It’s our First Mommy and Me Class

Yesterday was Paulo’s first pre-pre-school type class. I remember taking my daughter to this FOUR years ago! The classroom looks exactly the same. The toys are still the same toys. The format is the same. And we also have the same teacher. It was weird being in the same environment with my second child. Just so surreal!

With my daughter, the class seemed so fun and relaxing. We did puzzles, Playdough and paints, and she was very easy going. It was a gratifying and pleasant experience. With Paulo, it’s a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT story. At first, he wouldn’t walk into the classroom. He clung to my leg and I had to walk into the room looking like Frankenstein. Then within the first 15 minutes, he threw puzzle pieces all over the floor, toppled over a stack of blocks, screamed and whined because he wanted the exact same cars that another boy was playing with, then proceeded to have a tantrum in the middle of the rug. The teacher had to come over to see if he was okay. (Yeah, he’s fine. Just the Terrible Twos.)

At Circle Time, he didn’t want to sing the “Slippery Fish” song. He wanted to eat the toy fish that each child was given to hold then had a fit when I tried to pull it out of his mouth. The fish stayed in his mouth. At least he wasn’t screaming, right?

At snack time, he accidentally flung his spoon out of the yogurt he was trying to eat and spilled a spoonful onto floor which happened to spill on his t-shirt and jeans on the way down. Easy clean up, right? Until I realized that the little spoonful of yogurt managed to splatter all over my sweater, shirt, and jeans before landing on the ground! (Lovely!) Then when he had HALF-EATEN everything out of his lunchbox, he threw another tantrum on the floor because he was done eating and wanted to go to the train table. A little girl walked up and stood over him and said, “Are you okay?” (Too cute! That would have been my daughter.)

At recess, he didn’t want to share. He cried because another boy was playing with the steering wheel on the play structure. He wanted someone else’s ride-along car. He wanted to sit on the swing that was occupied. He tried to steal a child’s bucket in the sandbox. And finally, he took a handful of sand and tossed it in my direction. So now I have sand stuck to the yogurt on my sweater and jeans that I didn’t wipe off completely, plus I have sand in my shoes! (GRRRR!!!)

But enough about the negatives. Here are some positives…

• He made a shamrock project.
• He learned to play with Playdough instead of eating it.
• He didn’t dominate the train table like he usually does.
• He got some much needed outside playtime.
• And most especially, Mommy got to spend some quality time with my little “angel.”

It’s all good!

This class goes on for 10 weeks. One week down, NINE more to go. This is the first time he’s been exposed to all kinds of stimulation in one place at one time. I know (and I hope!) that each week will get easier, and that he will learn to play nicely with others. I really don’t want to be the mom that everyone talks about behind her back. “Oh, she’s the one with the bratty child.” It will get better, right? Right?

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Learning How to Count

Usually when it’s snack time, I will place Paulo’s food and his glass of milk in front of him while I busied myself with some other household chore (like the dishes or putting away toys). He usually babbles and makes animal noises while he’s eating or maybe he’ll say dog or bird (if he happens to be looking out the window while he’s eating). Today he was doing something new. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, so I turned around to see what he was doing. He had lined up his goldfish crackers and was mumbling some words, “Muh, Eh, Nah, Bu…” Wow! He’s counting. He wasn’t saying the words clearly, but it was obvious that he was counting.

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