It's getting better!

A lot has happened since the last post.

As you remember, Esme's first week of school was terrible!  She was so happy for the weekend and just didn't want to go to school on Monday.  :(  I felt bad for her, but we spent quite a bit of time encouraging and reassuring her.  And of course letting her know that she did, in fact, have to go back.

Monday came and she was very nervous.  She spent a little bit of time here....

Poor thing!!  But not nearly as much time as she did last week, only a few times.  In an effort to keep her time in front of the toilet to a minimum, I set a timer for one minute and told her that after that we were going to leave the bathroom.  She actually never made it to the one minute mark.  

I had decided earlier that I would drive her to school on Monday.  There was some question as to whether it was the bus that she was afraid of so I wanted her first day back to at least start on a good note.  She was very happy to hear this.  I dropped her off and away she went with a smile.

When I went to pick her up in the afternoon, I got to visit a little more with Ms. Pearson.  She said that Esme had a pretty good day.  I think part of the reason it went so well is that there was a sub for PE and it was a woman.  Ms. Pearson said that as soon as Esme saw that it was going to be a woman she visibly relaxed.  But already while we were still in the school building, she was talking about the next time she would have PE and that she was still afraid of it and Mr. Fischer.  Stepping back for a moment: Over the weekend Aaron had a great idea.  He thought it would be a helpful if he or I went with Esme and met Mr. Fischer to get to know him a little better.  He was going to be taking Esme to school on Thursday because I had a dentist appointment so he offered to do it then.  I asked Ms. Pearson if she thought it would be a good idea and she said that Mr. Fischer was back for the rest of the day and was probably in his office.  No time like the present, so away we went to the gym!

I saw right away why Esme was scared of him.  He's a big, tall guy with a scruffy beard and he talks very fast.  He was friendly and wanted Esme to feel comfortable, but he almost couldn't stop talking to let her get a word in.  However, in the end he reassured her about a couple of things.  Number one, he didn't care if she couldn't do a somersault as long as she tried when the time came.  He let her know that he wasn't very good at soccer and maybe she could help him out with it.  That made her feel better.  He also suggested that they exchange pictures (school pictures came in that day) and that way it was kind of like they were friends.  This made her smile a little bit.  Lastly, he encouraged her to give him a high five or fist bump any time that she saw him in the hall.

Over all I think it went really well.  She's still nervous about him.  But meeting him with me and Ms. Pearson there really helped her to be less afraid.

How do I know it helped?  There were no more trips to the toilet AT ALL the rest of the week for one thing!  And she actually ate a little breakfast each day of the week.  There were a few little hiccups during the week.  She did something in class that she felt guilty about and wanted to/didn't want to tell Ms. Pearson about.  She ended up deciding to tell the truth and felt much better doing the right thing.  On Thursday night she practiced doing somersaults in the front yard and now she can do one!!! It's not always pretty, but the important thing is that she can do it!

Aaron thought that in celebration of her great week, she should get to pick a fun activity Friday night.  She decided that she wanted to go bowling.  We decided to try out the bowling alley in Buffalo.  It was really fun.  She was a dancing fool!

Here are some fuzzy, cruddy pictures.  But check out the flowers in her hair and the rainbow socks.   She wore the flowers all day and chose the socks just for bowling.  I know they're hard to see against that crazy carpet, but they're there!

Wondering what (or who) is in that bag?  Cottonelle and Purple Eye had to come watch and cheer!  Esme even got one strike and one spare.  She was so happy!

 And then this is what happened on the way home.

 How can you not love that?!?  What a great end to a to a long and eventful week!