Yay for Ella!

Ella posing next to a giant pencil at "Back to School Night" tonight.Ella showing Lily the Kindergarten playground.

Since January we’ve been working with Ella & her social skills. Things like, saying "hi" back when someone says "hello" to you, Not ignoring people when they ask you a question (okay... so she still needs a lot of help with that one.) But she's been doing great. We've been encouraging her to make friends and initiate conversations with her classmates by giving her rewards for doing so. Almost everyday she comes home and tells us about the conversations that she's initiated that day. For example, on her first day of school she told us that she "invited a girl... who I don't know her name, to come over and play with me today." We weren't sure if she was telling us the truth, as Tyler and I both had a hard time picturing her doing this. And, of course, we told her that you usually don't start out conversations with someone you've never met, by inviting them over... you should probably start by asking them their name.

Anyhow... everyday she's been telling us about all of her conversations she has with classmates so that she can get her reward. At Back to School night tonight, we talked with her teacher and were pleased & very surprised to learn that Ella has been telling the truth and really was talking to & playing with the other kids. Yay for Ella! And Yay for her awesome Kindergarten teacher who called us last night to warn us there would be a substitute teacher today, so that we could prepare Ella for the change and avoid a total catastrophe.
And last of all, YAY for the fact that Ella's lip and mouth is looking and feeling much better.