One of my favorite times of day is picking Olive up from preschool. I almost want to bottle up that time. I just know that it is going to be this small blip in her life but I am treasuring it. We usually walk to preschool in the morning (Scott occasionally drives her on his way to work). People are usually shocked that I walk. I like to walk because some days it is the only time I get out of the house. Plus that way I don't have to strap two kids into car seats. I know it is fast to drive but I would rather avoid the work of rounding them up into their seats rather than just walking out the door. So we walk. This was our view the other morning as we left:
So gorgeous!
But my favorite part is after school when we pick her up and walk home. Everything they just talked about at school is still fresh in her mind. I love asking her questions about what they are learning about and I am ofter so surprised at how much she understands. I feel like Olive, for a three year old, has a pretty amazing understanding of the greater world. I don't know how to explain, she gets the grandness of everything around her beyond her little three year old bubble. Does that makes sense? Everything she learns she totally applies to herself.
Our conversations are the best things ever. When she was learning the letters we would find things on the way home that started with that letter. She would race down the street yelling "ba ba ba! B says ba!!" Or we look for animal footprints in the snow when they talked about animals in winter time. We would examine the prints and try and decide which animal it was. We mostly found cats prints. We talked all about owls when they learned about them. She showed me their big eyes and explained how they stay awake all night. She she also told me about how they eat mice and chased me (the mouse) home as she was the owl. Good thing our house was a "field" so that I could not be eaten. We would look up in the trees to find birds to come eat seeds from the bird feeder she made. Last week we found all the kinds of transportation around us. I loved how she kept listing things off, like hot air balloons, and boats, and airplanes. Then she started talking about how she has been on airplanes. On Valentines day she explained this big long story about how they followed "heart prints" to Becca's house. I wasn't sure what she was talking about until later that day Becca explained that Olive's whole class walked to her house to give her a special treat.
Today we walked home talking about our bodies. She said "We all have skeletons!!" with so much enthusiasm. We talked about how we couldn't walk home without our bones. We couldn't even stand up! Then we pretended we didn't have bones but just wiggley arms. She thought that was hilarious. Then she told me how we wouldn't be able to put on our shoes, or eat food if we didn't have bodies. She told me about her brain and her lips and all our other parts.
I knew going into this preschool that I was going to love it. I have a lot of neighbors that have gone there and tell me all of the great things. Ms Jani is Olive's teacher and she is so amazing. They learn a character value every month, and memorize a little quote to go with it. This month they are talking about courage. In the past they have talked about gratitude, charity, perseverance among others. I cherish that they talk about values and how to create a good character. I have loved what this preschool even more than I thought I would. There is something so magical about it being your own child learning these fantastic things. I had heard all of the good and thought "Oh that's so fun!" or "how great. But when this knowledge and traits have been instilled into your little person and the value of that, to me at least, is immeasurable. Olive adores Ms Jani, she thinks she is the best, which she is. Don't get me wrong, Olive and I still work on things at home. I had wondered and considered homeschooling her, at least for preschool. Maybe because I was a teacher, I see such a great benefit of another adult loving and teaching your child. There is a special relationship there, especially if your teacher is Ms Jani. I also have realized that I have a child with an extremely high social threshold and just being in a classroom can meet that, whereas it would be a huge challenge for me to fill those needs on my own.
She usually holds my hand as we walk and talk. When she has explained everything from school she usually takes off running as the mouse and I have to be the owl to chase her (it's almost a tradition)
I thought I would throw in a shot of Milo and me. I usually wear him in the bjorn and he loves it. When he had reflux it was the only way he would go on a walk, and it had just become habit to carry him in there. He is getting almost too big for it, but I still squish him in anyway.
Then I had to share this last picture too. Last week I bought some new rain boots in an effort to entice spring to come to us. Olive was delighted and wore them around all afternoon, even with the strings on. I think the funniest part of this picture is that she has started dressing herself lately, which is a huge help to me in our rushed crazy mornings. More often than not she comes up with most of her clothes (shirt, leggings, even undies) on backwards, like in this picture. Then she won't let me fix them. Sometimes she will try again to put them on right, so it is especially hilarious when somehow they are backwards again after her second attempt.
One reason that I love this blog is because I can right about these things. These small and simple daily occurrences. I am glad I will have a memory of our conversations on the walk home and why I love preschool and Olive dressing herself. Those are the things I never want to forget.
