Grace shows her softer side at school

Today when I picked Grace up from school, she was still asleep.  Rather than wake her up immediately, I chatted with her teacher for a while to see how things were going.  She said that Grace is an excellent student and is usually pretty quiet at school.  But today a little boy named Thomas started crying after his mommy dropped him off.  Grace immediately went over to him, patted him on the back and tried to comfort him by saying, "It's oh-tay.  Your momma come back and git you."  (It's okay.  Your momma will come back and get you.) She's such a sweet little girl.

Grace and the crayons

Grace was sitting at the kitchen counter concentrating very hard.

I asked her what she was doing.

She replied by saying "I tate duh pay-poors off my tay-yons."  (I take the papers off my crayons.)

My next question was, "Why are you taking the papers off your crayons."  She responded quickly with, "I ont yike duh pay-poors on my tay-yons."  (I don't like the papers on my crayons.)   Mmm.  Okay.

Grace was very persistent, patient, and organized.  She lined up all her crayons with its paper still on.

Then as she diligently removed the paper from each crayon, she neatly piled all the scraps together.

And eventually, all the crayons met her level of expectation and she was able to color again. 

Grace pretends to be a baby

As I was unpacking yet more things from our move, I stumbled across Grace's old car seat.  So I just sat it in the family room floor while I unpacked the rest of the box.  When I turned around this is what I saw.

Grace had climbed into the car seat and snapped the buckles around her waist.

She had the best time wiggling around and giggling to herself.

She kept saying "I uh bay-bee, Momma!"  (I'm a baby, Momma!)  Eventually, she got hungry and decided to get out of it, but it was cute watching her pretend to be a baby.  She's got a pretty vivid imagination.  If she's not pretending to be a baby, she's a puppy dog, or a cat.  Sometimes she's a frog.  Each day is a new experience, but full of fun and laughter.

What Grace has learned in school

At Grace's school, the children learn to be responsible for themselves and to server themselves and others.  Activities are designed to foster a sense of sequence and order.  For example, during snack time, each child selects a snack from the snack table, puts it in a bowl and carries it to a table.  Then she goes back to the snack table, pours her own drink from a small pitcher into a cup and then carries to her table.  Then she may sit down and eat her snack.  Once she's finished, she carries her leftovers and scrapes them into the trash can and then places her bowl and cup in the sink.  Eventually, she will learn to wash her own dishes and put them away.

After just two days in school, Grace has already grasped this concept.  She was watching a cartoon downstairs while I was upstairs vacuuming the bedroom.  I came down a few minutes later and saw her eating a yogurt.  She had walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, selected a yogurt, and closed the refrigerator door.  Next, she walked to the cutlery drawer, opened it, got out a spoon, and closed that drawer.  Then she went back to the family room to finish watching her cartoon, opened her yogurt, and ate it!

I just watched her eat it.

I didn't say anything to distract her. 

Because I wanted to see what she would do next.  I was very surprised to see her eat the entire yogurt without making a mess. 

When she was finished, she calmly took the yogurt bowl and spoon to the kitchen and dropped them into the sink.  Amazing.

Unpacking

It seems like we've been unpacking pretty much nonstop for weeks if not months.  Here's the reason why.

Whenever we would open a box, it would be packed full with paper.

And inside the paper would be a handful of clips.

Or one grass cutting tennis shoe.  All wrapped individually in six plus feet of paper.

There's no wonder we had hundreds of boxes to unpack and break down.

Grace's first day of school

Today was Grace's first day at her new school. 

She was pretty excited about it.

We arrived around 8:30 am and signed her in.  

Grace was a little shy but took her teacher's hand and followed her into the toddler area.  I stayed and observed for the first half hour.   An interesting thing about the Montessori school is that they teach the children to "work."  In other words, they have to stay busy.  Grace selected a puzzle from the shelf and sat on the floor and played with it. 

After a while, she wanted to play with something else, so her teacher instructed her to put the puzzle back where she found it and then helped her select a tray from the shelves.  The tray she selected had a tupperware container full of blue playdoh, some golf tees, and a small wooden hammer.  She had fun hammering the golf tees into the playdoh. 

I left shortly afterwards because Grace was having fun.  I picked her up before nap time around 12:00pm.  Her teacher told me that Grace acted like she had been going to the school forever.  She was quiet but stayed busy and was very attentive during her one-on-one sessions.  She chose to play in the sandbox for close to an hour.  During their one-on-one sessions, they learned about colors and dinosaurs.

For snack, they had vanilla wafers and bananas.  Then for lunch they had taco salad and black beans.  Grace ate her corn chips, cheese, tomatoes, and grilled chicken but wouldn't touch the lettuce.  And she only ate 1 black bean. 

The first thing I asked Grace when I saw her was if she had fun at school today.  Her response was "I had fun.  I yike stool!"  (I had fun.  I like school!)  I was excited to hear that and it definitely wore her out.  We only live 1 mile from the school but she conked out in the car before we pulled into the driveway. 

She goes back to school on Thursday.  I hope she continues to enjoy it.

Our petite American Idol

In preparation for Season 9 of American Idol, Grace decided to perform a concert for us last night.  She used our small ottoman as her stage, dressed in animal prints and pink lace, and sang her heart out to "Under the Sea" with her singing Disney microphone (a Christmas gift from her friend Landon).

Grace completed her concert with a well executed bow - and remained bowed until she received a rousing round of applause from her adoring fans.