Warming Up

My daughter, Emily, begins her junior year of high school tomorrow --- at a new school. Where has the time gone? It seems like just yesterday I was taking her picture in front of the bulletin board on the first day of Kindergarten!

I am very proud of Emily for taking this step and transferring to a new school. For those of you who know her, you know that Emily does not like change! I learned in college a few years ago that there is a term to describe her temperament. She was and continues to be a "slow-to-warm-up" child. This means she doesn't like new things in her life but will accept them after repeated exposure.

As an infant, Emily would only go to sleep in HER bed which meant that if we were away from home at naptime or bedtime, on vacation or riding in a car, she would rather have SCREAMED her head off than slept anywhere other than her own bed! At age 3, when we moved from our 1100 sq.f. house in Lexington to our 1650 sq.f. home in Lancaster, she cried for a week saying "I want my little house! I want my little bed!" The first night was horrible - we were exhausted and I recall having to get up at 1:00 in the morning and dig around in the garage until we found her toddler bed and baby mattress to set up in her room next to her new full-sized bed so that she could sleep. Silly girl!

She still feels most comfortable when she is in HER room and in HER bed and she considers these things to be at her dad's house. I would be lying if I didn't admit that this hurts me a little but I agreed to allow her to live with her dad to attend SCS because I think it is a wonderful opportunity for my daughter. This change will allow Emily to get an excellent education in a Christian environment where she will meet lots of new people and make many new friends. I want the very best for each of my children, even if the decisions I have to make hurt me.

There will be lots of changes for Emily. The biggest is wearing uniforms EVERY DAY! She seems pretty excited about it though. I can't wait to see her with her beautiful, curly auburn hair and her studious looking glasses in her plaid skirt and polo shirt :-). I'm thinking she's pretty enough to be the cover girl on the Land's End Uniform catalog. Maybe I will get a picture :-)

Emily, you know I love you! I wish you the very best at Somerset Christian School and I am SO PROUD of you!