Lots of times, Claire and I play on the playground for a while after school. Today we had an extra prop handy, which happened to be a plastic bag with dirty clothes in it from the school day. Claire invented a fun game and nearly ran herself ragged. Notice the wild giggling and stumbling. Is she drunk?
Pardon the jerky camera work. I was trying to film and catch said bag at the same time.
Today Claire had her hair really cut — not just a little trim — for the first time. This did not happen in a hair studio or a barber shop. Claire had her hair cut by Ms. Janet, one of her teachers, out on the street in front of her school
Just a quick note that this is the first time I have ever called Claire in sick for school. She had a minor head cold, and I figured we should drop her off with Grace rather than spread the germs. I think Claire picked up the cold when we took her to the doctor a few days ago. The funny thing is that Claire is liking school a lot, and probably would have preferred to go in if the choice were up to her.
Today Claire started preschool. School starts at 9:00 am, so we have a little extra time to burn in the morning. It’s not enough time to do anything substantial like work in the yard or do any serious errands, but it is enough time to cook up a special “power breakfast” to help Claire keep her energy and mood up for the whole morning. So we had an egg, tomato, onion, and cheese omelet to start things off right.
The drop off at school was not bad. After last week’s meet & greet, I knew exactly where to go and what to bring. And Claire already knew the classroom was a fun place to hang out with Ms. Betsy. Claire and I arrived a few minutes early, so we spent some extra time naming all the animals on the large Noah’s Ark mural in the hallway. Animals are one of Claire’s specialties, and she was able to name all of them.
After a few minutes, I dropped her off with her bag of supplies and headed for the door pretty quickly. Claire made a run for me as I walked down the hall, saying “Daddy, Daddy!” in an excited but not panicked voice. Ms. Betsy swooped her up and took her back to the room without incident.
I was to meet Grace back at the school at noon to pick Claire up and introduce Grace to everyone as someone who is “cool” to pick up Claire. I worked on my laptop in a coffee shop near the preschool during the morning to avoid wasting the nearly hour round trip in the car. This worked out well, and it would be fun working from coffee shops more often except for calling into meeting on my pay-by-the-minute cell phone with The Beatles playing in the background. I actually had to retreat to the car for the 11:00 conference call.
The pickup went fine, and Claire was happy to see me, Grace, Reese (who was in the class two doors down), and Melanie all show up. Ms. Betsy told us that Claire did not cry at all, she had a very good time, and she talked a lot. I felt a little bad, because Melanie had just told me that Reese had cried for the first two weeks of preschool. As we left the classroom, Claire said her loud “gooodbyyye!”, and we headed out with her first school drawing (hey, at least she got the scribbles on the page). Grace and Melanie struggled a bit getting Claire, Reese, and Baby Davis in the back seat of the Camry, and I headed back to work at home until the afternoon pickup. Aside from some logistical issues, this school thing seems to be working out pretty well so far.
Claire is starting pre-pre-school every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting next week. Today the school, part of a neighborhood church, hosted a “meet & greet” for parents to bring their kids by and meet the teachers. Kit and I (and Claire) rearranged our schedules to be there for the big event.
This is the preschool that Reese has been attending the last couple of years, and Claire has been here many times already in the past with Grace to drop off and pick up Reese. Claire already knows some of the kids, teachers, and parents from playing around on the playground with Reese after school. Walking around with Claire, we heard comments like, “Claire’s back!”, and “Look, Claire’s talking now.” It is remarkable that Claire has managed to etch out her own secret life over here at this age. Even though Claire is just now starting school, Kit and I are the only new really new people here.
We introduced ourselves to the teacher, Ms. Betsy, and Claire almost immediately rushed off to explore the classroom. She pointed out the stuffed animals (“teddy bears”), and tried out each of the three rocking horses in turn. Then she found the shelves of toys and started talking on two play telephones, one on each ear. Another little girl name Matilda showed up too. Claire was pretty quickly saying “hiiii” and repeating Matilda’s name over and over. Kit and I incorrectly pointed out that Matilda is the name of the little girl in the “Carl the dog” books (the girl’s name is really Madeline — oops). Before we knew it, Claire was gently throwing her arms around the unsuspecting Matilda and saying “huggggg!” She had truly embraced the “meet & greet” concept with full force.
We had to get back to work eventually, and we had to somewhat drag Claire away from all the fun. Claire loudly said, “Byyyye Betsy!” as we left, and repeated Betsy’s name as we walked out the classroom and down the hall. We were very proud of Claire for showing such confidence on what could have been a scary and overwhelming occasion.
McG Kids 