Pre-School BFFs

M has a girlfriend. A BFF type of girlfriend. For anonymity purposes let's call this girlfriend, Julie. Julie and M are attached at the hip throughout the school day (or so I have been told). Every time I go to pick M up from school she and Julie are sitting basically on top of each other on the benches outside. At M's birthday party last weekend Julie was by her side the entire time. Julie was basically the only child at the party that M interacted with, because to M, Julie is the bees knees.

A few weeks ago M brought home a picture that Julie had drawn of the two of them "dancing on top of mountains," M said. Please, see the masterpiece below. As you can see M is the one in purple with the unruly curly hair. In my opinion, Julie nailed it.

This past Monday M brought home a whole stack of artwork. I was very excited because she rarely brings any work home from school, and I wanted to see how her drawing has progressed. The first drawing I saw was this lovely picture of two similar stick figures as you see above. "Did you draw this M?"

"No, Julie did. She gave it to me."

The second was another drawing of the two stick figures doing something else..."and this one?"

"Julie did this too."

Turns out everything she brought home was drawn by Julie, who for 4 years old is a damn good artist if you ask me. And every drawing was of the two girls doing something together. It was hysterical. But honestly I wanted to see what M had been drawing because I can't get her to draw anything but rainbows at home. 

And then yesterday we had ballet, which Julie also takes after school. When Julie walked into the waiting area M jumped up and screamed, "Julie! Oh, Julie! I missed you so much!" in her perfect Fancy Nancy dramatic voice. They had just seen each other 30 minutes before class at school. 

And there they stood, hand in hand, waiting for the class to begin. It was the cutest thing I had ever seen. 

I finally got to meet Julie's mom and discovered that Julie has actually been bringing home M's artwork instead of her own. Turns out the girls just give each other whatever they create in class. 

Adorable. 

It's funny because I have never seen them actually talk to each other. Just the occasional "hello" or "come over here" or "bye." They just like being near each other, and apparently giving each other beautiful artwork. 

So simple, so beautiful. Makes me smile!

We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do!

I did something this morning that I never thought I would do. I put a sticker with M's school logo on my car window. I am that mom - driving a black SUV with two car seats and toys and goldfish littering the floor, empty Starbucks cups in the many cup holders, and now sporting a school logo sticker on the window...and I am proud of it.

I have always judged those people who put school name stickers on their car. Ok, so you or someone in your family went to U Conn, or you may have visited it and picked up a sticker and randomly slapped it on your car. I think no different of you. Or there are the people that have 4-5

Ok. Now you are just bragging. 

school stickers on their car ranging from elementary schools to college. Yes, you are proud of where your kid went to school, but I don't know you and I don't need to know your family history while I drive behind you. It doesn't bother me that they are proud of where they went to school of course, I just don't understand why people have to advertise it on their cars. Are you really not able to distinguish your Subaru from other Subaru's in the parking lot without your school stickers?

Ok, so at the root of this rant is this - jealousy. I have never felt allegiance to a school that I attended, or so much pride about having attended that school that I need to show off that school logo. I have never gone back to my high school for Homecoming or other alumni events. I don't really read the Alumni Magazine (who needs these now that we have Facebook anyhoo!) Sure I meet up with my closest friends when I go home for holidays, but that is about the extent of it. I was even a cheerleader in high school - the epitome of school spirit - and as soon as I left for college I didn't really look back.

I went to Boston College and right now, I live about 10 minutes away from the campus where I spent 4 very memorable years. When is the last time I went back? 8 years ago. Do I own any BC clothing? I think I might have one t-shirt from college days. Do I ever watch the sporting events on tv? No. Do I care about the sports teams at BC? Nope. Do I want my kids to go to college there? I really don't care. Don't get me wrong, I had a wonderful time there, and the friends I made there I will have till the end, but I don't have any school pride when it comes to BC.

you will never find me in BC colored ballet flats.
Although I will say they are damn cute. 

I have friends that hang BC flags outside their home. They bring their kids to the football games. Their kids have BC clothing. They have BC license plates. They have BC grill covers. They know their kids will be going to BC, because to them, there is no other school. This I cannot understand.

I wish I could feel that way about where I went to school, but I don't.

But as a parent the situation is totally different. Sure it is just pre-school, but I am totally proud to share with everyone where M goes to school! I have drank the Montessori kool-aid and I want to tell you all about it (in another post to come)! But first I will start with this sticker on my car.

Why? Why would the woman that judges other people for advertising where their kids go to school place an ad on her own car? Because I am proud to be a parent of a child at M's school! I love everyone that works there. I love that M loves to go to school each morning. I love who M has become because of her school, and her teachers. I want other people to feel that same way about their kid's school, and possibly send their kid to the same school.

