school

Molly Turns Two!

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Molly doubled her age today!  She went from one year old to two.

Being a regular work/school day, and not having much time for a proper celebration, Kit suggested making a few brief notes about Molly’s regular-ish day when she turned two…

The day started just before 7 am, with Claire already downstairs eating breakfast and prepping for school.  I sat Molly down in her little blue toddler seat for a normal breakfast, starting with a fresh sippy cup of whole milk and an English muffin with cream cheese.  Molly almost immediately began to scold her breakfast.  She literally shook her finger at her food, saying “No!” sharply a few times, as if it had done something wrong.  Her mixed feelings about food continue to age two, I can see.  Within a minute or two, though, she was happily eating the naughty English muffins.

We dropped Claire off at kindergarten and then dropped Molly off at pre-school with a couple dozen mini-cupcakes to celebrate her birthday.  The next I saw of Molly was at 5 pm, when I heard about Molly’s day from her teachers.  Molly was okay but had been somewhat banged up from a small toddler stampede on the playground earlier in the day.  Before going onto the playground, all the kids wait their turn on a bench right outside the playground.  Usually Molly goes in last, maybe because she is smallest.  But today she went first, and she decided to run really fast through the gate. She tripped and fell face-first on the the way through the gate, and the next two kids then tripped and fell on Molly.  Apparently another couple of kids tripped and fell after that too, and there was a pile of crying toddlers at the playground entrance, with Molly on the bottom of the heap.  The teachers brought out some ice packs and sent for some help at the main office to check for loose teeth, blood, etc. but everyone checked out okay aside form scrapes and bruises.  I am told that at the end of playground time, Molly was the last one out of the playground and proceeded carefully.

Also, Molly had changed into a new set of shorts at school, as is often the case, due to some unknown liquid or dampness issues (the teachers think it’s probably water).

Checking into school
Checking out of shcool

Being a normal weekday, there was not time for Molly to do much between school and bedtime.  My parents had come to town for Molly’s birthday, so Molly did get a nice surprise in that regard.  I considered making Molly a special dinner, but she doesn’t really have a “favorite food” except for what she eats every day, which mostly whole-fat vanilla yogurt.  We tried giving her some penne with marinara, but it did not “take”, so she had vanilla yogurt as per usual.  Dinner was followed by a rendition of “Happy Birthday”, a mini-cupcake, a bath, and bed.  We didn’t even have a chance to give Molly her presents today and are saving them for the real celebration tomorrow.

It was a pretty normal day, but we are so proud of our Molly turning a ripe old two years old and getting bigger and stronger every day!

Kindergarten Jitters

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Claire having a good moment at school.

Claire has had a tough couple of weeks since starting kindergarten.  It’s strange, because she actually likes her teacher a lot.  And the other kids are fine.  And she is doing okay while in school, for the most part.  The teacher did ask her not to wear her new Twinkle Toes shoes because they are distracting her.

For one thing, Claire says she does not like Extend-A-Care.  She is the only kid in her class who goes to Extend-A-Care.  Extend-A-Care itself seems okay when I pick her up, but apparently, every other student in her class else has a parent or a big sibling or nanny to pick them up right after school (this is amazing to me).  Claire is 1 of 22 who goes to Extend-a-Care, and she is all by herself when the kids split up to go home at the end of the day.  I can understand how that would be a bad feeling.

And Claire is definitely “off” at home in the evening.  I think she is exhausted from the early mornings and the new environment and all the new rules.  By the late afternoon and evening, she is really wiped out.  In the evenings, Claire is always at the extremes.  She either mumbling or screaming, acting silly or crying, wiggling around or laying down flat on the floor, cuddling up to you or running away.

These have actually been some of the toughest weeks we have ever had with poor Claire, who is also asserting herself, you could say.  She has discovered the joy of not doing what we ask her to do, even if it is something she has done 100 times before.  She is basically rebelling, and she is driving us a little crazy, I must admit.  But mostly we feel bad for her.  She is struggling through a big transition, and hopefully with some patience and understanding, we can help her through it.  I sure hope so, anyways.  🙂

It’s Kindergarten!

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Today, Claire entered the brave new world of kindergarten!

The morning went pretty smoothly.  Claire has been waking up around 6:45 for a few weeks now, so that put her on kindergarten time right off the bat.  Claire was in a good mood and ready to roll.  We were out of the house in plenty of time and at the classroom at 7:35, 10 minutes early.  Grammy and Granddaddy were in town, which was good for Molly, who has been waking up between 7:30 and 8:00 most days.  She got to sleep in and have a nice slow breakfast with her grandparents while Claire, Kit, and I were wading through the mass of kids and cars up at Claire’s new elementary school.

