You Can Leave Me Here Mommy...

We decided to make a change in Laina's childcare and so today, she started over at "big girl school". She's been with 2 of her daycare buddies since she was four months old so I was a little concerned about how the transition was going to go. Last week Joe and I sat her down in the living room and told her that we think its time that she go to school for bigger girls now and we were all prepared for her to say "no way, no how" and what we got was "ok, can I go play now mommy". All last week and over the weekend she just kept talking about going off to big girl school. The most precious thing she said was "what are my new friends names going to be mommy". I just love the innocence of just knowing that everyone in that new classroom is going to be your new friend. When does that change? It's not like if you tell a 7th grader that you're moving and they are going to a new school they just say to you "what are my new friends names going to be" right? When do we lose that innocence?

So today was the big day. I planned a week of transition visits figuring Laina and I would visit together for the first few days and then next week she could stay there on her own. Well she had a great time today. She painted a cookie for Santa, played dress up, did a bunch of cooking, cut up pieces of paper at the sensory table, enjoyed lunch, met lots of great new friends and the best part - her new school has this huge indoor gym and when its too cold to play outside the kids can go run around in the gym and climb on the rock wall and the climbing toys. It was fabulous. We stayed through lunch and then when the kids went down for nap, we left to come home. My non-napper has been up in her bed for the past two hours napping. I think her new school tired her out! So I asked Laina if she wanted me to come back with her to visit more and she said "you can leave me here mommy". I guess she's handling this transition thing pretty well.

Here are a couple of cute shots of the Queen Bee...