End of School and Big Changes for R and F

F,

This week you celebrated your last day of school at “big school” you call it. You had a great school year and learned so much! Before the year started I shared my hopes for this year (in this letter) for you most all of them came true!

You’ve learned so much at speech and are quite the chatterbox these days! You are so proud of all you’re learning. You’ve started drawing people and things and its so cool to watch you make sense of the world.

At both of your schools and daycare you learned about being a friend and having friends. You still prefer to play by yourself most of the time, but some of us are just wired that way!

You’ve mastered the potty! And you didn’t break your glasses! Preschool success!!

This summer will bring some big changes for you. Lots of people who love you and who are in charge of making decisions about you have decided that the best thing for you and your sisters is for you all to be together. This summer you’ll all be transitioning to live with a different family in a new town. We’ve started meeting them and letting them get to know you and you get to know them. We are working together to make this the best possible transition for all of us. We all want what’s best for you and R and M and P. We are so so grateful that you all will get to be together with a wonderful family who can meet your needs and connect you with resources and teach you about God’s love and be family for you if the judge decides you don’t need to move again. We will miss you so much. We will miss R so much. We’ve been family for nearly 2 years (which is hard to believe). This is going to be hard on us all. But we have hope as an anchor. That means we have big heavy hopes. Things that keep us held down in the best possible ways. Big hopes that your time with us has offered safety and stability and healing and growth and has prepared you and R for more safe and stable and healthy and growing years to come.

I love you, F. I am glad I’ve gotten to be your Mama for 679 days. I’m going to make sure these last 60 or so we have together are wonderful.

End of School Year Letter for Sam

Last week was your last day of kindergarten. I can’t believe how fast this school year flew by. I went back and looked at the letter I wrote you when school started and at the things I hoped you would learn this year and I’m amazed at how much you learned and how much you’ve changed and grown.

We have Mae Mae and Steve to thank for you managing sight words and AR points and homework. Without them I don’t think any of us would have made it through this year. Your time at their house every afternoon is a gift I am sure you’re going to treasure for all of your days.

You’ve learned to read! Right now you love to sound out every word you see and figure it out. You also LOVE to write. Your teacher sent you home with an amazing journal collection of your writing and drawing throughout the year and its so cool to see how much you’ve learned. You learned what it means to work on something really really hard and be proud of how it turned out.

You’ve made some friends this year and learned lessons about kindness and generosity. You also learned that taking a new toy to school to trade with a friend is probably not a good idea.

You’ve kept your sense of humor and learned more jokes. You had a teacher that handled and appreciated your sass which was a great match.

Thankfully you enjoyed school lunches all year. You got to take your lunch from home as a special reward sometimes but even started to turn it down at the end of the year.

You didn’t lose your pencil pouch and we heard and saw you choose kindness over and over.

You only get one year of kindergarten and there are something about this one that I will cherish and some things I wish had been different.

Mostly, I feel like I missed it.

I hope in the years to come I don’t miss it.

We made it through the school year and have fun things planned this summer. I can’t wait to spend extra time with you and watch you learn and grow!

Love, Mama