacted - because that must be one of the tricky things about kindy - who knows how they are going to react on this first day?

The kids bags went on the shelf - a photo of each child told them where their bag went - and then they went into the room and had to find their name on the buckets so they could put their morning tea in ready. I noticed hannah's PECS book was nice and accessible on the shelf above so I made a point of showing it to her. She quickly chose playdoh and went and was happily playing there still when we left. Kit wanted to explore a bit more bt he also wanted to stay close to a little boy he already knows from LDC - that boy was crying so Kit stayed with hima dna teacher at the computers for a while.

In the afternoon we picked them up and they were both happy exhausted vegemites. They ahd had a good day.

The next day The teachers came and got them from a 'drop off' area. They went in quite happily. At about 12 I got a call to say Hannah had had an 'accident' - my heart was in my mouth until the girl finally said that it was ok she was in sick bay - it had been a toilet accident and the teachers hadn't been able to find any spare underwear in her bag. I had packed some (thinking they'd probably have a spare uniform for these occassions) and I'd told the twins were they were - I packed some for Kit too of course. ANyway the office lady told me that she had also wet her uniform. I offered to come up to the school with both - although I also did tell her where I had put the spare undies. As I was driving up there she rang back to say it was all ok - they ahd found the underwear and the principal had founda spare uniform for her. I suggested that they take her to the toilet - and tell ehr to just check that there wasn't any wee left - cos I know that even if she looks like she has had an accident - she is still actually 'holding some in' cos she doesn't want to wee everywhere - she is toilet trained really. Anyway - that really made me cry. I wished they hadn't rung back with it all sorted because I wanted to be there to cuddle her and tell ehr it was ok. To reiterate with ehr where the toilet was and show her the pecs book with the tiolet pic and remind her to bring it to the teacher before going to the toilet - but it was done (I hope!!). I role played it with ehr this morning - she is so cute - her response to 'What do you do if you need to do a wee at school?" was to put her hand up!! - lovely except then I remembered that with all those kids and her being so quite that they probably wouldn't even see her - so we added in the step where she goes up to the teacher and shows them a pic of a toilet - and then takes herself across to the toilet. She thought it was fun to roleplay with me being the teacher - so I will keep that strategy in mind.

The principal is going to send home a letter from Hannah (that I wrote based on others I'd seen) letting them know a little bit about her and giving them direction as to how to talk about it with their kids if need be. Hoepfully there will be some parent with a lovely caring daughter who chooses to encourage a friendship of sorts with Hannah. Hannah has her T & A on Tuesday which is not great timing - hopefully in the morning cos I have told the principal that I will still be able to talk with the staff in the afternoon. I thought I'd just talk briefly about Hannah - aminly focussing on specific areas - like Gross Motor, Fine Motor, Language and Communication and Intellectual Disability - I am going to use photoes and give them a chance to ask questions too.

Today I finally got the kids haircuts done and Hannah has gone off to rainbow club with ehr father - she loves it there - and it is the only thing at the moment that is for 'special needs' where she isn't under pressure to conform to 'regular' expectations - so I hope she is having a blast.