One of the nice things about the new early 7:40 drop-off time is that Kit can drop Claire off at school pretty regularly and still get to work on time.  Kit is excited to see more of Claire regularly in the mornings. I am excited too since I will not have to rush around town quite as much on those mornings.

Anyways, the classroom was already awfully crowded with excited kids and parents when we showed up.  Claire was familiar with her classroom and her new teacher from an open house the previous Friday, which she enjoyed but had been a little scared to be left there alone.  Kit and I explored the classroom with Claire and helped her find her desk.  Before we knew it, the final bell was ringing and the teacher was subtly shooing the parents out of the room.  Claire seemed nervous and a little clingy but held herself together as we left.  Kit did not have quite as much luck holding herself together and teared up a bit a we walked down the hall away from the classroom.  I did not expect to feel sad myself — just excited — but I did feel a little lump in the throat as we walked away like we had 1000 times before in daycare.  But this was different than daycare.  Elementary school was so much bigger, and bustling with the rush of nearly 900 students arriving at exactly the same time.  After the tardy bell rang, and all the kids were in their classes, the halls got quite very suddenly, filled only with somber parents hurrying off to work.  There was also a fair number of “exercise moms”, breezy moms donned in jogging gear who stayed to chat with each other for a while.  I think I heard two of them making plans to meet for coffee.  We did not have exercise moms at daycare since it was populated entirely by working parents.

Grammy came along to pick up Claire in the afternoon.  Kit would, much to her regret, not be able to pick Claire up in the afternoons except when she was on vacation.  Anyways, Claire is the only kid from her class in extend-a-care.  Even though it goes on until 5:30, we picked her up around 3:15, largely out of impatience to see her and to hear about her day.  When we saw her in the cafeteria, Claire looked red and nervous and unhappy.  Claire would later explain that she liked kindergarten and had a fun day in class.   She liked her teacher, who was really nice and not mean at all.  But she was confused about going to extend-a-care, and she was scared that we would not be able to find her.  She was really scared that she might just be left there.  That must have been a terrifying feeling for a kid.  I was a little surprised this was an issue since we had picked her up every day without fail from daycare, I had explained extend-a-care to Claire ahead of time, but I guess it was still weird getting separated form her classmates and taken off to the cafeteria.  Of course, I assured Claire that me or Mom would always come get her every day, and we would find her no natter where she was.  And she could always ask a teacher if she was confused or lost for any reason.  This seemed to help, but it was a tough ending for a big day.

Claire’s teacher, Ms. B, sent out a nice note to all the parents that evening, starting…

Congratulations on surviving your first day of Kindergarten:):)  We had such an amazing and busy day!  Time flew by and as many of the monkeys said, ‘I’m hungry’, ‘I’m tired’, and the best ‘I never knew Kindergarten lasted so long!’.  As I’m sure you are noticing your child is probably exhausted.  Please be sure they are getting plenty of sleep because we will continue to be super busy the rest of this week…

She ended her note with a well crafted hint to not storm the classroom too early like we did today.

See you tomorrow at 7:40 (my door will be shut until then to prepare for the day).

Besides the extend-a-care hiccup, it was a good start to “real” school.

Kindergarten Reservations

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On Monday, Claire will start kindergarten, thus kicking off what we hope to be a solid 13-year career in Austin public education.  Including Molly’s future career, this is the start of 16 years of getting people to school on a strict schedule at 7:45 am.  No more wandering into day care between 8:00 and 9:00, depending on how things are going that morning.  And then there are all the many, many days off, which will no doubt turn into many, many babysitters, grandparent visits, and summer/winter/spring-break camps.  Okay, enough about my own reservations about this whole process… Let’s move on to Claire’s!

Actually, Claire is pretty excited about kindergarten but has two main reservations.  The first is missing her friends at day care.  Claire is well aware that she will not see most of her daycare friends again, and it makes her a little sad.  I know this because she told me, “I know I won’t see my day care friends any more, and that makes me sad”.  (I am very insightful.)  One daycare friend is luckily coming to Claire’s elementary school, but in a different classroom.  The rest of the old friends gradually faded away over the last weeks of summer camp back at day care.  Claire was just about the last of the core friends left by the end of the summer.  It was really a sad process to watch even from a relative distance.

Claire’s other reservation is that “In kindergarten, you have to listen really well.  If you don’t listen, you get in trouble.  I’m afraid sometimes I won’t listen”, she said tentatively.  I’m not sure where this fear comes from, I guess a “warning” about big, mean kindergarten from a teacher or a fellow student back at day care.