Wait...is this what all those crazies with school stickers on their car think too?

Lightbulb!!

Call me crazy now too.

I do promise to never have a bumper sticker on my car telling you that my child is an honor roll student. That will just be a given.

Tales From Preschool: What To Believe

(All the names in this post have been changed to protect the innocent (ha) children at M's school) 

As a parent you want to believe that your child is always telling the truth. My oldest has a very active imagination, and a ridiculously good memory. She can act out a scene from a show or movie after just watching it once. So I am not really sure if some of the things she says actually happened or if they are something she heard on television. Occasionally she will complain about aches and pains only for me to later find out it is something she heard in an episode of Doc McStuffins.

So sometimes when she tells me stories about her school day I am not sure what to believe, especially when she tells them differently to my husband later in the day.

A few weeks ago she got in the car at pick-up and was visibly upset. I asked her what was wrong and she said "my teacher yelled at me because I hit someone." My heart sank. She is hitting kids at school? So I asked her to tell me exactly what happened, and she went on to explain that she hit a girl at the end of the day and then her teacher came over and told her not to hit people. I told her that her teacher is right, and she should always keep her hands to herself. Later that evening my husband and I talked to her and tried to get more details about the occurrence. This time she told us she hit a boy. When I asked her to tell me who the boy was, she then said it wasn't a boy, it was her teacher that she hit.

I emailed her teacher to find out exactly what happened, and she told me that M didn't actually hit anyone maliciously. When they were lining up to go outside for pick-up, M happen to cut the line and while doing so nudged a boy already in line and her teacher told her that they don't do that, and she needed to get in the back of the line. Of course my child freaks out when anyone reprimands her, but why would she tell me that she hit someone when she didn't?

My favorite story was when she came home and told me that "Peter tried to marry me at school today! But Sally said there is no kissing at school." Cue the look of shock on my face. "Say that again?" She went on to tell me that Peter likes her, and he tried to kiss her at school, but kissing boys is yucky (other than daddy of course), and Sally yelled and said that we can't kiss at school. And so it begins...

But the latest story has me even more perplexed.

I went to take her ice packs out of her lunch box and noticed they weren't there. I asked M where they were and she looked at me with this guilty face and said, "we have to get new ones mom." So I of course asked her to explain what happened. " Jane took them. So we have to get new ones." Huh? I told her that no, we are not going to get new ones, she needs to ask Jane to give them back. I went on to explain that we don't let people touch or take our personal things, like ice packs. She then said to me, "I'm sorry Mama, but Jane said they are hers now." OMG.

Is this true? Did this girl really steal my kids ice packs? I thought Jane was a friend of M's? Is she really a bully? Am I dealing with bullies in preschool??? Did this even happen? Or did M just happen to leave them at school and she is now making up this elaborate cover story. Did she accidentally throw them out?

I was so tempted to email Jane's mother and find out if she had them (which of course I wouldn't be mad about) just because I am so curious if M is telling the truth or not! But I did the right thing and contacted her teacher about this today to try and get to the bottom of Ice Pack-gate.

I will report back with the findings when I hear from her teacher. Sorry to leave you with such a cliffhanger! It is like an episode of Homeland up in here!! :)

This isn't college...it's preschool

Warning: this is a long one ;)

Harvard cares about pre-schools right? Wrong.

I will never forget a conversation I had with a friend 2 years ago - our daughters are exactly the same age (1 at the time) and she was already applying and interviewing at some of the prestigious Boston pre-schools. I remember thinking "you have got to be kidding me!" when she told me how much the school was going to cost per year, and judging her for even thinking about sending her child somewhere where there was an application "process" much simliar to applying to college. I will never send my child somewhere like that! She can't even talk! It is pre-pre-pre-school?! I won't care where my daughter goes, as it really isn't even real school yet! I am going to send them to the cheapest most convenient school possible - they won't remember their time there, and I sure as hell don't think it will make an impact on the rest of their lives...is what I was thinking...

Well, fast forward two years and here I am running to the mailbox every day frantically searching for acceptance letters from Boston area pre-schools.

I didn't think I would be in this situation. Last year we decided to send M to a local pre-school, which reminded me of Sunnyside Daycare from Toy Story 3; bright and colorful, kids laughing and playing, fun art projects, nice teachers, etc.. We had planned to keep her there for at least 2 years, and then apply to private schools that have pre-school programs, in and around Boston, for the remainder of her schooling (why private is a whole other post for later.) She started camp there last summer, and after a day or two of clinginess she was walking right into the classroom and telling me to leave. I assumed we had found a great fit.

