The right decision!

I am just so proud, yes that Mommy eyes proud! That kind of proud where my mommy eyes are glued on.  Seriously, I think today was a pivotal moment for me, a moment where I realized that we really did make the right decision, the best decision.  No matter what people may think, no matter the stigma that it may or may not bring, I can finally say and say it in the open, that we made the right decision.

My boy came home with his report card today.  He came home with his Kindergarten report card.  Yes I said Kindergarten.  It was all 1's and 2 's, and I am shocked at how far this kid has come!!! Last year was horrible.  We fought constantly with him to do his homework, practice his printing, do his letters and sounds.  I was relentless and I really pushed him, a little too much! I knew though that he just was not ready for Grade 1 and in fact I was the one who brought it up to his teacher.  In the end they showed me how much progress he had made and said that he could go on to Grade one, but they would really be watching him.  Is that what we wanted....him to be watched?  We also did not know where we would be for his Grade one year, so we had a couple of months to make some decisions.

He was also going through numerous tests and we were told to wait for the results from those, before we made our decision.  We got them and it really did help explain a lot.  He has a slight hearing loss (not sure why and we are following it) and thus has been doing some extra speech therapy (more for him to slow down and get everything out that he wants to say---this kid has so much to say---it's exhausting for me sometimes).  With that, we found ourselves miraculously in Airdrie again.  Miraculously because we had to get out of our place in Cochrane (that is a whole other blog in itself---we were just sick and tired of putting up with marijuana, drinking, parties...etc.), but we were not having any luck finding anything.  We basically started looking anywhere by the end, yes even in the not so great areas of Calgary.  We got this place on Tuesday and moved on Friday and it was not even advertised.  Total, total God thing!! Our landlords are amazing too!  However, we then had to find a school for our monkey and make that difficult decision.

Christian schooling has always been a must for us, especially for Zech.  He is so evangelical and everything for him revolves around Jesus.  He told me the other day that he only likes to go to school to learn about Jesus! He would not survive in the public school system with his zealous goal of telling everyone and everything about Christ.  However, money is also an issue as we can not afford the tuition of a private Christian school with our meager 'ministry' wage.  I tried Catholic schools, we were even going to drive him a half hour away to a semi-public Christian School, but everybody was full.  So we went to Airdrie Koinonia Christian School.  Our first meeting with them was really good and we expressed our concerns about him going into Kindergarten.  Well, their cut-off date for accepting kids into Grade one is Sept. 30, so Zech would not make it in.  I am sure that they would have made an exception if we felt he was ready seeing how close his b-day is to the cut-off, but we had an amazing conversation with the resource teacher and principal and felt really confident about our decision to put him in Kindergarten again.  The teachers expressed how important it is to ensure that little boys are ready to go on and that they have the confidence and tools to succeed in school.  I wanted him to be ahead, not always lagging behind or having to 'watch him'. 

However, I haven't told anyone.  I think it had more to do with me and my own personal issues, as Zech would stay in Kindergarten for the rest of his life if he could and he has no problems telling people that. I felt that some how I had failed him, didn't spend enough time with him, should have put him in preschool.  I have really backed off this year.  I don't push him as much as I did last year and he is genuinely interested in learning.  He will come and sit down with me and go through his counting book. He is sounding out words and trying to read all on his own.  He knows all of his sight words.  He has no problems memorizing his Bible verses.  I am proud of how hard he is working and striving to do his best.  I do not care whether or not he is the next Einstein, I only care that he is working hard and trying his absolute best and that he has the tools and confidence to succeed.  We will be going through more testing with him here again soon.  I pray that this is something that he will 'grow' out of and that it is not getting worse.  It does explain why he is so 'loud' though! :o)

So proud of my boy!