Open House and the Switch

Yesterday was Back-to-School night, where parents go to school (apparently with children in tow) and talk to their children's teachers. A mercifully passed out after school yesterday, so our neighbor watched A while I went in. C was swamped at work and could not make it, which was a pity all around. I got to talk to his teacher and his speech teacher.

His teacher is, to quote a friend, "funny and formidable." She just turned 60. She loves the kids, loves doing art with them, and loves reading to them. There are so many books in that classroom that it almost made up for the unhappy fact that preschoolers don't have library privileges at school. Almost. I'm a little sensitive to library privileges.

But she explained to me what she likes to read to the kids and what kinds of stories she looks for, and I'm happy with her tastes and selections. She doesn't like to read down to them; she likes stories that have some theme or moral or meaning. The next unit they're going to do is folklore, starting with Anasazi stories and going through stories from around the world.

They had paintings up on the wall, each captioned by the child's reflection on his/her painting. A's painting said, "I paint for Mommy and Daddy." What a sweetie.

The good news is that A's being switched to the morning class starting Monday. This is really a blessing for us. The days have been hard--A hasn't settled into any set routine for naps. Sometimes he's been exhausted and passes out at 10:30AM, which is enough time (maybe) for a good nap before school, but leaves a long afternoon. Sometimes he's been exhausted and passes out on the way home from school, which is understandable but pushes bedtime back to 8-9PM, which is approaching my bedtime these days and cuts into C and my time together. Sometimes he refuses to sleep and ends up passing out at 5:30-6PM and sleeping until morning, which bypasses our whole bath/teeth/PJs bedtime routine and leads to earlier mornings.

So starting Monday, he'll be in the morning class. Aside from juggling his swimming classes, it'll be a lot better.