Here is another one… Claire is excited that she will learn to read in kindergarten.  I told her one night as we were reading before bedtime that she will learn to read some books all by herself in kindergarten.  She won’t have to always depend on Kit and me to read everything to her.  She liked the idea, but she emphasized that she did not want to read to herself for bedtime.  She still wanted her Mom and Dad to read to her every night.  Kit and I assured her we would not stop reading to her once she learned to read to herself.

Judging from today’s open house, Claire is also somewhat afraid of being left at kindergarten and not being picked up.  This morning, all kids and parents were invited to come see their classroom and meet their new teacher.  Claire liked the open house but kept a close eye on me and Kit to make sure we weren’t leaving her there.  Today Claire would get to come home and play with Grammy, who was in town for a few days, but Monday it would be a different story.  Claire understood she would stay at school without us next week, but she was not ready to be left there alone just yet!

Last Day of Daycare

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Claire finished her daycare career today.  On Monday, she moves on to kindergarten at elementary school!

It has been sort of a sad end to daycare, as her friends have gradually slipped away one after another week by week over the course of the summer.  We will keep up with some of the old friends as much as possible, but Claire knows things will not be the same again, and it understandably makes her a little uneasy.

Anyways, Claire’s final day in daycare was a half-day that revolved around the completion of her swimming class.  She had to swim across the width of the deep 9-foot deep pool, as opposed to the shallow 4-foot pool they normally use.  Thanks largely to this swimming course, Claire is able to swim a little bit now, but she chose to cross the deep pool with the aid of a foam “noodle”.  Using the noodle, she swam so quickly and confidently I would not have guessed it was even her from a couple of months ago.  She got to the other side and received her gold medal for completion of the course.  She was really proud and beaming with a huge smile.

We then headed back to the school to sign Claire out for the last time and pick up Molly, who was finishing lunch.  Molly is moving up the the Little Lambs class down the hall from her old classroom, with the same friends as before.  So she is a little bit in her sister’s shadow today, but even moving down the hall is a big change too.

Claire’s last sign out

Due to their changing lunch situations (Claire buying lunch at school for $2.15 — yes! — and Molly outgrowing her tiny old lunch box), we are also retiring the trusty old Wizard of Oz lunch boxes that have clanged their way through the halls of daycare the last year or so.  Here is a picture in memorial.

The well-worn lunch boxes of the last year

Kangaroos’ Gathering

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While Claire and I were off in Houston swimming, Kit kept Molly back in Austin, due to work and several  social engagements.  One such engagement was the end-of-the-year gathering for Molly’s pre-school class, the Kangaroos.  Apparently everyone had a great time cooling off at the splash pad.

Won’t Eat Again

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Molly has generally been eating well the last few weeks.  But on her daily note at school today, we got a reminder of what things had been like for so long, when Molly often did not care to have anything to do with food.  Here is her daily note.

Under “For Lunch I ate”, you can see that she ate nothing at all, declining noodles, beans, and apple sauce.  She apparently did help herself to a bit of water, though, so at least she was hydrated.

That’s My Little Sister!

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Claire loves to show off her cute little sister, Molly, to her friends at school.  When I pick Claire up from school in the afternoon, she usually says, “Can you go get Molly first?”  When I produce Molly a few minutes later, a group of Claire’s friends enthusiastically gather around her.  They love to get Molly to repeat their names.  Molly quietly works through the crowd, taking a crack at Charlotte, Ivan, Ella, Elke, and all the rest.  The girls love when Molly says their name, or even gets close.  At this point, Molly remembers some of their names and will say them without prompting, especially Ella and Elke.  They also love to hug Molly, and sometimes they want to pick her up, although usually I draw the line there.  Eventually Molly wears down from all the attention and has to withdraw to my arms, with her face in my shoulder.  Sometimes this affection can be too much all at once.

Claire seems to enjoy this outpouring of affection more than Molly does.  Claire is so proud to have Molly as her little sister, and she never tires of showing her off around school.

Hugs All Around

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When Claire’s class comes in from the playground at school, they pass through the “activity room”, which is a shared, open space that different classes use throughout the day for things like gymnastics or just some indoor play time.  Apparently today, as Claire and her friends came through the activity room, they discovered Molly in there with her class.  Claire ran over and gave Molly a big hug.  Several of Claire’s friends also thought that looked like a good idea, and maybe they should give Molly a hug too.  Eventually,  Molly’s teacher had to seal off an area around Molly to protect her from the horde of hugging friends.

“No more hugs, people!  Nothing to see here!” I imagine the teaching saying.

Molly does have many fans among Claire’s friends, but she usually doesn’t have to deal with them all at once.