This is a picture of the start of a typical day for Molly.  Molly has a nice, set routine each school morning.  I won’t got into the all the details of the routine (although I have done that before), but here are a few highlights of how Molly likes her morning to go…

• Molly always has Cheerios for breakfast but doesn’t finish them and asks for a “to go” for the car.
• After dropping Claire off at school, and on the drive to Molly’s school, Molly usually initiates some sort of creative activity with me.  It’s anything from “What do you want me to draw?” to “Tell me everything you see that starts with letter S” or an “I’m thinking of something that…” game.  “I’m thinking of something that grows on fences.”, which is flowers, for example.  She always has something to offer.
• On a related note, the drives home in the evening are less creative and more grumpy.  A favorite question of Molly’s is a whiney “Why do you always have to cook dinner at home?” (I actually pick up food on the way home really often).
• Once we’re at Molly’s pre-school, we can either take the stairs or the elevator upstairs to her classroom.  Molly always gets to pick.  Lately Molly’s trick is to stand at the hallway between the stairs and the elevator and say out loud, “Hmm…which way?”  And then she’ll suddenly sprint towards the elevator, giggling loudly, trying to get away from me.  She always looks back to make sure I’m chasing her.  It is hilarious to see Molly tear down the hall in a dress and shiny shoes.
• Once at the elevator, the next game is for Molly to press the “up” button before I can do it, and then to press the “3” button once inside before I can get to it.  It makes Molly giggle even more when I just barely lose to her every time.  By the time we get to Molly’s classroom, she is panting and laughing.
• Then Molly suddenly gets real quiet when we actually enter her classroom.  It is hard to get a even one word out of her.  Sometimes she gets a little excited to give an extra toilet paper cardboard roll from home to Turbo the Gerbil, but that’s about it.  Normally it’s the quiet little girl you see in the picture above, at least until the afternoon grumps.