Parent-Teacher Conferences

Yesterday I added parent-teacher conferences to my parenting resume. Elisabeth started pre-school this year. She goes two mornings a week. Being that this is her first real foray into the world, being with other kids on a regular basis, I was very curious to hear what the teacher had to say. In all honesty, I was expecting:

• "Elisabeth is quite a leader.... no - not in the presidential sense, think more like benevolent dictator..." - Elisabeth is very sweet, but she also thinks everything should go exactly as she says it should.
• "she certainly has energy..." - ask anyone who has visited our house - Elisabeth can wear anyone out.
• "wow, you had a second one"
• "have you considered a therapist? No no, not for her - for you?"

What I actually heard was quite nice. In addition to the extraordinarily important milestones "can paste appropriately," and "can string beads," Elisabeth received high praises in every category. She is apparently very nice to the other kids, which I was thrilled to hear. She can sometimes harass other kids by being bossy. She was described as "enthusiastic." I pushed the teacher on this (to see if it was a nice way of saying "insanely crazy") and she maintains that this is a great thing. She said that Elisabeth is the only one in the class who likes every activity. I guess she makes the teachers feel good about themselves when an activity flopped. "Well at least Elisabeth liked it."

Elisabeth has been very interested in learning Spanish in the past few months (thank you Dora, and Rosita from Sesame Street). She has completely exhausted my knowledge of Spanish (except for the curse words and other choice phrases my Mexican friends taught me at MicroStrategy). I am heading to the library later in the week to get her some Spanish DVDs. Her teachers were really interested in this love of Spanish. It turns out they got a new little girl in the class. This little girl speaks only Spanish. The other little girls in the class are twins, and their nanny speaks to them in Spanish. So now there are three little girls conversing in Spanish, apparently, and Elisabeth is the odd one out. I'm glad that she seems to be handling this by endeavoring to learn Spanish and not by biting or hair pulling (pre-school defense mechanisms of choice).

All in all, my first parent-teacher conference was good. It is nice to hear that people think highly of my child. I mean, of course I think she walks on water - but it is good to have independent confirmation of this fact.

In other news - Elisabeth's new bed came today. I'm learning about Virginia Wills for the bar exam. Charlotte is on the verge of sitting up by herself, and is drooling like crazy from teething. And yesterday Elisabeth spelled her name correctly, all by herself, for the first time.

See? I told you it was an exciting life. Tomorrow perhaps I'll tell the slightly irreverent tales of Elisabeth and the Fisher Price Nativity Set.