First Day at St. Johns

Sometimes the best decisions are the hardest! Today we moved Ava Kate to St. Johns Episcopal School. While we feel it was the right decision it was not an easy decision. Originally our plan was for Ava Kate and Jett to both stay in a home care setting. Sometimes things don't go according to plan though. Ava was having a tough time adjusting to being in a home care setting after having been at MDO for the last two years. Every morning was tear filled and it was just breaking our hearts. I think I went to work almost everyday for about 3 weeks and cried after dropping her off or hearing from Justin that when he dropped her off she had cried again. After a few weeks of that we decided maybe a change was needed. A friend of mine mentioned that they had some openings in the 2 year old class at St. Johns. After lots of praying, discussing, crying, stressing we made the decision to move her. It was really hard to tell Mrs. Lucy we were moving her because we knew she wasn't doing anything wrong, it just wasn't the right setting for Ava. We were also concerned because we knew it would mean more adjusting for Ava Kate by moving her again but we really felt it was the best decision for her in the long run.

Things really just began to fall in place for this move to happen the end of last week and we feel great about the decision we made now. I took her this morning expecting some tears. She was excited to go and talked the whole way about her lunch and the monkey and giraffe I had showed her I'd put in her lunch.






Then when we got there we saw several friends which seemed to ease her worries a little. She excitedly held up her new lunchbox to show her teacher when we walked in. I walked her in to her room where the kids were already sitting down coloring. She grabbed onto my leg and as I hugged her and told her she was going to have a great day, she began to cry. Her teacher, Mrs. Linda scooped her up and continued to reassure her she would have fun and I left. I had such a peace though as I left even amidst her tears.

My friend Jill checked in with Ava Kate's teacher this morning to see how she was doing. She said she only cried for about a minute and had been doing great and following directions very well! When I went to pick her up I was a little early so I got to stand back and watch from the door as they sang a song together and what joy it brought to my heart to see her smiling and dancing and singing along with the other kids. I went to pick up her backpack and lunch box and found this note inside.

Being pregnant and extra emotional I had to fight back tears of joy and pride as I read it! When I opened the door to get her she smiled big and ran over and gave me a hug. Again her teacher told me what a great day she had and what a sweet girl she was! As we walked out I asked Ava Kate about her day and she said it was a good day and asked if she could go back to school again. I told her since she had been such a big girl we would go for a treat and she chose Mickey Mouse Shop which is translated Nikki's Swirl Shop so we went for some frozen yogurt where she selected strawberry froyo with sprinkles and marshmallows on top! While it was a hard decision that at times I was starting to think might send me into early labor I'm so glad we made the choice we did and so thankful the Lord worked out all the details for it to happen!