teacher appreciation

This past week was teacher appreciation week at school. Tuesday, I ignored my boys for the entire day so that I could make 72 mini cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and some fancy toppings. I also packed the kids up and took them to Sam's to pick out a crazy number of flowers, and then turned our kitchen into a florist office while giving them an apple for lunch (but in all honesty they'd eaten 2 blueberry muffins, a bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of cereal for breakfast, with some berries, so it wasn't like they were super hungry). Teague missed his nap from this chaos and dinner was butter noodles. And honestly, I'd do it all over again today. I love our preschool and I love Neland's teachers! (and I have to admit, the boys were AWESOME, they played all day, watched one movie and there was hardly any whining over who had which toy - even a friend who came by was in disbelief)

homemade corsages for flower day

We had conferences last Friday. They showed us Neland's work and we talked about our decision give him another year of preschool before kindergarten. Chris and I really wrestled with this decision from this past summer up until we made our decision around December. Neland surprised both Chris and I with his assessments - he even read a word of it to his teacher! And when they asked him to draw a person here's what he gave them:

and they said he made of point of including a mustache and telling them that is what it was.

Since November I've been touring preschools looking for a transition kindergarten for him. The first tour was great. It was our church and I loved the set up. It is so similar to where he is now, but there's a bunny in the room and they have a dedicated art teacher/room, a spanish teacher and music weekly. When I walked into the 4/5 classroom (they don't have a true TK), there were 2 kids at the writing center, 2 kids on the floor working with the teacher, and 1 child doing a puzzle with the other teacher. The other half of the class was at art. When the other half returned, the children played (keyword here). I would have sent him here in a heartbeat if it hadn't been a 30 minute drive there and back 5 days a week with a 2 year old in tow.
Then I toured three more schools. I found out that most schools here aren't play based. I saw 2 year olds sitting in chairs in a circle going over flash card shapes. I saw TK's writing words on the board one at a time. And if I asked about centers or being play based, they looked at me like I was an alien.
After the last school tour, I was so discouraged that I came up with a plan to homeschool Neland for one year and then send him to kindergarten. I even started to email our school's director but discarded it before sending. As I was coming up with my plan, about an hour after our tour, I received an email from our director. The subject was, "Dreams do come true" and the body was a message telling me that she was offering Neland's class an opportunity to move to the 5 day 4s class next year. It was relief and tears all at the same time. Such a perfect answer to a prayer!
So my little guy, who is very smart but not very focused, who is very sensitive and tends to follow the crowd, who loves to explore words but is easily discouraged, gets one more year to grow, one more year to  gain some confidence, one more year to create a foundation that isn't quite set and it all will happen in the same school he's grown up in (all 4 1/2 years). We are so blessed.

So when teacher appreciation comes around next year, I'll make cupcakes, I'll put together flowers, I'll even make special favors, and even then I'm sure I'll feel it isn't enough.