Yesterday we had our first Parent/Teacher conference with Mrs. Peek. I am embarrassed to say, I was terrified. The few little notes and/or emails I would get would often be somewhat reprimanding and I feared the entire half hour meeting would be alot of focus on her negative qualities. I get to see the range of who she is: the sweet with the sassy, the loving with the temperamental....I feared her teacher did not have this balance to judge her by. To my utter relief and surprise, she did. She must have said how much she loves Maddie and how she makes her smile every day ten times throughout the conversation. She certainly touched on her sassy attitude (totally expected) and her dismay at Maddie's coming out of the bathroom after pottying undressed from the waist down (why does she do this?!). She reassured us that most of those things were very typical of 3 year olds and kept reiterating that she is the youngest in the class. But our most proud part of the meeting was her insistence that Maddie was unusually bright for her age. She said she was "leaps and bounds" ahead of what was expected and surpassed even the 4 year olds in her basic knowledge, communication and learning abilities. She said she would expect her to be a "stellar" student throughout her life. We, like the dorks we are, giggled and shifted uncomfortably in our seats when she said, "Who works with her? Surely you must do alot of educational things with her...". I mean, we do, I guess....we read (ALOT), do flash cards, make mundane activities a learning experience, etc. but we don't feel like we do more than the average parent. I think Maddie is just naturally intelligent. Just like her strong will I kind of think she was just born that way. Does that happen?? I certainly struggled alot in school...I mean, I did very well but I had to work hard for every A. Garret says he was just lazy (hee hee). She seems to just...get it. Her retention is amazing and she is more interested in learning activities than general play with toys. I certainly hope we can harness this. I would love for her to have an easy time with school....and love it, of course.
On a humorous note (we laughed alot, by the way) she showed us some recent artwork, one of which looked like a bloody massacre (see red craziness above). I couldn't help but joke that if a phsycologist looked at it, we may be looking at a future prison visit. Thank goodness she told us all the kids used red and it was made with corn husks. Phew.
