The Big Girl Room

Today is little Bean's first full day in the Toddler room. She's been visiting the Toddler room on the daily for about 2 weeks now for progressively longer visits. It's a really big transition.

1. No more bottles. The breast milk freezer stock last precisely as long as we needed it to, but today will be Bean's first day at school without a bottle.

2. One nap. Everyone in the Toddler room naps at the same time, once a day, from 12:00-2:00ish. Over the past week since Bean has started napping there, she progressed from a 30 minute nap to a 2.5 hour nap. Pretty incredible. I guess the quiet of everyone napping together agrees with little Bean.

3. Bigger kids. Um, the kids in the Toddler room are HUGE. There are 2 year olds in her immediate class, but she will regularly play with kids up to 3 years old. They are gigantic. But we had an opportunity yesterday to see Bean interacting with the older kids and she holds her own pretty well. In fact, she's quite interested in keeping up with them.

4. More stimulation. This is actually a positive thing. In the toddler room, Bean gets regular outdoor play (instead of only when the weather is good). She gets communal story times, music class twice a week, and focused language development work with her teachers. She apparently LOVES the music time, sitting in the circle and clapping or standing to dance.

I dropped Bean off this morning, and though she cried for about 30 seconds, her teacher Ms. Paz immediately re-directed her attention to playing blocks with her friend Kylee and Bean calmed right down.

It's a strange thing, how sad and excited I am for Bean to make the move from infant to toddler. I am just so incredibly grateful to have a place where Bean gets so much loving and thoughtful attention.

We'll see what her report card says this afternoon, but I'm betting she actually had a really great day.