The Unicorn and the Penguin

On the Tuesday after Memorial Day, Idlewild Children's Center promotes its students to the next classroom. Finally- both my kids at the same school! What a wonderful year this will be!

Over the course of the last month or so, I've been taking Chloe in the Unicorn Room to get a feel for the surroundings and the fabulous teachers. Last week we went every day, and I would leave her as I took Connor to his classroom. She cried the first couple of times, but was over it by the end of the week. That made Tuesday super-easy! She did the obligatory reaching and whining as I said "bye" and walked out the door, but turned it off as soon as I was out of sight. I think she was just trying to make me feel good about our relationship. When I picked her up I was told that she ate all of her lunch, including an extra half of a turkey sandwich (in addition to the whole she had already eaten), had slept for two hours without the help of the pacifier, and didn't cry once. When I walked in, instead of jumping into my arms, she hopped up and started pointing at things and animatedly telling me about the classroom and her day. Here's hoping they teach her some words in this class- she really wants to communicate.

Note: Those of you with sharp eyes probably noticed that's not a picture of Chloe. For reasons explained over at Urf!, I didn't get a picture of her on her first day at Idlewild. So there's a picture of Connor on his first day as a Unicorn instead. Isn't that shirt cute? I handed it down to a friend, and saw him in it just last week and said, "Connor wore that his first day in a new class!" I've already forgotten what Chloe wore Tuesday. Let's hope it was clean.

To make up for it, I'll put a picture of her gorgeous hair in Connor's paragraph. At least the parts of her life we do manage to document are recorded in much higher quality.


Connor's first day as a Penguin (Forensic Scientist? It's been documented that I think they gave up too quickly once they got to the 3- and 4-year-old class names.) did not go as smoothly. For one thing, I knew he'd had no lunch- turkey sandwiches? Please. Then before we had even left the building he said, "I cried about you at nap time. I thought you would come get me." We had never discussed that as a possibility, but apparently he didn't like his new surroundings or teachers and just wanted to leave. In the car he said that the new teacher (of the two, he already knows one) was nice, but he still didn't like her. Connor is just scared of everything these days, even a move along with all his friends to a classroom two feet away. By Wednesday afternoon he was much more comfortable, although still a little clingy. It still made me sad on Tuesday, though.

But did I mention this took 15 minutes off my commute? Woohoo!