Operation Wormie Rescue

This morning it was raining. No. Not just raining. Pouring. She usually makes me carry her from the car to the door at preschool, so I didn't dig too far to unearth her raincoat and umbrella - I just settled for her puffy vest and called it good. We dashed in to school. We were late (surprise, surprise!) but got there just in time for them to add her name on to the name song in circle time. Today was my day in Parent Ed, so I gently warned Z in the car, on the walk in, and again on our way to the coat hooks that I would be in the other room (or, "The Mommy Room" as I call it.) She wanted to come with me, so I tried to get her interested in the classroom activities first. She happily painted using cut-up vegetables as 'stamps' while I went and helped set up the indoor play area (it was too rainy for outside play.)

Then she didn't want to stay in the classroom without me. I tried to get her interested in gluing pictures of food onto a paper plate or playing in the sensory table, which had oatmeal. I told her I would stay for 2 minutes, then go to the Mommy Room. So she glued pictures for 2 minutes, then wanted to come with me. I made her go tell the teacher that she was coming into the Mommy Room with me, since the teacher likes to know where all the kids are, to make sure we don't have an AWOL kiddo. (I could have told the teacher, but this puts responsibility on Z, and helps her get over her shyness around adults. If she really wants to come with me, she'll be able to tell the teacher. Plus I want her to get in the habit of telling the teacher when she wants to come find me other times, when I'm not still in the classroom with her.)

She sat with me for a bit. We have our own snack in the Parent Ed room, and many kids come back there just to nosh, and not because they can't be parted from their parent. Last year we hardly ever had time for breakfast before class, so I let her eat. This year I want to make Parent Ed as uninteresting as possible, so I try and make her sit on her own chair, rather than my lap, and no eating the Mommy Snack. She's got a mild cold and has been sleeping extra lately, and slept through breakfast, so I let her have some grapes, but not my hot cocoa, and no more grapes after her first bunch (last year the only time she's leave me was for snack, and she wouldn't even do that if she had eaten her fill of the Mommy Snack.) So when the teacher came back to see if any of the kids were willing to try the classroom again, Z was lured away by the promise of making hair out of Play-doh. She apparently had a great time, since I didn't see her again until just before snack, when the parents were cleaning up the toys. (Transition times are the most common times for kids to come to find their parent.)

I brought her back into the class (not knowing that it was clean-up time) to tell the teacher that she was with me, but she wanted to stay and sit for snack. Hooray. Then she came back to find me after snack - not because she needed me, but because she had kicked her shoes off and needed them back to play in the indoor play area! Right at the end of 'Large Muscle' time, she and another kid knocked heads, so she sat with me in the Parent Ed room while the other kids and parents did bells and good-bye songs. We got our coats and such and left a smidge early, since she said she didn't want hand stamps today. 

And of course, she wanted to walk to the car. Whuuuck? Normally I'm cajoling her into walking. But no. She doesn't have a raincoat on, and no umbrella, so naturally she wants to walk. Ugh. And pick up every worm along the path.

There were many many worms. And she tossed them each into the grass "to be with their mommies" after stretching, pulling and squishing each one... Until she found... The Big One.

She stood gleefully on the path waving her worm at every parent and student as they raced back to their cars. They all had raincoats. Or at least coats with hoods. One boy wanted to hold it, and another told her it was a cool worm, but pretty much everyone else wanted nothing to do with her big wormie. So she wanted to go back inside and show the teachers. Hilarious. So we marched back inside, wiped our feet, and she proudly displayed her wormie for all to see. Then she set it free when we went back outside.
There was a rivulet of water at the edge of the sidewalk, and when she tried to jump over it, ended up landing with a big splash in the middle. So she waded around and saw a worm floating downstream. I had to rescue that one, as it kept floating away faster than she could grasp at it. So she splashed around looking for more worms to rescue, until we couldn't find any more.

Then, to delay actually getting warm and dry in the car, she crunched around on some leaves in the parking lot. Finally I got her into the car, under a blanket, steaming up the windows, with a lunch in her lap, and on our way home. What a wet, wonderful day!