The kids' daycare had their annual Mother's Day breakfast, where you get to try and eat breakfast, socialize with other parents, all while having a squirmy kid on your lap. Then, when it's time to go, all the kids cry.
This year was a bit different in that I had two kids in different classrooms (the infant room, where Simon was this time last year, does not do a breakfast). So I went to Simon's class first, while Alice went to her own classroom. Simon was happy to have me there for essentially his morning snack, but was quite upset when I left.
At 8:30, the celebrations in Alice's classroom began. They stood in a circle with their parents, and each child had to introduce his/her mom. Then they sang some special mom-songs (all of which Alice had been singing around the house for weeks). She actually sang this time, for the first time ever (normally she looks dumbfounded the whole time, even though she always knows all the songs).
Then, they went through the morning routine where they do the calendar and talk about the weather and say the pledge of allegiance. The helper also gets to ask the line leader "five important questions." These are things like the president's name, the state bird, etc. This helped explain why last week, when Alice was helping me weed some pine tree sprouts out of the flower bed, she kept saying, "Mommy, we're picking the state tree!"
Alice never gives us coherent narratives of what she does at school all day, so this morning was a fun little glimpse into at least a small part of her day.
After the morning routine was done, we were invited to eat the breakfast, which was set up as a buffet. Part of the breakfast was cupcakes, so I sort of pitied the teachers for having to deal with a bunch of kids who essentially ate cupcakes for breakfast.
And, in an important break with tradition, Alice did not shed a tear when I left. She was ready to get busy with her work.
