It’s that time of year when I start obsessively checking the mountain snow forecast. When I was driving Wilder to school the other morning, I asked him if he knew what these dark, wet and cold mornings mean. Without hesitation, he threw his hands up in the air and yelled, “Snowboarding! And skiing!!”  That’s my boy.

Wilder started at a new school this fall and we’ve been adjusting to an earlier morning schedule (hence the cold, dark mornings). Circle Time starts at 9am and we’ve managed maybe a 50% success rate of actually making it to school before they finish taking attendance. Wilder is now being woken at a certain time by an alarm clock and having the experience of rushing out the door before we might otherwise feel ready in order to be someplace at the moment designated as “on time”. This indoctrination into factory life has been a bit rough but has definitely made for easier bedtimes in the evening.

Actually, I’m not sure if the smoother bedtimes are due to the earlier wake up routine or the excessive amount of running and playing he seems to do at this new place. Or perhaps it’s the mental fatigue of negotiating an entirely new social scene. I’ve been watching Wilder go through the process of choosing and making friends and figuring out all the rules and expectations of his new environment with a mix of pride, fascination and anxiety. He seems happy (or perhaps just unfazed) being one of the youngest kids in a classroom full of hardened 4 year olds. But part of me feels like we’ve thrown him to the wolves and that maybe it is too early for him to be learning some of the childhood lessons I expect he’ll encounter in the anarchistic Wild West of preschool and can’t we just keep him sweet and innocent for a little bit longer?

Strange maternal protectiveness aside, the transition from small, in-home daycare to big, preschool-style facility has been hugely positive. Wilder had a lot of his own anxiety leading up to the move but was hooked after the first day. There are more kids to play with, a huge outdoor playground area, an indoor gym, an awesome male teacher in his classroom, lots of projects and fieldtrips, fewer rules and restrictions, no time-outs, and generally more freedom to be an active, exploring, young person.  

On maybe his third or fourth morning, he started pleading with me to stay home for the day. “I just want to stay home and take a break today. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!” I reminded him that the previous evening when I picked him up, he had wanted to stay at school and not go home. “Oh, yeah,” he said. And then after a pause, “I forget that I like school now.”

Here’s a report from his first day, courtesy Teacher Tom (click to see full size):