Owen started nursery school three weeks ago! He’s attending a playgroup at a nearby church two mornings a week. The first day we stayed with him the whole time (as instructed). The second class we left him, but he was too busy playing with the toys to notice. By the second week, however, he was on to us, and cried when Susan dropped him off, and even when she turned into the parking lot. However, the teachers said he didn’t cry long, and they and we thought he was really only crying in the first place because other kids were doing so. Except for music class, Owen hasn’t been around other kids at all, so I can see how he would be disturbed to all of a sudden be confronted with screaming peers. (Plus, he doesn’t talk much about school yet, but when he does he tells us that the girls were crying, so I can see that he is a bit fixated on this.)
Yesterday when Susan dropped him off, he cried a bit but had already stopped by the time she was a few feet down the hall, so I think all is well. She also has heard him participating quite vigorously in the end of class song-singing, so it sounds like he is having a good time.
I was able to walk and pick up Owen with the stroller during the second week, and the two teachers had brought the ten kids outside for pick up that day, and it was so cute to see Owen standing there in his little pants and sneakers and jacket looking all solemn yet content. When he saw me he first told me that the babies had been crying, and then he said a friendly, “Bye, teachers!”
I am very pleased that he has the opportunity to attend this playgroup, as I think it is time that he branch out and also that he gets a bit of socialization. He is happily used to being the “cruise director” at home, with adults to follow him about and do his bidding, so I think it is time for him to learn how to receive instruction as well as to give it. Ahem. And yesterday he brought home his very first fingerpainted art-woik! A masterpiece, of course.
Anyway, at the end of his second week, Owen caught his first nursery school cold, and promptly passed it on to me and Sean. Although while in the depths of fever I was tempted to have Owen live at home in a bubble for the next 16 or so years, I know that he is going to have to be exposed to all the colds and flus and whatnot either now or in kindergarten. Let’s get it over with! Sigh. But let’s also wash his hands when he gets home.
Owen on the first day of school.
1 comment:
I think your immune system starts to strengthen in response to all the child germs. I was sick every month during the boys' first year--maybe even more--with all the germs they were bringing home from school. But now I'm only getting sick once or twice a year from them. (Well, from D, because T pretty much never gets sick. And when he does, he catches the head cold and has it for 2 hours while the rest of us are sick for 7 days. )
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