Open House

The last few days before Madi's Kindergarten open house had resulted in much build-up. Most families we spoke with had received post cards informing them of who their teacher would be. We received nothing.  For once in my uptight, need-to-know life--I was totally calm about the whole situation despite the lack of information I was holding.

We strolled over to Banyan at 10:00 a.m. sharp this morning and headed into the over-crowded cafeteria to search for Madi's name on the class lists. Murphy's Law prevailed, and her name was not to be found.

As though this were an expected outcome (given our last name), we walked over to the office to resolve the dilemma. We had requested a particular teacher for Madi. She's the "veteran" K teacher--the K director, actually, with many, many years under her belt and an awesome reputation to boot. When we toured her classroom in the spring, we could practically see Madi thriving under her tutelage. Lately, however, we started second-guessing our decision and wondering if we did the right thing by requesting anyone at all.

But we learned this morning that Madi did not get her. Who we ended up with is simply amazing to us, and several months ago we would have never dreamed this would happen.  Our neighbor, Linda Maldonado, has a beautiful, sweet and talented daughter named, Charde, whom we watched grow up. She went to Banyan Creek school as a child. In fact, she was taught by the "veteran" K teacher I mentioned. Charde went to college to become a teacher, and literally months ago--she was looking for a job.

Charde went back to Banyan for a visit and ended up getting hired as the first Banyan Creek student to become a teacher at the school teaching gifted 3rd grade classes. We were so thrilled that she would be back in the neighborhood and that she would be teaching in our home school!  In her heart, however, it was Kindergarten that she wanted to be teaching.

In a last-minute class shuffling, some changes were made at the school, and Charde landed her dream job--the Kindergarten class she had dreamed of.  We were so happy for her with this wonderful news, but our hopes of having Madi in her class were slim, since we had requested another leader.

And mysteriously, the Good Lord had a different plan for Madi--our request had not been granted. This morning, we received the joyous news that Charde (Ms. Maldonado) will be Madi's teacher.  This news brought tears to my eyes--a totally unexpected reaction. I love the surprises in life (the good ones, anyway). Jimmy and I both feel relieved and pretty confident that Madi will have a great year.

Oh...and I had to promise Jimmy that I will try not to drive Ms. Maldonado crazy...