Nursery school report.

[rivka]

You were right. Alex was fine. Her only tears of the morning came when I put sunscreen on her before we left.

As we wheeled the stroller out of the house, she said excitedly, "I'm going to have a CUBBY!" I'm not sure why that was the pinnacle of nursery school anticipation, but obviously we weren't going to argue.

We took a couple of pictures in the alley behind the church:





She picked out that backpack herself, and is very excited to have a backpack of her own, "just the right size for me." She's never seen Thomas the Tank Engine, so to her it's just a backpack with a picture of a train.

We went in to her classroom. Within about two seconds, she was hard at work at the Play-Doh table.





There were three other little girls already there, and one teacher. I think that they were expecting two more kids and one more teacher for the day. New kids will be added to the class gradually - right now, her future classmates haven't all turned two yet. Ultimately, the class will be reasonably balanced between boys and girls.

Michael and I stayed for about fifteen minutes. Alex played with Play-Doh for a while. A couple of the other little girls got interested in a toy farm, and Alex went over to investigate the bin of animals that they were unpacking. She lined some animals up on a table. Then she drifted back to the Play-Doh. Michael and I wandered around the room checking out all of the toys: a book corner, a very nice play kitchen, a bookcase full of big trucks and cars, a dress-up box, some building toys (blocks and duplos), a dollhouse, a big toy barn and a couple of bins of realistically detailed plastic animals (farm and wild)... pretty much all the greatest hits of what Alex likes to play with.

Eventually it became obvious that we weren't needed. I knelt down by Alex and explained that we were going to leave, and would pick her up later when nursery school was all done. She had just a moment of... concern, I guess - a sort of a whimper and a worried look. I gave her a big hug. By the time that Michael knelt down to get his hug, she was already reaching for a rhythm shaker she'd seen on the shelf behind her. We slipped out the door while Alex and her teacher were exploring the shaker together.

We hung out in the hall for about five minutes, chatting with the director. I asked her to peek in the classroom and make sure that Alex was okay. She came back with the report that Alex was happily playing in the kitchen area, and so we left. We went to a cafe and held each others' hands and reassured each other that everything would be Just Fine.

In about an hour we'll pick her up. Starting next week, she'll be going for three full days a week - but the director recommended half-days the first week, and that made sense to us.

She was totally ready for this.

Comments

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!

BTW, I do believe that my partner, midnightstation may have designed that backpack. His company used to have the Thomas the Train Engine licesnse but I don't know if that design is post his company or not. I want to find out though. What a hoot :)

N.

[samtosha.livejournal.com]

WOOHOOOO. Great news for all of you. WHEW!

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Whee!

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Whew! Yay!

Oh, and that first picture of Alex? With the little sunglasses? Ded. From. Cute.

[cchopps.livejournal.com]

So cute!!!

[jenett]

Seriously very cute kid. (I'm so with Janet on the photo with the sunglasses.)

It is excellent this went so smoothly.

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

How wonderful.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

*smile*

It's good to see her so engrossed in her work.

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

ZOMG I love that first photo. Your daughter is fabulous.

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay!

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That's terrific.

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Awwwww!

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Wow! It's hard to believe she's only two. I think of two year olds as just toddlers, but she's looking like a kindergardener there.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Another big milestone for her. She ought to be congratulated on her parents ;-)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Wonderful!

And that second picture should be framed; it's terrific! The first one is amazing, but the second one tells such a story! :)

[carandol.livejournal.com]

It reminds me of Aragorn coming through the big doors at Meduseld in The Two Towers movie... small hero, big task ahead! :-)

[carandol.livejournal.com]

Oo, gosh! And I wonder if we're related... (real name Ken Walton!) :-)

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

*laugh* Perfect!

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

My married name. Do you have any relatives in/from Newton, Kansas? :)

[iamjw.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad to hear this.

And cubbies are totally cool! You can put your stuff in them and nobody will bother it (well, theoretically) and when you get an attack of the sillies they're usually big enough that you can go stand in them and jump out at people, and when you're having one of *those* days, you can just kind of go and hang out in your cubby and watch everyone else. *nods* Yup, we should all have cubbies in our day.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

All I could think looking at that picture was "but ... she's so tiny!"

In stature, that is. In spirit, she's obviously ready to be a Big Girl.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Now I'll never look at Thomas the same way again. ;-)

[carandol.livejournal.com]

All my Walton relatives are from in and around Lancaster, England. So if there's a connection, I suspect it's a while ago!

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The door is an unreasonably large door - it's the outside security door for the non-sanctified end of a church. She does look ludicrously tiny beside it, doesn't she?

But yeah, she thought she could push it open "by self." She's that big on the inside.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

It's practically an iconic first-day-of-school photo. A keeper, for sure.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

That first picture could be in the "fashion on the street" section of the WashPost! Sounds like a great start!

[dafna]

Those first two photos are awesome. So exciting. I feel nostalgic for my nursery school.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

She's that big on the inside.

I love that expression.

But ... it looks like a door that you push from the inside. And I don't see a window in it. So the picture almost makes me worry that someone is going to rush out and knock Alex down because they can't see her.

I guess that makes me a mum, eh?

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It does make you a mum, yes. :-)

What you can't easily tell from the picture is that the door was propped open a few inches. So anyone coming out would have seen Alex standing there.

This church is also used for Meals on Wheels (a meal delivery/social contact program for homebound adults) during the week, so there are a lot of people coming in and out.