Tessa

Friday was Tessa "Winter Festival" at school - which is what we used to call a "Christmas Party", lol.
On Wednesday I asked her teacher Ms. Love if they needed any help at the party. She said no, she thought they were all taken care of with parent volunteers. I really wanted to help, though - especially since they told me no on the Thanksgiving feast. So on Thursday I sent an email to her other teacher, Mrs. Kirton, asking the same thing. No reply.
I started to get pouty about it and just not go, but then I changed my mind. Tessa wanted me to come help and I figured they wouldn't kick me out, so I went.
(note about Tessa's school - Summit Academy is a Charter School. There is a lottery system to get in. The kids wear uniforms, each class has two teachers and no more than 28 kids. Tessa's class has 24 students and 2 teachers - a ratio that I love. They do a lot more with their kindergartner's than most public schools do and have a lot of parent participation - volunteers are never a problem.)
Anyway, the kids were adorable. I read a Christmas story to them - with Asher wiggling on my lap - and helped make reindeer puppets out of brown paper bags and passed out snacks. I was glad I went, and they really did end up needing my help. The room mother and one other mom were there, but the other mom's son was actually home sick, so once I was there to help she went home. The room mother doesn't seem to like me for some reason - maybe because I'm always showing up to help when she hasn't asked me?
Tessa loves to show her baby brother off to her friends, but she's actually very good about staying on task and not being terribly distracted because we are there. She's so attentive - she really listens to the teachers well. She loves school :)

Friday night she spent the night with her Grandma. Jesse and Sandy picked Tessa up here around 4:00 to take her to a movie and spend the night. She was SO happy to be going.
This morning when we picked her up she was quite a bit more subdued than usual. When I asked her if she had been a good girl there was a long pause before she said yes - which is odd. Sandy didn't say anything at that point. Then, about 10 minutes later, she told us that Tess ran off at the movie theater yesterday afternoon. She said she went to the bathroom and then just took off. Sandy had the movie theater employees looking for her and everything, I think she said it took them about 15 minutes before they found her. She had been standing in the theater, watching the show, behind the wall that separates the stadium seating from the hallway to go down to the door. Sandy assumed that Tess had been there the whole time and they had missed her - but knowing Tessa that was not the case. I'm willing to bet she ran around the whole building and only stopped where they found a minute before they got there.
Sandy was upset with her, of course, and made her cry. I'm glad she did. She almost acted afraid to tell us what happened - like we were going to be angry. She even brought up Jamie - saying that she got the worst spanking of her life when she ran off at a store. I wonder if she knows I can't hear a story about Jamie without feeling horribly for her? Maybe she told the story so that I wouldn't get mad?
Don't get me wrong, it's definitely scary, but I know Tessa. I know she's likely to run off and I know it's difficult to keep track of her if you're not 100% focused on where she is at all times. In fact, I worry more about where she is than Asher. At the grocery store I still make her sit in the cart. In the parking lot I make her put her hand in my pocket so I can feel her. At the mall I often carry Asher and put Tessa in the stroller. She is awful about staying with you, she's curious and she thinks she's big enough to be off on her own. She's also fearless. Still - I've never lost her - only because I know what to expect from her.
At any rate, I wasn't upset. All's well that ends well, right?
I wish I could think that Tessa might learn from it, but I doubt she will. Sandy, however, was so frightened and seemed to feel so badly that she will never lose her again, I can almost guarantee it.