Life with Lotus Maria and Lucian Stone

Last week Lotus received an award for raising the most money for her school walkathon.  Somehow the school forgot to tell me the day she was receiving the award and so neither Nate nor I was there to witness it.  I was so upset to have missed it, because this was a huge deal.  Not only that Lotus received the award, but that she was confident enough to stand up in front of the whole school to go up and get her award.

First grade has been tougher than Kindergarten.  Lotus was struggling in school.  We realized she needed to get eyes checked and in that exam it was made apparent that she can barely see far away.  In fact she couldn’t see anything the teacher was writing on the white board.  She told me that she thought her teacher was waving her arms around…like some sort of jazz hand performance... and then they were to go back to their seats and do something.  Yeah, no wonder we were getting notes home that Lotus was falling behind.  She didn't see how the performance piece explained what to do on the math worksheet.  She has transitioned to wearing glasses seamlessly, which is a lot for a kid who doesn’t transition to walking out the door for school seamlessly and we do that every single day.

And the school yard teasing has started, which kills me.  Lotus is getting it about her weight, but I know that all kids get it for something.  Nonetheless it was not pretty when I almost threw down with a kindergartner who called my girl a name.  I am happy to report I walked away.  And OPD was not involved.

Lotus is still not fond of loud, jarring noises.  This is pretty typical for adopted kids.  We have made progress and no longer have to go to the movies with noise canceling earphones, but she did try to crawl inside my shirt on New Year’s Eve because other kids were playing with noisemakers.

The fact that should stood up in front of the whole school (including kids that have teased her) and kids were clapping and cheering (loud, jarring noises) and walked up to get her much deserved reward was so momentous and I was devastated to have missed it.  Yet it was great to see her face when she ran out of class with her award and how proud she was of herself.  She was proud that she got the award and proud that she was able to accept the award with out any problems.

Along with the award she got a Target gift card.  As a side note I am consistently baffled that we give monetary gifts for fundraising.  Doesn’t that seem a bit counterintuitive?  Back to Lotus though... I asked what she wanted to do with her gift card and she said she wanted to use it to get the homeless man in our neighborhood some new clothes.  Or as she said “I want to get the man with the brown clothes who doesn’t have a home, some new clothes that aren’t brown”.  I truly can’t get over how much empathy for others this kid has.  I mean I thought we were heading straight to the creepy, mechanical pets aisle at Target.

So when the teacher tells me she’s worried that she’s falling behind because she has a hard time paying attention in class I explain that I’m not worried.  I can teach my kid math and reading, (or get a really good tutor) but teaching kindness would be a lot more difficult.