The Edwards girls and Tappan girls have been attending Thursday school together these past two years. All four girls were privileged to have Ms. Melanie as their teacher. While there is one more week of school, this past week was Ms. Melanie’s last week with the little girls. She has been such a sweet spirit with the girls showing them so much love. We thought it was good to get a parting photo together. I’m afraid that we made her a bit sad with our parting good-byes. Thank you, Ms. Melanie!

The big girls enjoyed playing together and trying to climb a tree.  

Emily had gone to bed with a cough and I wondered if she would be able to go to Thursday school the next morning. Sure enough she was up in the night with a fever. So, this morning, I asked Julia if she wanted to go to school by herself or stay with Mommy. Using her usual method of communicating–head nodding–she choose to go to school alone. The theme of the day was Teddy bears and they were to bring one in with them. Julia selected Minnie Mouse. There was no changing her mind either. Minnie went with her to school. I thought it would be fun to remember her day of independence with a photo of herself with Minnie. She was very brave about going alone up to the point when we went down the hall to her class. I left her in tears to find out later that she quit them quickly.

Emily and I had a fun couple of hours of just hanging out together alone. While it wasn’t the most fun list of activities, we enjoyed just being with each other. Emily visited the doctor to have her cough checked on. She asked to take her doll with her to the doctor’s office, so that she could be like her sister and take a stuffed friend with her. Emily was a big brave girl at the appointment. She had a breathing treatment administered while we were there and I thought she would like to see what she looked like with the fish mask on. She didn’t like the noise of the machine, but didn’t seem to mind the mask. Hopefully with a little rest she will be feeling back to normal very soon.

Emily measured at this appointment 41-1/2 inches tall and 32.8 lbs weight

Today is the first day of Thursday School. Emily woke up talking about it. She was quite excited. Julia looks a little apprehensive about the idea. It will be her first day going. Don’t let her face fool you she was excited too. She cried when she didn’t get to wear her backpack out the door to the car.

Drop-off went well. Emily is in a class of all girls. She will be making all new friends because none of the girls were in her class last year. After hanging her backpack she sat right down and started playing with a barn set. Julia is in a class with all boys, at least at this point. She helped me hang her backpack and then sat down to play with play-dough. She didn’t have any tears as I said goodbye, so I have high hopes that she will adjust to her new class well.

Pick-up came a little too soon for the mama. I had decided to get Emily first and then take her to get Julia. This way Emily could see her old teacher Ms. Melanie. When I got to Emily’s room, Julia was there. During lunch time Julia spotted Emily and was sad that she couldn’t be with her. So, they allowed Julia to hang in the room with Emily after lunch. Too sweet! Emily had a blast and was quietly playing with puzzles when I came to get her. We did our visiting on the way out and Emily enjoyed telling me of her day. Julia did great in her class and participated with the other kids. We will see what she thinks of it next week.

As a side note, Mama loved her three hours too.

With summer come the end of all our normal weekly activities. Last week was the end of three of these activities. Our swim class, Thursday school, and Bible Study Fellowship. We have a few more weeks of Little Gym before the spring classes end.

The swim class was only eight weeks long, but it was a fun eight weeks. We splashed, swam, and bobbed our way through them. I was so proud of Emily and her interest in swimming. She enjoyed her teacher, liked to preform for her, and was getting a sense of being in the water under her own steam. Julia still wasn’t “fearful” of the water so it was fun to do things without her clinging to me. She didn’t like to float on her back, but enjoyed most of the other activities. She would “swim” between the teacher and her Mama, practice her crab walk along the pool edge, swim to a ball she would throw out in the water, and sing motion songs with the class. We are planning on both girls to take the fall version of the class again.

Thursday School was both for Emily and Julia. The class gave Emily the opportunity to learn to play with others along with learning life lessons. It also gave Julia some special Mama time. We would go to Mother Goose together, shop, eat breakfast, play, and see our friend Maeve.

Bible Study Fellowship was an opportunity for all of us to have some constructive time of learning. Mama enjoyed her study of scripture, Emily loved spending the morning with her class and striving to be the class leader, and Julia played her morning away with other toddlers and snacks. Out of all our activities this one was the most regimented. I could see such growth in Emily with her group participation and living up to high expectations. What a joy! After class we would walk a special sidewalk out to our car. Emily kept wanting to walk further on the sidewalk, so I started parking at the end of the sidewalk so that she could enjoy walking the whole way.

There are so many fun activities to fill our summer with, but this week will feel a little empty without the activities that have come to define our week. Emily typically asks each day where we are going or what we are doing. We will just have to enjoy each day and what fun activity comes with each one.

Emily finished her year of Thursday School. She loved going to class each week and if we missed one she talked about going the next week. She loved that Elena was in her class and she could spend time with her friend. She loved taking her shoes off when she was at school. She was sad during the cold months when she couldn’t play outside. She enjoyed being a part of deciding what to wear to school and picking shoes each week. She never came home with a clean shirt, dress, or hands – always a bit of her art work came home on her. She loved having her special lunchbag and backpack.

It sounds like the first few weeks of school were a little rough for her. She would shutdown if she didn’t get her way, which happened each week. When she figured out how class worked and about the rules she then took off in the class. She was active and participated a lot. She also wasn’t shy about offering suggestions to the class about things. She liked her teachers and the activities especially the ones that involved dressing up. It was a joy to drop her off at an activity she enjoyed so much!

For the closing of school they had a special presentation. Each of the classes went up on the stage and sang three songs. There were such cute antics in each of the grades and I could only imagine what Emily was going to do. When it was time for her class to preform she had plenty of funny things to share. Emily proceeded to talk during the presentation to the teacher, announce that she wanted to sing by herself, she found her parents and grandparents in the audience and stood and waved, she announced that the group was singing too quietly and that they should start again, and she did some of the hand motions of the songs. I was glad to see that she had her own individual spirit among the group and enjoyed that she was able to share it with everyone else.
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Mr. John, one of her teachers, wrote about the class and each child in the class. The following is an excerpt from his essay pertaining to Emily and Elena.

“This year’s class of 2-year-olds at the New York Avenue Church of Christ Thursday School was a surprisingly congenial group. Perhaps it was the absence of redheads and identical twins, or the fact that 5/8’s of the group had names starting with the letter E, but for some reason, this class was altogether easier, more peaceful, less physically contentious, and (dare I say it) more mature. If last year’s class was like a think tank, this year’s was like a weekly group therapy session.

Emily is one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met, a complexly cerebral child whose intellectual cup runneth over. Comfortable all alone in the topsy-turvy playroom, sitting at a little table with an inert toy computer, she would appear to be video conferencing with 2 or 3 colleagues in distant locations, playing all the parts herself, a la Gilda Radner. Occasionally cantankerous and often goofy in a way that she personally found very entertaining, she was also quite inseparable from her sorority sister, Elena.

Elena seemed always to be bathed in the soft, diffused natural sunlight that illuminates faces in Vermeer paintings, such was her blending of reflective, diminutive, classical beauty, quiet happiness, and good manners. The word “cute” fits Elena like the word “agile” fits a hummingbird – not as adjective but as essence.

Elena and Emily liked to go down the playground slide side by side, holding hands.”

Emily and Elena are in a Mother’s Day Out program together, so we couldn’t pass the opportunity to share a little birthday party. Ashley made the cupcakes and I brought pinwheels and candles. Emily seemed pleased to eat her cake with her class and was happy in a quiet shy way. It was sweet for her Mommy to share this party with her.