Giving Thanks: Day 1

Today, I am thankful for this sweet, loving, silly, sometimes difficult, incredibly amazing little girl.  This Saturday she lost her first tooth.  It had been wiggly for quite sometime so we were preparing her for it to fall out.  We got her all ready for bed that night, put her tooth safely in an envelope, and under her pillow for the tooth fairy.  She wanted to read "Alice the Fairy" for her bedtime story that night.  We went to tuck her in and she said up and said, "Ok, I am ready for the tooth fairy.  Where is she?"  Matt and I chuckled and had to explain to her that the tooth fairy wouldn't come until she was asleep.  She was a little disappointed but got over it real fast when we told her that she was going to get some money.  She went right to sleep after that.

Recently, I sat down with Kaia's teacher for her 6 week progress report parent/teacher conference.  I am proud to announce that my baby girl is a genius. (Well, she is to me anyway.) She scored the highest out of all the kindergarten students in reading and math.  She can read, write, and loves to draw (she got this from her Daddy).  She showed me Kaia's journal that she had been working on.  She explained that Kaia did everything right but always insisted on drawing a picture of her mommy for each entry.  I almost cried as she flipped through each page showing Kaia's drawing of me with the letters M-O-M at the bottom of each image. Her teacher had nothing but great things to say.  She lights up the room when she walks in.  She knows all of the teachers and has them all smitten with her charm.  Her teacher told me this cute story a few weeks ago: The school had to combine some of the kindergarten classes due to budget cuts.  When the other teachers caught wind of this they were all wanting to have Kaia come to their class.  Mrs. Lombardo, her teacher, quickly chimed in and told them all that Kaia was hers and was not going to leave her class.  I thought this was so funny.  It made me happy to think that so many people love my daughter. 

Kaia is also doing well socially.  She has a lot of friends in class.  Mrs. Lombardo shared another sweet little story with me one day.  There is a boy in Kaia's class named Charlie.  He has a bit of a processing delay and often needs several verbal prompts to complete tasks.  It was the end of the day and time for everyone to clean up and get their backpacks ready.  Mrs. Lombardo said she looked over at Kaia, who had already finished, and over heard her saying, "Come on Charlie, it's time to clean up and get ready to go.  Come on you can do it.  I will help you."  Kaia helped him clean up and put his backpack on him.  Her teacher said it was one of the sweetest things she had seen.  Since then, Kaia has sort of put Charlie under her wing and helps him often. 

I love this girl.  She is my dream come true.  I am a mother because of her and I sometimes wonder what I did to deserve such a beautiful child.  I couldn't have picked a better girl and I am just so grateful that she picked me to be her mommy.