School Report

December, you always escape me. I thought I was doing pretty well this year until I had the horrifying realization that Christmas is THIS WEEKEND. Oh, lordy. Unprepared, always unprepared. My holiday To-Do List is nowhere near completion. I have visions of cookie baking and gingerbread house making and doing Christmas-y crafts with Sody...but in reality, none of that is going to be happening in the next few days because of work. Plus, when you are broke you need to make your Christmas presents - actually, I still like to make presents when I am not broke - and that means finding the time to make Christmas presents, which is definitely hard to come by this year. It been a big, messy, busy month so far: my birthday and preschool parties and work parties and all of us getting sick at the same time and a short last minute trip to NJ for Joe because his grandma died. I think we are all a little exhausted already.

But I realized that in all the hubbub I have not yet done a report on what Sody thinks of preschool. She has a few weeks under her belt now and I would say so far it is going swimmingly. The first couple days were no trouble at all - dropped her off, she was ready for adventure, left us in the dust. After that, I think she started to realize this wasn't going to be a once-in-a-while adventure, so there was a little more trepidation (worse when I dropped her off than when Joe did, as neither she nor I wanted me to leave) but all in all she has been a total champ. The best is all the stuff she comes home with: the menorah finger painting and Kwaanza noodle necklace and glittery Christmas card she made. And the songs! She is singing us new songs she is learning, and I am eating them all up. My favorite thing is picking her up at the end of the day - I am never a worse driver than when I am going from my work to her school, all impatient and excited and zooming there too fast - and watching her play and interact before she realizes I am there. I get a teeny glimpse into her world without us. I want to know so much: does she like the kids there? do they like her? does she miss us? is she happy? did she eat her lunch? what did the teachers talk about today? did anyone try to take her baby doll? does she stand up for herself? does she share? etc etc etc.

Above all though, she seems to like it there. Thank God. Here are a couple of shots we took on the first day of school (she called her braids "Dorothy braids" as in Wizard of Oz) :