Older Toddler

Edith started a new schoolyear Monday. Prospects look bright in the Older Toddler room. There's a guinea pig named Pipsqueak and a quiet library nook for reading. And only the Older Toddlers have a special exit directly onto the playground.

There are certain new skills that the teachers start introducing immediately with each move up to a new class. Last year's shift from Infant to Young Toddler brought hand-washing before meals and learning to share toys. This round brings drinking from regular cups and starting potty training. Good stuff--in her view and ours. And she gets to carry a lunchbox to school now and to bring in something for Show & Share each Friday. (The "Tell" part seems to be missing from the title these days, but I have no doubt Edith will see fit to include it.)

Edith's first-day-of-school photo pose struck me as somewhere between her mother's eager-beaver shots and her uncle's outright defiance.

Not one to be interrupted in her morning reading, Edith requested that Daddy continue the chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh all the way to school. A note of farewell from her old teacher thanked Edith for bringing her love of reading to the Young Toddler class and invited her to come back and read her favorite books to the new children in that class now and then. A possible translation: We've got The Great Gracie Chase memorized by now, and we know you do, too. Your turn to do the heavy lifting!

Edith returned home from the first day of school already seeming more grown-up to us. She was eager to show off her new ponytail, courtesy of Ms. Chrissy in the Preschool class. The fact that she liked a special hairdo and wanted to keep it in (she woke up at 11pm crying because her ponytail was gone) is already a sign of a new outlook.