Preschooler

Ever started Little Bugs Preschool with Miss Paula this month. She goes Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:00 to noon. A bunch of kids from our ward are in her class - Ella Ronda, Jace Alo, Liam Foulger, and Parker Moffat (formerly in our ward). The son of Jim's friend Dave (Padre) Watkins comes up from Carlsbad, too, so we know more than half her classmates. One oddity about her class: four of the ten kids are girls with very similar, short E names - Ellis, Ella, Emma, and Ever. There's only one girl in her class (Khloe) who doesn't fit the E mold. Weird. Another interesting thing was that when I met another one of the moms on the first day and told her Ever's name, she said she has a five-month-old niece named Ever. I told her I'd never met another real-life Ever, and she said she hadn't, either.

In our front yard before the first day of school:

I brought Wren into Miss Paula's in her car seat when I dropped Ever off on the first day. I set the car seat down by the wall in the living room. Then Ever clung to me, and I had to try to rip her off me and get her to stay. Finally I got away, and I left all ecstatic about how preschool is going to change my life and give me these two great windows of time to get things done (like finally clean the house). As I was driving away through the neighborhood, I realized I had left Wren sitting in her car seat in the living room. I am that mom.

After the first day of school, in front of the sign at Miss Paula's:

Class photo on the first day:

Ever is very tight-lipped about what they do in preschool, which drives me crazy. Miss Paula keeps a blog of their daily activities, though. I learned from the blog that they are learning a new letter each week and making "ABC" books as they go along:

At Kristi Rondo's suggestion, she and I are switching off doing preschool pickup on Mondays. I pick up Ella and Ever one week and keep Ella until 3:00 P.M.; the next week Kristi takes Ever home with them and keeps her until 3:00 P.M. It's a delightful arrangement, and it significantly lengthens the get-things-done window every other week. Kristi sent me this picture one Monday when Ever was at their place:

Thank heavens we got the minivan just in time for carpooling.