Schoolboy

Last month, Zeke started his second year of preschool. As you know, this was to our mutual great relief. It still seems a stretch to call it "school" as he still only goes two days a week for a few hours at a time. 

These are a few shots of him modeling his school gear from before school today. You can see his lunchbox which held up from last year. It is an Americanized bento box and I have become entirely too interested in bento boxes. (I may write a separate post on this at a later date. We now have a small collection of bento gear and cookbook, but I have slowed down now. I stopped myself mid-order of the most awesome Totoro bento stuff when I realized I should not order my 2 year old a lunchbox from Japan.) Two other boys in his class have the identical lunchbox, so now his has a little dog luggage tag on it. One of the teachers say that the three boys like to sit together at lunch. I wonder whether they think they are supposed to or whether they should.

My favorite addition this year is the backpack. Again, completely unnecessary, but too cute to resist. The same line includes backpacks with a bunny, panda, polar bear, lion, shark and squirrel. I'm still trying to figure out what one to order for myself. Really -- don't I deserve stuff this cute? As a sidenote, I feel of late like I have been shouldering the entire American economy (at least kids' stuff). Being at home gives me too much time to think of stuff to buy. Like a backpack for a 2 year old who never needs to carry stuff -- that is why he has me after all. It is entirely gratifying that Zeke likes his backpack as much as I do. He has to wear it the 10 feet from the front door to the car.

Z. did not warm up to school as quickly as he did to his school gear, though. I thought we might skip that period of adjustment, but no. For the first month, he was various stages of unhappy when I left him, though always calmed down and had a good day. Luckily he is always excited to go to school and willingly goes, shouting over his shoulder at the door, "Bye, Maggie! I see you later. I go to school. See you later, alligator!" I think the adjustment might have been due in part to switching preschools. We loved loved his school last year and his teacher comes over now to babysit occasionally. However, I was looking ahead and not excited about the older classrooms. I wanted more communication with the school and a clearer alignment with our views. One perfect example of many: on the last day of school, Zeke was a mess. I don't care -- I send him to school so he can be messy there and not at my house. The teacher apologized and explained they had eaten ice cream. For the most part, no big deal and I didn't say anything. However, we had never given ice cream to our poor deprived offspring because as of that point we didn't give him many sweets and because we didn't give him dairy products. You know, LIKE it said on his student info sheet where we wrote, "NO DAIRY."

So, I started Zeke at another neighborhood preschool. I would have sent him there last year, but they don't take 1 year olds. This school has a curriculum for all of its classes (none of which have worksheets), a green schools commitment, and a very loose Waldorf orientation. (That is to say, they have a very homey environment and play with plain wood toys, but leave out the weird Steiner stuff.) The kids do lots of crafts, sew, sing, play in the dirt, and make communal snacks. Of late they have been making apple sauce and bread. Awesome -- I love that my kid is baking bread and will be glad for him to bake some at home. I like his class, but I really am head over in heels love with the older classrooms. The last time I went into the 4 year old class, the kids were making a bear cave and writing stories about being bears. Older kids also take yoga and Spanish. Next week, we have parent teacher meetings and every day they have a closing circle. Fits the bill for what I wanted. I also was really excited that two of Zeke's lifelong friends are in his class. He talks about them every school day, but also talks quite a bit about two other little girls. His teacher thinks he is friends with them because one is like a little mother to him and the other sings as loud as he does! And did I mention, this is for a little cheaper than the other school? Fingers crossed, I hope to keep our schoolboy here through kindergarten.