Bunny school

Alice's first day of school...in Colorado! Of course, she did attend full-time daycare back in New Jersey, but that seems like a lifetime ago now--and at her age it almost is. She has only the haziest memories of that time in the infant class at Dupree. And so today felt like a first day all over again.

And boy, was she ready. The only tears came last night at dinner, when she wanted to go to school "RIGHT NOW!" and cried because she had to wait until morning. She has been talking for months about having a class of her own, like Edith's. Yesterday I asked Edith to tell me about her day at school, and when she didn't respond, Alice jumped in, "She read books. She read the book about the mitten. She learned about mittens." Alice based her report on her last visit to Edith's class to volunteer with Tom--but it spoke to how eager she is to go to school and have a day to report on herself.

At drop-off this morning she made a beeline for the shopping cart that had interested her when we first visited the school, and she never looked back. I could barely get a picture of her, she was so intent on getting into her playing.

She did fine all day, and when we arrived, we felt like we were meeting a newly grown-up little preschooler.

As you can see, her day included pigtails (yet another preschool teacher puts the lie to the idea that my daughters' hair is too fine for me to do anything with it). Alice also had acquired a new bead-and-pipe-cleaner necklace featuring her name, a first day gift from one of the teachers, and a bead-and-pipe-cleaner bracelet she made herself. Finally, there was her daily project, a Study in Yellow Paint on Cup Holder.

Alice seems perfectly happy with "bunny school"--so called because after our day spent touring a couple of preschools, we distinguished this one from the other by reference to the bunny in the kitchen, whom the girls had noticed first thing and were delighted to help feed. Indeed, that first visit clinched the daycare decision for us. The other place we visited had seemed perfectly fine, in a big, lots-of-kids, competent-friendly-teachers, well-organized-system wort of way. We liked that it had been founded in the 19th century by two nuns concerned that poor children in this rough-and-tumble territory get good care while their parents were off in the mines and that the school continues its commitment to serving all children regardless of ability to pay.

But then we visited bunny school, and we were struck by how immediately comfortable Alice was. The director is the owner of a larger arts-oriented preschool in town, but her first love was younger children, so ten years ago she founded a pre-preschool in her backyard, constructing several outbuildings and turning them into a lovely little, homestyle school for the 18-months-'til-pottytrained set. Somewhere halfway between a full-fledged daycare center and in-home care, bunny school has about 12-15 children, 4 staff, and several rooms, including an immacuate homey kitchen,...all sized to little people. When we visited, the director met us in the kitchen while she was feeding some children a snack and doing cot-linens laundry, and rather than start a formal tour, she invited us in simply to join them for awhile. Alice made straight for the refrigerator magnets and within a minute was chatting away about letters with the director, who got right down on the kitchen floor and chatted back. That was pretty much it...(especially after we determined that the price was even better than our bracket at the not-for-profit center).

So unlike in New Jersey, we don't get a written gram giving us the details of Alice's day, complete with a record of dirty diapers, time sleeping, and foods consumed. But at pickup the director told us that Alice had been a delight all day and seemed perfectly at home. In fact, by afternoon she was asking to be with the three year olds, and the teachers felt she was fully up to it (ah, the well-adjusted younger sibling), so she went with them to their little building after naptime, for preschool projects and play. That's where we picked her up, coiffed, bejeweled, chatting with little Henry, project in hand. She's ready to go back tomorrow.

Of course this was the first time Edith and Alice have attended two different schools, and it was sweet how eager Edith was to pick up Alice with us and to hear all about her day. She prodded her little sister with almost as many questions as we did.

Edith's own school excitement today was twofold. (1) She got to be class weather reporter for the day--her favorite classroom job, despite the fact that weather on the Front Range is hardly ever anything but sunny and dry. (Wish we could take your latest snowstorm for you, Northeast!) (2) The kindergartners' third-grade reading buddies came to work with them today, and Edith's buddy, Bella, surprised her by bringing her a bag of hand-me-down clothes. We were interested to see that our kid, who generally is indifferent to clothes except as they scratch, tug, or bother her, went through this bag of offerings from a big girl with avid attention, admiring every item and asking us to do the same. She has laid out the outfit she wants to wear tomorrow. It's a welcome change, given how hard it's getting to find something comfortable enough that she'll wear it without complaint, but what does it portend for junior high peer pressure?

And the reason Alice started bunny school today was that Tom started his internship with the CSPD. That's right: Our family minister spent a day in a squad car, learning about high-tech dispatch control centers, gang activity, suicides, jail, and bereavement assistance at the scene of an accident or crime. Arguably even more of a novel departure than bunnies and bracelets. Stay tuned.