For the last couple of weeks I have been in charge of Eliza's pre-school group. This has been an interesting learning experience. But it was not as hard as I thought it was going to be. In fact, I learned a lot about planning activities for Eliza the night before so we have something planned the next day. I hope to start implementing that into our time together.
Eliza was excited to have me as teacher. She kept saying "Mama teacher?" I would tell her yes, then she would say, "Me help?" And she did. She is quite the bossy little girl. Wonder where she gets that?? Below is a picture of all the kids together. They worked on goals these last couple of weeks and one of the goals was to create a group art project. They are proudly sitting in front of their creation.
One of the funniest moments was introducing Gunny Sack to them. I didn't like it when I read it in the manual but I thought I would give it a try. Gunny Sack is just a pillow case with eyes. But if you don't clean up your toys (another goal for the class) then Gunny ate what was left out. This really freaked out all the kids. They basically didn't play during free time. When I finally got them to play and re-explained that they just needed to clean up when they finished with one toy before they moved on to the next, they still were pretty scared. Then it happened. One of the kids left a toy out and I warned her that Gunny would get it. She ignored me so Gunny ate the toy. You would have thought someone died. Eliza ran to her room bawling, Lainey threw herself to the floor in the most dramatic fit of tears and all the other kids stood stock still. No one moved.
They did begin to play again eventually but that was the cleanest I have ever seen a playroom. Eliza kept an eye out for Gunny the rest of the day.
So the moral of the story is, Gunny works. But at what cost???
From left to right: Seth, Eliza, Mack (Eliza's best friend), Ava, Adrienne, Alaina. Notice that Eliza is sitting by both of the boys. Ummm...this frightens me.
This is Eliza a few days after I had been teaching. She is "writing" all the names of her classmates on papers like I did after they colored. She then got a book and told me she was the teacher. She went through the morning routine of checking the weather and opening the school doors. Pretty adorable!
And randomly, I have been experimenting with my Silhouette that Nicholas got me for Christmas. Here is my first real project that I created on my own without a template or copying someone else. I am sure it has been done before, but I came up with this for my kitchen:
Yesterday Eliza stopped calling me Mama. Suddenly I became "Mommy". She says it more like "Mammy" and you can tell she is testing it out on her mouth to see how to pronounce it correctly. It is sort of bitter sweet. I love hearing "Mommy" but I have been Mama for a long time. She changed Dada to Daddy a while ago so I thought maybe I would always be Mama.
But I am now Mommy.
One other sweet moment yesterday: We were playing on my bed and Eliza grabbed one of her Stinky Lambs and gave me the other. "Play Mommy" she said. So I started playing by having Stinky slide down my legs. I know this little girl and I know that she loves anything that falls. So I made Stinky fall down. Suddenly Eliza threw her head back in the most natural way and the most beautiful laugh bubbled up out of her. It was so delightful and sweet. So uninhibited and real. I almost cried looking at her as I made Stinky fall again and watched as she couldn't contain her laughter and threw her head back again. I felt my heart almost burst. How I love her.
I love being and am so grateful to be a mother.
More, I love being and am so honored to be Eliza's mother.
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