Note From Teacher

She asks, "Why is the moon folded in half?"
... already has a good idea moon phases!!

A couple days ago my daughter’s teacher sent me an email stating that she zones out, repeats herself and her sentences trail off. At first I was confused, like what is the fucking problem, she is 3 years old, and in a room packed with 20 kids, there is a lot going on to distract her. After asking the teacher a couple questions, I came to the conclusion that the teacher is a fucking moron (Breath, right now I am in the anger phase). No, I couldn’t conclude she is a moron, it would be dismissive of her expertise, which is overseeing little kids and entrusting my daughter to her. My daughter is the first baby I have been around in my adult life, so I don’t really have a benchmark and rely on people who have lived experience for advice.

At first I was thinking, I must be doing something wrong. I must not be reading her enough books, or practicing flash cards, and teaching her math. I spend way too much time thinking up brilliant ideas for Shark Tank (The latest: a line of juices made specifically for cats, it’s called “Pussy Juice”) and I let her watch TV for almost an hour in the middle of the day when she is winding down. After fueling myself with loads of doubt I pulled up my fucking big girl pants and confidently claimed that I provide my daughter an enriching environment, and this email is grounded in misunderstanding.

My daughter has been able to convers since she was 2, and she knew her alphabet by 18 months. Sometimes I would be embarrassed going to play dates because my 2 year old daughter was talking with adults in the room as they looked wide eyed wondering why their 4 year old is unable to communicate this way. Then, I worried she might be a type of idiot savant, and her very early verbal skills were a possible indication. Worrying that my daughter has some mental disability is so terribly disheartening, but I really truly believe she is fine and she is adjusting to the school environment.

She started preschool early, at 2 and a half, and this class has kids up to 5 years old in it, so she is being compared to her peers almost twice her age. She also went from a stay at home environment to sharing attention with a room full of kids. To say that my daughter was brought up as the rising and setting sun is an understatement. She is the first grandchild on both sides, and has been treated as such. She is a little empress, and has been adored, praised and pampered since birth by her aunts, uncles, grandparents in addition to her own parents. Her teacher’s concern that she is repetitive, to me, seems indicative of my daughter talking over and over until someone gives her complete attention acknowledging what she is saying.

My daughter’s distractedness might be due to an irregular sleep schedule. She is dropping her nap, but she will occasionally take the nap and this throws her schedule out of whack for a couple days. Also, I recently eliminated chocolate milk from her diet. I got in the bad habit of giving her chocolate milk instead of white milk, and we have to go cold turkey to cut it from her diet. She is not taking this lightly and does not drink her regular milk before she goes off to school, so she is heading to class without consuming a proper meal. I think her problems focusing will be solved after I strictly enforce her no napping schedule and find a breakfast option that she will actually eat and is not 30 grams of sugar.

When I was in first grade my teacher had a conference with my parents because she thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t talk to any of my classmates, and she thought this was indicative of me being stupid. I blew my classmates out of the water after being tested, and it was determined I was actually not stupid at all, I probably just don’t like to talk to people. I still remember how awful that teacher was to me, and I am glad she was wrong (not just because she got egg face). She was just the first of many to misunderstand me, and its good to learn early on that there are going to be people who won’t understand me and some will assume there is something wrong with me. Those are the people with problems; they deal with their ignorance in an even more ignorant manner.
The fact that I spent the last 5 minutes trying find baby poop on my hand might be a sign that my brilliance faded shortly after fifth grade. I know I smell poop, but my hands are clean, and I don’t  see it. I know my daughter is brilliant, and it will be something she needs to deal with. Sometimes her brilliance will be misunderstood, and she will need to resist the pressure to be dim. A great quote from a book I have started to read fifteen times, COD, references this adversary, “When a true genius appears, you can know him (or her) by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.” I can’t protect her from this by drop kicking her teachers for being ignorant, but I need to keep my cool and help her develop into who she is meant to be. First stop, the grocery store for a filling breakfast. Second stop, a doctor who will tell me that we will monitor the situation.

Looking for sharks at trout fishery