So she began Kindergarten. I have to admit I was so nervous, but excited at the same time. I heard wonderful things about this teacher and her expertise. She has 5 special needs kids of her very own. She is an amazing lady. On the first day of school, it was rough. Gillian freaked out. They could not get her under control. It was hard to watch it all. I stayed to see if I could get her to calm down, but I finally just had to leave and go out in the hall. I stood out there and cried. I just wanted her to be normal. Gillian was excited until we got there. She was never good in new environments and with different people. I figured it was just an adjustment period. She kept hiding under tables and such. Eventually she stopped that . I tried to volunteer in the class, but she acted worse when I was there. The teacher , again, was amazing. During the school year she surprised me that they were teaching Gillian to read. I could not believe it. One time though, during the latter part of the school year the teacher told me I needed to have her eyes checked, as she was not seeing the words. She told me I needed to put her glasses back on. Trouble was, they were broken! So I creatively fixed them until we got her to see her Opthamologist. I was thinking that she would need a new prescription because it had been a while. Imagine my surprise when the doctor concluded her exam to tell me that Gillian had 20/20 vision! She had been fooling us. She can be a stinker, thats for sure. She had been called on one day during class, and Gillian would not answer. There had been times when we would work on homework and she acted like she did not know I was talking about. I simply thought it was the ADHD again. I didn't give it much thought. She was learning to write her letters and numbers. I thought she was doing quite well, and on paper, she was.
Then the worry set in again. She was to go to another school, and ALL DAY. She would be put in a special ed class-I knew nothing about the teacher or how the class worked. It had several grades in there. I was getting use to the idea, then the school decided to make changes again. I was told Gilly would NOT be put in that class. Instead, she would go to her "home" school. She would be mainstreamed. OMG! So many questions! How would she get lunch-would she get help? How would they manage her if she started a tantrum? Would they give her a detention? I worried about her being disruptive. She was going to be put in a Class for 1st graders-ones who were academically in between kindergarten and first grade. That worked for me. I knew the teacher, Mrs Williams and was excited about Gilly having her for a teacher. She had been a kindergarten teacher at the school when my son was in kindergarten several years back. It helped to know she would go into a class where I knew the teacher. She is great. Gillian did pretty well but was not without her challenges. At first they didn't think they would be able to use the same discipline on her as the other kids, but it ended up working out. She developed OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) during that school year. Yes, another challenge. It was hard again, to be trying different drugs on her. We tried several and at first it seemed to help, but not completely. By the end of the school year, she was behind a bit, but they decided to hold her back so we really did not worry much about it. I worked with her through the summer on things to make sure she would remember what she learned. I always worry about her forgetting things. I was noticing some things she would forget but just wrote it off as her ADHD. Its so hard to tell.
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