Every day I would pick her up and the teachers would tell me "she had a great day today!" so I went along thinking all was well. Then we were called into the office in October. The head of the school explained to us that M doesn't play with the other kids, but only plays by herself. Ok, she is not even 3 yet, that is normal, right? We were asked if she talks at home...yes, she talks all the time (she had talked before she started school, but since going to school she talks well beyond her age and we have a hard time shutting her up at home.) To our great surprise we were told by the teachers that she only says 3 words while at school. And that she gets upset when asked to do anything...and that they are focusing a large part of their time on getting her to listen or follow directions...and...well, the list went on.

At the time, we knew that she was behind the kids as far as gross motor skills were concerned, so we followed the advice of her current school administrators given at that October meeting and put her in physical therapy at MGH. Within weeks she had improved by leaps and bounds, and I could immediately see her becoming a more confident little lady. I thought all was good...until we were called into the office again in January.

Again we were told that our energetic, playful, creative little princess, who does not stop talking or singing at home is totally shutting down at school. She still wasn't talking much in the classroom, still not playing with the other kids, and was still not following directions. Her teachers had never once indicated that any of this was still going on...I just kept getting the "she had a great day today!" report when I would pick her up. It was at this point that my husband and I decided we needed to find a different school for her - one where she is comfortable enough to let her personality shine.

We immediately started to research Montessori schools, as well as some private schools that had pre-pre-school programs. For all of these schools the applications were due a week after we had that last meeting with schools so we were scrambling like mad people filling out applications, scheduling visits, scheduling evaluations for M at each school. We had found a school that we really loved (non-Montessori), we felt like our interviews and assessments went incredibly well, and we seriously had no doubt that we were going to get in. That was until we got the small envelope with the rejection letter in it.

You would have thought M had gotten rejected from Harvard. I was in tears, my husband was distraught. We wondered what we did wrong? Should we have called in some favors (we knew a few parents of current students there)? Did something happen while M was being evaluated in the classroom? Did I say something wrong at one of the meetings? Was I trying too hard when talking with the Head of Admissions? Did the evaluation from her current school put the nail in the coffin for us? (We are pretty sure that is what happened...but we will never know for sure)

So we move on...it is pre-school for crying out loud. And cry out loud I did when we didn't get into that school. But I am hormonal and cry at everything these days...that is another blog post.

We got in everywhere else we applied, and have narrowed it down to two Montessori schools. I am actually excited about the chance to send her to a Montessori school, somewhere so different than her current school. I am hoping she thrives in the Montessori atmosphere and can be who she is at home, at school. But we will have to see if that is the case.

Now I am having anxiety over choosing which of the two schools to send her to. I keep going back and forth thinking in my head, picturing her at each of the schools, making a list of pros and cons for each school: (I will refer to them as school A and school B)

- Both are equidistant from our current house, but there is a chance that we might move to the town where school B is within the next year.
- School A was our favorite out of the Montessori schools we visited.
- We like the way school A tracks the kids during their independent time and encourages them to try new things often.
- We really liked the admissions director at school A, but in all honesty we won't have much interaction with her going forward.
- At school B the classrooms themselves are much newer and bigger.
- There are the same amount of kids (approximately 20) at each school, but there are more classrooms for the 3-6 year olds at school A (6) than there are at school B (4). This just means that when it is recess there are a lot more kids on the playground at school A - M does not do well in large groups of kids and I feel like this might overwhelm her.
- At school B each classroom has a pet that the kids care for, which I really like
- Each of the classrooms at school B have outdoor space, and the kids can utilize it whenever they want
- School B is right next to a preservation where the kids plant and grow things and spend a lot of time when the weather is nice. School A has a pond down the street that the kids visit when it is warm out.
-  School A has a wonderful reputation and is a prestigious school (at least I think of it that way)
- I got more of a hippie dippie vibe from school B, but I am not saying that is a bad thing - just felt a little more laid back and relaxed
- School B is much more convenient, in terms of location, for me to pick her up and head down to RI to see my parents while they are up here this summer - assuming M will be in summer camp at one of these two schools
- School A is significantly more expensive that school B

In true Mom fashion though I think about this all day long. I made the decision to send her to her current school, where she crawls into a metaphorical hole by herself each day it seems. I feel so guilty about making the decision to send her there (I was adamant about her going there and didn't even let my husband research other schools as I thought it was a perfect fit - boy was I wrong!) that I don't want to be responsible for making this decision, for fear it will be the wrong decision. Isn't that terrible? I will be the main parent when it comes to her school though - I will be dropping her off and picking her up. I will probably be on some sort of parent board. I will get to know her teachers the best. I need to be a big part of making this decision, which of course I will be...and like I said, she will only be there for a year or two, tops.

