Divine Intervention.

I had an email in first term from a friend who's child started kindergarten this year too. It was short and sweet, it said "Kindy SUCKS".

Then after school drop off that same morning, one of the other mums told me that the teacher suggested occupational therapy for her child because of untidy hand writing. Um, this is still Kindergarten right? And only beginning second term?  Sorry I just needed to check.

I told her "next time you go to the doctor, check out doc's handwriting; If you can - there's a reason they started typing prescriptions onto computerized forms and printing them out." 

Kindy-SUCKS mum's kid doesn't use scissors as well as her peers apparently. (OH MY GOD, call an ambulance!) This kid is a lefty and the scissors are made for right-handed kids. Could that be a factor? Does it necessitate a bunch of sessions with an occupational therapist? Who knows, but I don't know how efficiently or neatly Doctors worked with scissors in Kindy, however, most of them got pretty nifty with scalpels later in life.

Now until very recently, She-Who-Worships-Pink often said AeropRane and sometimes even Lellow, instead of yellow. A visiting speech therapist in pre-school flagged this as 'abnormal' and "needing attention", potentially with said, same speech therapist. (hmmm..).

So in comparing stories, I say this to the mum who's kid apparently has a mild dose of Doctors' Handwriting and she laughs. She tells me; "I said the same thing when I was a kid - my family still teases me, but I can actually say yellow now and no-one sent me to see anyone. I just worked it out eventually."

See there you go. Are we over being a tad interventionist?

I think it's great that pre-school and big school, teachers flag up things that may hold back our kids learning, emotional and social development. It was our little blossom's pre-school teachers that suggested speech therapy for her at three-years-old. She was frustrated and tantrumming, sometimes lashing out at other kids over her difficulty in finding her words. It turned out to be a good thing.

We did take her to have her lellow fever checked out too before the start of Big-School, and the speech pathologist got her to break down the word and sound out each syllable separately. (uh huh, genius!) After one session we didn't take her back - we practice difficult words at home now and we're doing fine. She says yellow just fine but occasionally still 'revy' instead of 'very' and still notices the odd aeroPrane. I admit, that I don't always correct her though, it's just so damned cute.

I know several kids her age with very pronounced (and very cute) lisps and they don't seem to have the professionals crawling all over them crying 'intervention!"  But Ita Butrose and Drew Barrymore both lisped their way to the top of their respective careers didn't they?

Well I've trawled the internet and library looking for answers and found none. I don't have any answers, I'm just trying to listen to the experts' advice when it's given and then use my own common sense.

So maybe this is just a topic for discussion?  

I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences too. 

Any Professionals out there willing to chip in?

Shuuuuuush!

Have you ever been so tired you cant even try to listen or speak to another person? 

Who said big school makes kids really tired in the first weeks? I have a Duracel Bunny whose mouth moves as fast if not faster than her legs AND her favourite question is 'why'. All the way home from school : YYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

She could talk the legs of a table. She talks to the dog, she talks to her scooter, the TV, the iPad, she talks to her stuffed animals, and all the while trying to draw me into the conversation with "muum-meeee.. " "why is ... " "why does... " "why cant.. " "why don't..." "why do..." "why wont..."

One conversation went like this:
Slurping noises are coming from the dog's corner;
"Muuuu-mee?"
Sighing, because this is question number 1.243.802; "yes?"
"Why does Buddy lick his bum?"
"Because he's a dog."
"But WHY?"
"Because he can"
Buuuut WHY does he?"
"Because he's a dirt-bag, I don't know honey, it's just what dogs do!"
"BUT WHY????!!!"
At this point I tell her I have to go to the toilet (my universal Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card), and I proceed to flush my head in the bowl. Well not really, but oddly I feel like I need to.

The Daddy person has his own theory on this situation: in big school you have to be quiet in class right? So maybe Lucie's verbosity (like that word much?) builds up and builds up, then erupts like a fountain of linguistic larva as soon as the bell rings.
I am then engulfed in a river of fast moving molten dialogue until she goes to bed. Incidentally she has developed a new self settling technique: she talks herself to sleep - uh huh!
We get her in bed at 7pm and even in the dark, if you listen at her closed door, you can still hear her chatting amongst herself, asking her sleepy-toys questions - sometimes till nearly eight!

If only there were some way to remove her batteries....