School Anticipation

Tonight, I attended the Open House for our Parent's Day Out/Preschool programming which MS and YS will attend this year. MS was very excited to go and meet his new teacher, since he moved up to the 3 year old class. Thanks to Indiana's cut-off date, he was in the 2 year old class all last year even though he turned 3 a few weeks after the class began. YS will have to meet his teacher on the first traumatic day.

We had a wonderful time together. When we got in the van, MS noticed one of ES's clothes pins (from the CBLI tweens activity) on the floor. He picked it up and clipped it on to the side of his shirt and said, "I will tell my teacher that this pin reminds me that Jesus loves me!" It thrilled my heart to hear him retaining lessons from our time at CBLI.

Side note: ES also thrilled my heart in a similar way last night. He was having trouble going to sleep early and asked if he could watch TV. I told him to read in bed, instead. When I entered the room a half hour later to switch out his lights (he has a loft bed), he handed down three books to me. One was a guitar book, one was a book called E-mails from God for Teens, and the third was a Bible. So nice to see that the resounding impetus for our attendance at the camp is bearing fruit!

As we headed in the door, MS wanted to go into his old classroom. We were directed to his new room and he saw his name on the bulletin board. Inside, many parents and children were milling around and meeting his new teacher (isn't it horrible, I can't remember her name now - I want to say Miss Janice, but I can't remember clearly). At first MS gravitated towards the toys, but soon headed for the book shelf. We sat on the floor and read a few books (I did my typical eavesdropping on the teacher's conversation with other parents while trying to read and follow a book at the same time). I think MS will have a wonderful year.

Here are some of the positive things I noticed. His teacher has two sons, ages 5-1/2 and 2-1/2, so she understands boys. Her oldest son loves to dress up. She plans to bring in a costume box. (Some leaders had already come into the classroom and asked where MS's Spiderman suit was - it was dirty. He was sad, but agreed to wear a Batman shorts set his cousin Caleb had given him.) She also plans to have a pajama day and a crazy socks day (he's already well-prepared for that).

When the teacher knelt down to talk with MS, she asked him about his loves and he regaled her with descriptions of his costumes. Then, he started telling her about how much he loves animal. She asked if he had a pet. It is always fun to wait and hear the answer. He replied, "Yes, I have a pet cicada shell."

She chuckled. I added, "Well, you know. Easy to care for. You don't have to feed it or walk it and you don't have to worry about killing it by squeezing it too hard because, hey, it is already dead!" (He did kill a toad this afternoon because he held it too tightly. Then he inspected inside its mouth, trying to see its guts!)

The teacher informed MS that they will be going on bug hunts. I think he loves her already. I know I'm feeling pretty keen on her myself.