A thank you to your incredible teachers💗

Yesterday Maisie’s new primary school teacher Ms Golden visited Maisie in playschool so she could observe her during a typical day. Ms Flood will be her learning support so she came along too. Maisie can be shy when a new person comes into the room so Maria and I weren’t sure how things would go. I collected Maisie at home time and Edel said she had the best morning, even going up to the two teachers to show them her drawings and explaining who it was, i.e. “mommy”, “dress” and “two legs”! 

At one stage she kept looking at Ms Flood and Ms Golden would say that it was she who would be her teacher. Maisie said “ugh” (this is embarrassing for me having realised ages ago she got that from me!) and they had a giggle about it. Ms Golden rang me afterwards to tell me how it all went and she said her and Ms Flood linked arms and skipped back to school, they were so happy knowing they’d be teaching Maisie in September. She told me everything I know anyway, for instance how capable and independent Maisie is, and that she can sit and focus on tasks. I couldn’t have been happier either, reassured that Maisie will have a wonderful teacher and amazing support in big school. Yet it is her personality that is infectious. She brightens up everyone’s day and we always think at home, Maisie having Down Syndrome doesn’t matter. She’s just a lovely little girl with a gorgeous personality and a very bright future ahead of her. 

I go on about how funny Maisie is and there’s a couple of things she’s been doing recently that we get a great laugh out of. First up it’s her wiggle dance which may have started at playschool as she loves to dance when they play music. At home we get treated to it randomly, for instance at breakfast time she arrived at the door and did it in the doorway. She turns around and bends over, wiggling her bum at us. Or the last day I was eating breakfast and she did it in front of me. We love it so much! 

Maisie loves to play hide and seek but she’ll also get her bunny and hide it behind her back or between her legs, or put it on top of her head under her hat. It’s actually a great way to work on her speech and language as she can understand concepts such as In between or behind etc. She shouts out “Oh my god” randomly too with great flair and I need to stop laughing in case she starts doing it at school! 

Maisie has finished up ballet classes for the summer but next year they’re putting on a show in a local theatre. She’ll continue with Gaelic which she loves going to but most of the time does her own thing. I took her to swimming lessons which she loved, although she wasn’t great at listening to the teacher but we had fun and she’s fairly strong at kicking her legs so I’m sure it’ll all fall into place in time. 

I love having the chats with her, especially in the mornings as she’s always first up. She always greets me with “Good morning” and “time to get up” but I delay for a couple of minutes by asking her to go to the toilet first. She gets stories and brings them into me and we’ll read or chat or mess. If she’s up really early I reach for the IPad but now she’s a much better sleeper and hopefully I’m finally rid of those sleep deprived years. It was a long time coming to be fair. 

As I’ve spoken about Maisie’s teachers in this post I have to mention one more gem she’s had for the last year. Maisie has attended St. John of God disability services for the past few years and since last September she went along on a Thursday afternoon after playschool. The staff are incredible, the energy and positivity they bring is second to none. Maisie would go in happy and leave even happier. She bonded with Niamh who shares the same fun personality. She is a one of those people with a natural gift for being around children and we will really miss her. 

So that is the end of Maisie’s preschool years and a lot has happened in that time. We still face some challenges (mainly her running away and having no sense of danger) but she’s doing fantastic with her speech and is mastering toileting so we’re in a good place for starting big school. I’m sure Maisie will have the best summer and bring on September!