Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam!

Here's our proud little Sunbeam!

Apparently, H overheard me joke with S about taking a pict of her on her first day of Sunbeams, like is often done on the first day of school. Well, this morning, she came into my room and helped me pick out my clothes to wear for pictures! She even told me the kitchen was a hair salon and let me--gasp!--get her hair wet (something not usually done without a fight or LOTS of patience and persuasion). She actually laughed when I was rubbing in the leave-in conditioner to define her curls! I couldn't believe how excited she was to go to Primary!

We've really worked hard to prep her on the new experience of attending Primary because we knew with our church's time change (11a.m. instead of 9a.m., so Primary's right during nap time) it could either be a great experience or a disaster. We talked about all the different things that would happen as well as what kind of behavior was expected. S's teaching CTR 5, so he was the lucky one who got to watch her reactions to everything. How'd she do? Great! Once Sacrament was over, she told us she wanted to go to Primary all by herself. S followed, of course, and in she went on her own. (As she's been doing with nursery for a while now, sometimes grabbing a friend to accompany her, which is always cute to see.) Daddy says she did a great job staying in her seat, and if a question was asked, she at least raised her hand before shouting out the answer with everyone else. :) Sounds like there's just a little to work on, rather than a lot. I'm grateful the Primary counselor would focus on the children who stayed sitting with their arms raised AND who didn't shout out the answer. :) It's great to hear good behavior is being re-enforced! I like starting out on the right foot much more than having to re-teach bad habits. It's always so much easier!

S's new CTR 5 class (previously labeled CTR 6) went well. (His kindergarten mom's response to that comment was something to the effect of, "Yeah, it's the honeymoon period!) He has nine children in his class: four girls and five boys. Although he's been working with the 8-12 age group for the past three or so years between being the Cub Master and a primary teacher, he was able to substitute this group of kids twice last year, so at least he's familiar with most of them. He's hoping to survive the upcoming months as the kids get more used to him, and thus more relaxed in their behavior! He says he's just taking it one week at a time, which is definitely what I've learned to do with all the changes we've had in nursery the past six months!

As for nursery, its dynamics were quite different today. I had the new Sr. class--all girls! (I'm sure next year the incoming nursery kids will be all boys. It's aways interesting what kind of gender patterns develop within a congregations as new babies arrive.) Being all girls, there wasn't as much running around and toy dumping as typically went on with H's class (was it half girls and half boys? pretty close to that, I think, depending on the week). The blocks weren't even touched until the substitute helping me started playing with them and one of the girls, but I think even then not much was built. However, the dolls were definitely fought over by the end. There were just two dolls and one doll blanket for the whole class. I'm grateful only five girls were there today, with the end of the holidays, rather than all nine or ten of them. We just might have to borrow some dolls from H's toy box for a while! Oh, and unlike with the almost four-year-olds I was working with just last week, sharing is definitely still being learned with this group! :) I didn't mention that I worked with all but one of these girls for a few months (Aug, Sept/Oct?) but then was moved up to work with the Sr. kids, who being a year older I have to honestly say were a breeze--almost boring, in fact! ;P It'd be interesting to see how these girls change over the next year. Too bad I'll only be in nursery a few more months with Baby Boy on the way. . . . not that it's all bad to be released as that time draws near. ;) Nursery's just one of my favorite places to be.

A friend of mine's 18-mo-old joined us since she's more used to me (and JW, too, really) than the teachers and kids in her class, so that was fun. It's probably been over a month and a half since I last babysat her, so although she just saw me Thu at playgroup, she unfortunately wasn't quite as quick to calm down for me as I had initially hoped. When she first saw me she cried for me as though she were saying, "R! Save me! Take me to my mom!" But then when she realized I wasn't going to, she refused to be comforted! :) Poor kid. She didn't even want the snacks I snuck out for her! I noticed she'd calm down whenever changes were happening, so I tried to stay standing and moving around, which did help. By the time we pulled out snacks for everyone, she decided she wanted some too. :) Of course, if anyone came into the classroom, and especially if anyone left, she'd start crying again, but at least she'd calm down after a moment or two. One time, though, when JW left briefly, she turned to me with her big elephant tears and practically wailed, "Hey! She gets to go--why not me???" I couldn't help laughing at that!

By the end of nursery (2p.m.) the kids were so tired from missed naps that within probably two minutes of pulling out our--supposedly--last activity of the day, hardly even two of them were paying attention, and one of them was the Sunbeam son of one of the teachers! Bubble blowing, the number one favorite nursery activity, is always saved for the end because it's so good for keeping the kids content while waiting for parents to arrive. When I saw that fail to keep their attention, I nearly panicked! I'd never seen the golden ticket fail before!!! I tried the favorite song "Popcorn Popping"; I think I had three kids singing it at the beginning and then two kids half singing it and the other four were all over the place by three-fourths of the way through. From an earlier question a teacher asked regarding a song about a bunny going to sleep (inspired by a couple of the kids playing with the room's light switch), I made up a story with actions for the kids to do about a tired bunny who laid down to sleep. Suddenly, I had every child laying still on the floor. It was naptime, alright!!! (How grateful I was for that teacher's comment!!! Phew!) When parents arrived, the kids were generally content and ready to go. :) Perfect ending to a busy day!

As a side note:

My friend JW brought over a stroller she didn't need, and apparently Mitzie thought it was a pretty comfy place to be.