I am sure she will be fine wherever she goes. She has been a different kid when we visited these two schools. Talking to teachers, playing with other kids...there is just something about her current school that makes her clam up. To be a fly on the wall!

One of the schools (I will not mention which one) that we are deciding between M seems to like more than the other. I am sure it is because she has been there twice, as opposed to the other school just once, but each morning when I get her in the car to drive to her current school she actually asks to go to the new school, and subsequently starts to convince me that her current school is closed and we NEED to go to the other school.

Huh, maybe my decision is being made for me.

Stay tuned...

Cool for School: Lunch for the Picky Eater

I used to brag on here that M was an adventurous eater. She would eat bits of whatever we were having at meal time and she would woof it up all by herself. I felt sorry for those parents who were making chicken fingers and PB&Js all the time for their picky eaters, as I was whipping up a roasted beet salad for M. I should have known that my kid would be just like every other 2 year old out there - a picky eater.Now I am lucky if she eats 1/100 of what is on her plate. Doesn't matter whether it is chicken fingers, or grilled pork...the kid hardly ever eats. She will have one or two days a week where she eats non-stop, and then the other 5 days she eats like a freaking bird. No matter what I make she will pick at it for a few minutes and then tell me "all done. I want to go play."

When it came time to pack her lunch for camp this summer, and now pre-school, I was terribly nervous about what to put in her lunch box. She would be away from home for 4 hours, and wouldn't be able to ask for 100 different things like she does at home (all of which she has one bite of of course.) What if she hated what I sent for a snack and was starving? And then hated what I packed her for lunch and threw a fit? This gave me more anxiety than actually dropping her off at school!

So I did research, as I have mentioned here on the blog (see this post and follow me on pinterest as I have a board about toddler food ideas), and decided to go the route of the Bento box lunch - lots of little compartments for lots of little snacks, instead of the traditional sandwich-and-sides lunch route.

M seems to be digging this whole idea too, as she comes home with an empty lunch box every school day. So I figured I would share some of my lunch ideas on a weekly basis to inspire all you moms making lunch for your kiddies! I would love to hear what you are packing these days (for lunch, not heat :) as I am always looking for something new to try...

Here are some of her lunches from last week!

Goldfish, mini carrots, cheese cubs, rotisserie chicken, grapes and yogurt pretzels

Turkey and American cheese, veggie chips, oranges and gummy fruits

Kiwi, mandarin oranges, goldfish, strawberries, bananas with peanut butter, and turkey and cheese

Cool for School: Part One (Mental Preparation)

There are certain things in your child's life that you look forward to: the first smile, the first giggle...we were dying for M to walk, which she didn't do until around 19 months (much later than all her friends.) There are certain things in your child's life that you know you have to do, but the idea of them is so unappealing you would rather get a root canal. Potty training is one of those things (as Coco Baby Mama talked about in her article last week) for me, so I have yet to actually get my butt in gear and seriously start training her. Moving her to the big girl bed was one of these things too - but after a few days of putting her back in bed for two hours it ended up not being as big a deal as I had made it out to be. I fear potty training will not be as easy as the big girl bed transition by any means.

At the top of this list of things I dread has been dropping off M at school for the first time. Since she was born I have pretty much been with her every day of her life. Sure my husband and I have gone on vacation, but no longer than 3 nights, and she was with my parents (who at most times I think she likes more than my husband and I). She has been left with a babysitter with no problem too, but never has she been left in a strange place with strange people for an extended amount of time, so I was absolutely sick to my stomach about having to drop her off at school some day.

When we started looking at schools this past winter we knew that we wanted to get her in somewhere that had a summer program, so that she could get acclimated to the new school environment before the new baby comes in August. We found a lovely private pre-school (I guess they are all private at that age, no?) only a few minutes away from our house, that reminded me of Sunnyside Day Care from Toy Story 3 so I was sold from the first visit. They offered a 7 week summer program to ages 2.7+ so we signed her up immediately and set the start date (a week later than the other kids due to vacation last week) as this past Tuesday.

I think it was about 3 months ago that I started losing sleep over the fact that my baby would be going to "school" in a few months. How was my child, my little sidekick, going to react to being dropped off in a strange place for 4 hours, 3 days a week? I have a hard enough time getting her 2 year old self to listen to me, how is she going to listen to her teachers? How the hell was I to prepare her for this? How the hell was I to prepare myself for this??