Preschool report

Well, Emily's been going to preschool five mornings a week for a full week now. And it seems to be going really well. She doesn't ever cry when I drop her off and is always in a good mood when I pick her up.

We have the most hilarious conversations when I pick her up at lunchtime. Getting information out of a two year old is, um, a challenge. But here's how it usually goes. First, she wants her lunch. "You have a cereal bar?" she asks. "You have milk?" Of course, Emily. Momma is prepared.

Then I ask her how was her day at school. A typical answer is, "Um, it was pretty good." So I ask her what she did. "Sing songs," she says, and I follow up and ask what songs. So far she's reported that they've sung The Itsy Bitsy Spider, The Wheels on the Bus, Jesus Loves Me, and some song that goes "deep and wide, deep and wide," if you're to believe Emily.

I ask her whether they had a snack. She reports that they had "cookies," sometimes accompanied by "goldfish crackers," and always washed down with an enthusiastic "lemonade!"

She says they play outside, and that her favorite thing outside is the swings. She also plays with toys. And they do crafts! (It's been so fun to have her come home several times a week with her artwork.)

On Thursdays and Fridays the kids have show and tell. Last week she brought her magic wand one day but, according to her, didn't get it out for show and tell. Rather, she left it in her bag "for safekeeping." This morning I let her pick out something to bring and she grabbed a yellow ball. On the way to school, we went over some prepared remarks (for the "tell" part of show and tell) about her ball; we discovered she knew four things about her ball: it is yellow, it is round like a circle, it has spikes, and it bounces. We recited these facts several times and I encouraged her to tell her friends all about it. Well, today on the way home, she insisted that she did not show and tell her yellow ball, despite our rehearsal of her speech.

Oh, and one last thing she tells me almost every day: that she "cried for my Mommy Danielle." (I think I may have planted this seed in her little brain: her teacher called the first week of school to make sure Emily was okay when she was a no-show for the first couple of days (bronchitis). The teacher said that around 11:30 on the first couple of days, a handful of kids ran out of steam and started crying. So, on her first day of attendance, I asked her if any kids cried, and she said, "the boys cried, and I cried!" I think she's full of bull, but this is what she reports.) Better still, one day she told me, "I cried so hard."

So, I'm raising a drama queen. Surprised?