School, Showering, Totoro and Eyes

Morning
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First day of unaccompanied play group today. As expected, the small fry bawled her head off and tried to escape out the door. Luckily it was latched and I could hear her bawling on the other side, "I want my Mummy! I want to go out!"

After that, more new kids arrived at the class next door and there was a cacophony of bawls and I couldn't tell who was who. So instead of beating myself up about the small fry crying, I left.

I did catch a glimpse of her clinging to her teacher as I left.

Two and a half hours later,  I picked her up and the teacher had a chat with me. Apparently the small fry did better than she expected and cried for only a few minutes. She was participative but was more of a one-on-one kind of gal. As soon as the teacher was out of sight, like when they went for a bathroom run, she cried.

Looks like we have a ways to go.

But teacher Neelam was very optimistic and pleased with the small fry. By the end of the class, small fry and her best friend were jumping about, having fun.


Afternoon
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Small fry lugs her Minnie bag-on-wheels around the living room.

"Totoro! Come, Totoro. Let's shower and then you can wear your eyes."

"The three Totoros will shower first and then I will buy them eyes."

Small fry running to and fro in between the living room and the bedroom, carting her Totoros and her Minnie bag.

"Totoro! Totoro, come! Let's go on the bus! See, one goes on the bus and the other two go in the cab. We're on the bus! Totoros are so tired!"

Plonks on the couch with her Totoros.

"All right, I sit with you. Look at the Totoro. Totoro's sleeping on my tummy."

"Totoro is sleepy, Muumy. Totoro, you dropped your eyes! Mummy, Totoro dropped his eyes while sleeping. It's OK Totoro, I pick up your eyes."

"Totoro dropped his nuts! Oh, oh! Totoro, it's OK. Look at that, his eye dropped out. Ooooooooo, oh, it's OK. Totoro."

"The other Totoro fell down!"

Grabs her Minnie handphone:

"I call the cab for Totoro. Oh, the cab's downstairs already. All right, Totoro. Let's go downstairs. Wait ah...see, I'm going downstairs. I'm going to pick Totoro's eye up. I just put it in my zip. It's OK, the eye's still there, Totoro."

While talking to Totoro, "All right, now you can wear your eye."

And so on and so forth. It went on to colouring and drawing and singing and activity after activity after activity. I felt tired just listening to her.

I took a 10-minute audio recording of her followed by 17 minutes of video. And then I went to cook dinner. Jona and I didn't have to entertain her one bit. She entertained and talked enough for herself, the Totoros, Jona and I put together! She didn't stop till we were done cooking and it was time for her to try out the quesadilla.

Wow. First day of school? Amazing.