Panda on the Loose

The new school year started today for Claire. She has graduated to the next class, and is now officially a Panda. This is good since Claire is now with her own age group. She had spent the first few weeks in the Colts classroom with slightly older kids since they had a random spot open just to get her through the summer.

Claire may benefit from having more girls in her new classroom as compared to the Colts, where there were only three girls to about a dozen boys. However, she will leave behind some friends, including her very favorite twins, Alex and Leo, who she seems to follow around and literally pull their arms towards her to make them play with her.

Claire's new teacher writes a little summary of all the kids' days, which is helpful. Apparently today Claire ate "some" of her lunch (just the muffin and bluberries), but she was too busy talking to do much eating. (One of her Colts teachers had also remarked that she "treats lunch time as sort of a social hour.") Claire's new teacher circled "cheerful", "silly", and "talkative" to describe Claire's mood today. I am glad Claire had a good day, especially since she is a little sick. If I were to fill out the same form for tonight, I would have circled "cuddly" and "frustrated".

P as in "prenatal"

Claire came home from school the other day with a big white envelope and some brief instructions to fill it with with things starting with P or J. This is, of course, to help kids learn about the different letters and how they apply to real-world situations. We left most of the work up to Claire, and she quickly divined than we should fill her bag with a pen, a pencil, a penny, and some nail polish. The next morning before school, she said excitedly, "I know! Piano!" Then she hurried over to her little toy piano (a small plastic keyboard, really) and dumped it in the bag. We never came up with any J words, at least not ones we had laying around the house that would fit in an envelope.

Tonight over dinner, Kit and I were asking Claire what "P" objects that the other kids found. She mumbled a couple of things, then suddenly blurted out, "I know! Prenatal! I should bring your pills to school, Mom!" I wish she had. I think it is safe to say she would have been the first kid to bring prenatal pills to school for this exercise.

By the way, I think this was Claire's first real homework assignment. Actually, she did a different pair of letters, I think B and H, a couple of weeks ago.

Goodbye, Cast!

Claire finally got her full leg cast off today. She has been as cool as a cucumber about her cast for the last three or four weeks. Once we explained that her cast was there to help her leg heal, but she would have to wait for it to work, she never complained about it. She just ambled around with one leg sticking out funny.

Today that all ended, and once again we got to see her left leg in its full glory. The process of taking her cast off -- where they take that loud power saw and tear through the cast towards her flesh -- did not go so well. There was screaming and resisting and crying. No amount of reassurance could convince this three year old kid that the power saw cutting into her leg was "okay." Once it was over, Claire, in tears, said she wanted to see the other doctor instead, meaning the one who shows her the x-ray of her leg and talks to her about it.

The "nice" doctor said her leg was fully healed, and gave her the green light to walk and jump and do whatever she wanted. After a nice bath back at home -- her first real soaking bath in weeks -- Claire spent a few hours getting comfortable walking on her leg. Eventually she was fine with it, if a little slow. I dropped her off at day care for a couple of hours towards the end of the day. When I went to pick her up again, she was in the play room playing a game called "fall down on the ground" with her best friend Catherine. The game involved repeatedly crashing down on the carpet and getting back up (on her healed leg) to do it again. This kid is okay!

Here is Claire working the room with the "nice" doctor after her leg had been freed.

"Intelligence"

Kit was reading Claire her books for bedtime tonight, when I heard Kit say, "Claire! Wow! I am so proud of you!" Usually Claire doe not get that reaction for simply listening to a story, so I was wondering what was gong on. Fortunately, Kit called me in and said that she was really proud of Claire. Claire explained, "I spelled a really big word!" Prompted for the word in question, Claire said she had spelled intelligence.

What Claire had actually done was read the letters from a book, so in a sense she read the word rather than spelled it from memory, but still it was extremely surprising. We don't normally work on spelling with Claire. She might have occasionally spelled very short words like cat. But apparently she has been paying attention in school, and now she seems to really know her letters, at least I, N, T, E, L, G, and C.

Kid Hug

This afternoon when I picked up Claire from school, all the kids were running around and playing in the big indoors playroom like normal. Claire did not see me at first, but another kid saw me and said, "Claire, your Daddy is here!". Then Claire ran over for a hug. I said, "Are you ready to go?", which a split second later I realized was a mistake. What if she said no? Fortunately, Claire had only one request before leaving. "I want a hug from a kid." Before I could ask her to expand on that idea, or perhaps suggest a particular kid, a slightly older girl who was in earshot ran over to Claire and gave her a nice big extended hug. Then Claire grabbed my hand, and we headed out the door. 

This whole transaction had the feel of being set up, like Claire had gone to this other girl a few minutes earlier and said, "When my Daddy comes to get me, come over and give me a hug.  He is going to eat it up!".  Well, it worked.  

Fun With a Bag

Lots of times, Claire and I play on the playground for a while after school. Today we had an extra prop handy, which happened to be a plastic bag with dirty clothes in it from the school day. Claire invented a fun game and nearly ran herself ragged. Notice the wild giggling and stumbling. Is she drunk?

Pardon the jerky camera work. I was trying to film and catch said bag at the same time.

Class Picture 2008

From top left:

Ms. Betsy, Ms. Janet

Nathan, Abbey, Tiller (Matilda), Kai

our Claire, Turner

First Haircut

Today Claire had her hair really cut -- not just a little trim -- for the first time. This did not happen in a hair studio or a barber shop. Claire had her hair cut by Ms. Janet, one of her teachers, out on the street in front of her school

You may be wondering... Does Ms. Janet make a habit of cutting her students' hair out in the street in front of the school? Well, I should hope not. This was a special occasion, the school's annual street fair and fundraiser. The word on the street (so to speak) was that Ms. Janet was a licensed beautician, and very good with little kids. So she took the opportunity to set up a little outdoor barber shop for the fair. She had set up a big tall chair and a full-length mirror in the street, almost in someone's driveway.

