//www.youtube.com/get_playerHil and I believe we are deeply fortunate to be members of a co-op nursery school community. Arden has been a part of this community since she was six weeks old. She has attended nearly every single one of my parent duty days, she was the teaching baby in the Seeds of Empathy program that ran for the first time at the school last year, and she visits the school on a routine basis when I dropped Ruby off there on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Last week Arden had a first at the school. And here is what it was: when I dropped Ruby off at the school on Wednesday morning and then try to leave with Arden so that we could get on with her day which included a play date with some friends, she threw a fit. She was furious about the fact that she was leaving. She had every intention of staying at the school and enjoying her morning there. I had to correct my balance several times on my way out of the school because she made every effort to divebomb the floor and throw herself out of my arms.
I was fortunate enough to be leaving the school at the same time as a mom who's third child is in his first year at the school this year. She reassured me that this was a very common reaction for her to witness and that she had been through this many times with her third son when trying to extract him from the school after dropping off his older brother. He just did not want to go.
I take this as a very good sign of course. I am thrilled that she feels comfortable at the school and that she is keen to spend some more time there. I am already looking forward to the day when I can drop her off there for a two and a half hour stint in the morning and she can have her own experience in the school without me having to be there at all.
This short video is of Arden happily playing away at the school last Friday. I have recently begun putting her on the floor on her own and giving her the freedom to find her own toy or activity of interest. Of course, I am always nearby. The rest of the preschoolers can't always be relied upon to notice someone so small sitting on the floor when they are pretending to be firefighters or superheroes. But I am making a conscious effort to give her some space and let her explore. It is pretty amazing to watch her try things all on her own and to see her making an effort to interact with the other children at the school. It is quite clear that she is having a very fun time.
3 Ginger Snaps 