On Monday, Mama stayed with him the entire time, which helped him figure out that the new place was a safe one. We have also been building it up for weeks, telling him: "playschool is where big boys go instead of work" (!!), that "you will make lots of new friends at playschool", and singing a song about new friends ("new friends put a smile on my face!"). So, that helped. The rest of the week, I dropped him off - and he didn't cry when I left, not even once! Instead, he seemed to thrive there. This is such a relief for Mama, and such a difference from the first time we tried this!)
Aidan's playschool is run as a Montessouri program, which provides various highly structured and age-appropriate learning environments, and gives the kids the choice in deciding what particular kinds of things to engage in within the broader structure. So, Aidan arrives between 8AM and 9AM and has "free play" time, where he can do whatever he wants, whether it's coloring in dinosaur printouts with crayons, building blocks, or playing piano with his new friend Ana Maria. At 9:30AM, they have snack time (usually cheerios or some other kind of healthy dry cereal). Then, they have Montesourri "work" for about half an hour, where they all pick out individual mats, put them on the floor, and then choose whatever classroom toy they want to play with on their own mats (Aidan has particularly liked the colored stacking blocks and books this week). Afterwards, they have music time, where a music teacher comes in and sings songs, plays piano, and has them run around the classroom to different "animal" music (low notes are elephants, high notes are chickens, and bears are somewhere in the middle - they've done bees too). They do "outdoor time" a couple of times a day, when the weather is good, in an outdoor space that is part of the playschool (Aidan loves playing basketball, climbing the small jungle gym, and sometimes plays with the trains and other toys they bring out). Lunch time is at 11:30 (they provide the food, Aidan has loved the pasta but (understandably?) was skeptical about the egg, lettuce and cream cheese on whole wheat sandwich!), followed by outdoor time again, and then nap time around 1:30PM. Every day, Mama picked Aidan up after lunch time during outdoor time, and he would take a breath to say "hi, Mama!" with a grin, and then continue running around, playing basketball, or doing whatever he was doing. His teachers were amazed at how well his transition started out, and said that he was "absolutely wonderful!" :)
Next week, Aidan will attend three full days, so the challenge will be dealing with a longer day and figuring out naptime for the first time. However, he at least knows that it is a safe place with people who he is starting to know, and so he is off to a good start!
On Thursday, Cira and her mommy Mary came over for dinner, which was awesome for Aidan, who missed seeing his friend (they used to go to daycare together), and for Mama, who missed talking to Mary (they used to have hour long talks every week going to and from daycare to pick up Aidan and Cira). Mary helped us get through our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) fresh produce: we had simple (heirloom) tomato, onion and chicken pasta with, lettuce, cucumber, fennel and tomatoe salad, and a peach pie (Mama had to figure out how to get rid of the 18 peaches she had from CSA and from Grandma and Grandpa Ruane somehow!). It was fun to have an excuse to eat such good food and have a wonderful evening!
On Saturday, Aidan and Mama took the A train to the 1 train to the Staten Island Ferry and back home. That afternoon after Aidan' s nap, we all went to Grace's 2year old birthday party (it's amazing how fast they all grow up!). And then we had leftover party pizza in the park before going home and going to bed.
The next morning, everyone was happy, because Daddy had gotten home just after 10PM on Saturday night from his 2 week conference trip to Australia, and so we all finally were reunited! We celebrated by going to the Bronx Zoo and doing Aidan's favorite excursions of riding the monorail (Aidan could care less about the elephants, rhinos, pandas, and deer this time, he just drove his miniature "A" train around the monorail seats), and shuttlebus. This afternoon, we bought Ben & Jerry's icecream and ate icecream at the park, before playing basketball and soccer with a volleyball. It's good to be together again!
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