Claire was looking pretty shaggy, so we decided to give the $10 cut-and-style a try. When we sat her up in the stool, Claire seemed a little worried. But she knew Ms. Janet was cool, so she stayed with it. Once Ms. Janet started spraying Claire with the water bottle to sort of prime her hair, Claire got more worried. After all, Claire must have been thinking, why the heck was she sitting here in someone's driveway getting sprayed with cold water in the face by her teacher, and on a non-school day? I bet it just didn't make any sense; then again, many things probably don't make sense to a two year old.

One she got going, and despite some mild resistance, Ms. Janet got Claire's hair trimmed pretty quickly. The cut looked good overall, but Ms. Janet did cut Claire's bangs a little bit straight and short, so she looked sort of boyish. Still, it was an improvement from the old mess of her hair. Ms. Janet invited us to come by any Saturday for another haircut at her shop, Cleopatra's Hair Salon, in the nearby mall.

During the cut, Claire's classmate Abby and her mom had shown up to watch and wait for the next cut. When it was her turn, Abby's mom plopped Abby down on the big chair and asked Ms. Janet to go easy on the bangs. Abby was a funny sight up there, holding perfectly still with a worried look on her face, turning a little red, and grasping the sides of the chair like her life depended on it. But she powered through and ended up with a better hair style than Claire, thanks to the more girlish bangs.

After the haircut, we explored the fair some more. Claire had a real live pony ride (another first), got a ribbon for her hair, and got to look at lots of neat toys. Then it was off to home to have lunch and wait for her hair to grow out.

Before and after photos:

Called in Sick

Just a quick note that this is the first time I have ever called Claire in sick for school. She had a minor head cold, and I figured we should drop her off with Grace rather than spread the germs. I think Claire picked up the cold when we took her to the doctor a few days ago. The funny thing is that Claire is liking school a lot, and probably would have preferred to go in if the choice were up to her.

First Day of Pre-Pre-School

Today Claire started preschool. School starts at 9:00 am, so we have a little extra time to burn in the morning. It's not enough time to do anything substantial like work in the yard or do any serious errands, but it is enough time to cook up a special "power breakfast" to help Claire keep her energy and mood up for the whole morning. So we had an egg, tomato, onion, and cheese omelet to start things off right.

The drop off at school was not bad. After last week's meet & greet, I knew exactly where to go and what to bring. And Claire already knew the classroom was a fun place to hang out with Ms. Betsy. Claire and I arrived a few minutes early, so we spent some extra time naming all the animals on the large Noah's Ark mural in the hallway. Animals are one of Claire's specialties, and she was able to name all of them.

After a few minutes, I dropped her off with her bag of supplies and headed for the door pretty quickly. Claire made a run for me as I walked down the hall, saying "Daddy, Daddy!" in an excited but not panicked voice. Ms. Betsy swooped her up and took her back to the room without incident.

I was to meet Grace back at the school at noon to pick Claire up and introduce Grace to everyone as someone who is "cool" to pick up Claire. I worked on my laptop in a coffee shop near the preschool during the morning to avoid wasting the nearly hour round trip in the car. This worked out well, and it would be fun working from coffee shops more often except for calling into meeting on my pay-by-the-minute cell phone with The Beatles playing in the background. I actually had to retreat to the car for the 11:00 conference call.

The pickup went fine, and Claire was happy to see me, Grace, Reese (who was in the class two doors down), and Melanie all show up. Ms. Betsy told us that Claire did not cry at all, she had a very good time, and she talked a lot. I felt a little bad, because Melanie had just told me that Reese had cried for the first two weeks of preschool. As we left the classroom, Claire said her loud "gooodbyyye!", and we headed out with her first school drawing (hey, at least she got the scribbles on the page). Grace and Melanie struggled a bit getting Claire, Reese, and Baby Davis in the back seat of the Camry, and I headed back to work at home until the afternoon pickup. Aside from some logistical issues, this school thing seems to be working out pretty well so far.

Meet & Greet

Claire is starting pre-pre-school every Tuesday and Thursday morning starting next week. Today the school, part of a neighborhood church, hosted a "meet & greet" for parents to bring their kids by and meet the teachers. Kit and I (and Claire) rearranged our schedules to be there for the big event.

This is the preschool that Reese has been attending the last couple of years, and Claire has been here many times already in the past with Grace to drop off and pick up Reese. Claire already knows some of the kids, teachers, and parents from playing around on the playground with Reese after school. Walking around with Claire, we heard comments like, "Claire's back!", and "Look, Claire's talking now." It is remarkable that Claire has managed to etch out her own secret life over here at this age. Even though Claire is just now starting school, Kit and I are the only new really new people here.

We introduced ourselves to the teacher, Ms. Betsy, and Claire almost immediately rushed off to explore the classroom. She pointed out the stuffed animals ("teddy bears"), and tried out each of the three rocking horses in turn. Then she found the shelves of toys and started talking on two play telephones, one on each ear. Another little girl name Matilda showed up too. Claire was pretty quickly saying "hiiii" and repeating Matilda's name over and over. Kit and I incorrectly pointed out that Matilda is the name of the little girl in the "Carl the dog" books (the girl's name is really Madeline -- oops). Before we knew it, Claire was gently throwing her arms around the unsuspecting Matilda and saying "huggggg!" She had truly embraced the "meet & greet" concept with full force.

We had to get back to work eventually, and we had to somewhat drag Claire away from all the fun. Claire loudly said, "Byyyye Betsy!" as we left, and repeated Betsy's name as we walked out the classroom and down the hall. We were very proud of Claire for showing such confidence on what could have been a scary and overwhelming occasion.