School Daze

Gaz has now successfully completed her first week of preschool. Best of all, we managed to survive it.

Getting to school was only an issue twice, and then only because Gaz frequently refuses to believe how cold it is outside and so refuses to put on her coat. You'd think she was a Yukon nudist or something. After I explained that we weren't leaving the house without her coat on, and if she never put on her coat she would never get to school that day, she grudgingly complied. I didn't even make her put on a hat most days (though I brought hat and mittens every day, in case she wanted them). I suppose as problems go, that's the kind you want to have. And I know in a few years that whole "if you don't obey you can't go to school" thing won't work quite so well. I'm milking it while I can.

Coming home from school is a very different animal. She really doesn't ever want to leave once she's there. Day one there was a screaming, sobbing tantrum all the way through lunch (fools that we were, we thought going out for lunch would perk her up) and all the way home, to the tune of about an hour and a half. Day two we didn't go out for lunch, and just screamed and cried all the way home. Day three I bribed her with Halloween candy. It worked much better than I expected, and she was so very compliant (and I was so wiped out) that I took her out to lunch. Day four the candy worked again, though there were tears about not getting hold the black bear. Day five I bribed her with the promise of a special treat (Dunkin' Donuts is on the way home) but she was still mopey about not being able to bring the pink floam until we started collecting a family of bright yellow maple leaves that had freshly fallen on the sidewalk. I was glad to have taken hand sanitizer with me so we didn't have icky leaf hands when we got our treat.

While at school, Gaz is apparently a joy. I have yet to hear about her having any difficulty at all, and yesterday when I stopped in to get her, the program director came up to me with Gaz's file (oh no!) to give me a printout she made of some goofy face photos of Miss Gaz (whew!). They had been taking the kids' pictures to put with letters to Santa and Gaz made a lot of silly faces. She's definitely my kid! So we've got bonus pictures. I love 'em. We've also got school pictures coming up soon. I'm excited to see how this goes.

In other school-related news, Gaz and I journeyed forth to River Forest last week to entertain enlighten some psychology students as to the workings of a four-year-old girl's mind. She said a lot of things that made my little nerd heart glow with pride ("What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A Transformer! Or a fairy that transforms into a scientist!") and some that made me groan a bit ("What animal would you like to be?" "I would like to be a pig, because pigs don't have to poop in the potty."). It turns out that that pig comment, according to the professor, represents thinking on a higher level than most four-year-olds, though, so I guess that's a win. What a way to prove your mental prowess! Gaz was a champ with the interviewing, and even wrote her name on the board (and I quote: "AGAAAA"). We had a good time and want to thank Auntie Abby again for inviting us out to her class. :)