First comes love...: School Days: Practice Run

Lorelei started Montessori school part time a few weeks back. Before her first day, she was invited to come in for a few hours to see her classroom and meet her teachers and classmates. We took the opportunity to take some photos. Lorelei seems to do best when she knows what to expect so we made a book from the photos. The night before school, we look over her photos and talk about who she'll see at school and what they'll do and how much fun they'll have. I think it really helped her. I always ask, "Will you go to school tomorrow?" and she replies "Sure" all nonchalant-like. Then I'll say, "Will you see the kids" and we go through her friends names with her saying, "Yep" after each one. Then I say, "What will you do?" and she'll just say "Baby" which means she'll try to monopolize this very ugly baby that all the kids irrationally adore. And I'll say, "Will you share the baby?" and she'll pause and then go, "Mmmm" because she hasn't decided yet.

The teachers are amazed at how well she's adjusted. She has two teachers, Miss Reshma and Miss Crystal. Both have told me that they're impressed at how confident and independent she is for her age. In truth, I can't imagine they tell anyone they're shocked at how slow, unhappy and generally stupid their child is at school- but still. Both teachers marveled at our girl, on separate occasions. I'll admit it- we're pretty proud of our peanut. Anyway, it's particularly surprising given that she's really been a bit clingy lately. (We're guessing, though, that after she's used up all of her emotional energy during the day in this new environment that she's just needing extra snuggles at home to rebound from the stress and excitement of her day.) It's so wonderful to see her doing so well and genuinely enjoying her new adventure.

Here are some of the photos we took the day of our practice run.