Parent-teacher conferences

I have officially sat through my first ever parent-teacher conference!  Phew!  Glad to have that out of the way.  Kind of funny to think about, I know.  But its true, our daycare did have a sort of parent-teacher conference about 2 weeks ago. 

It was a pretty quick little ordeal.  Less than 15 minutes.  I didn't have any real concerns, nor did they.  It was optional to go, obviously.  But I was excited for a few one-on-one minutes with the kids' main teachers & curious on how they thought things were going.

In short, all is well.  We still have a few morning tears on & off (really just from Miss Liv who has become a super-duper-mama's-girl in the past few weeks.)  But I love Miss Janette who is there at drop off time.  She is great in that situation.  Otherwise its happily playing for them.  They are often so into playing when they get picked up, we actually have to encourage them out the door.  Which is the biggest change from the early days.  I'm glad they enjoy their time.  They eat well there.  They are finally sleeping well there (more 2 hour naps vs 45 min naps.  Though daycare days still = early to bed nights & crabbier evenings, assumingly just because they got woken up at the crack of dawn.)  The teachers rattled off names of a handfull of kids who are their "favorites" to play with.  And if I didn't think that socialization was a fantastic opportunity for them, I'd hire a nanny so they could sleep in.  But I think, especially Hayden, so far as had some drastic changes in his socialization abilities, as strongly evidenced in his social bravery at the football game this past weekend.  Jeff would agree. 

Their teachers said the do an awesome job helping pick up.  I know they LEARNED how to pick up at school.  So far my favorite, favorite thing they have learned there.  At home now I can tell them things like "If you want to go outside, we have to clean up all these trucks first."  And they do!  Ok, not always, but they are toddlers, nothing is always.  They are transitioning to a new "main" teacher, as their old one is doing more work on the preschool side.  (Makes me sad, I like Miss Amanda, she does a lot of creative, sensory things with them!)  Their new teacher said she was shocked at how well they listen.  That they only have to tell/ask them to do things once & that she was very amazed by that.  Wow!  Wish they listened like that at home!!

They said they did a little "experimenting" on how they did seperated, and that they didn't like it.  I guess I didn't ask specifics as to what they did when seperated, probably because I wasn't surprised.  I assumed that would be the case.  They said they do branch out away from eachother & play.  But then every so often, stop what they are doing to go around & find everyone.  Take roll sort of.  Then back to playing.  Kind of sweet, I think! 

They had a little book of some of their coloring projects.  Pictures.  They tried to get their handprints one day... Logan didn't cooperate.  He didn't like the ink on his hands, just said "YUCK!"  I just laughed, so typical.  They had a checklist of developmental things they watch for & mark off.  There wasn't much checked off, but they are only there 1-2 days a week & have only been going for 3 months.  They sent the checklist home with me to go through & bring back.  I checked off probably 90% of the things on it.... so that made me feel good about them from a preemie developmental standpoint.  I asked about how they felt they did developmentally?  They said they keep up just fine, they had never stopped to think about them being preemies.  Even though I don't think they talk as much there as they do at home, they still felt they keep up in the speech category too.  Most of the gals there do actually have degrees in Early Childhood Education, so its at least coming from someone who does have some educational background in it.  Not just a college student part-time job thing.

So thats that.  Check first parent-teacher conference off my to-do list!  Next step, first trip to the principal's office.