School week 3

After 9 days of being in nursery, The Little One is finally settling in. Slowly.

The school owner finally realized that she needed to be distracted with crafts or activities so that she would forget to cry.

Surely any trained early childhood education practitioner would have known that. But I have decided to keep my gripe about the school and its untrained staff separate from my quest to get The Little One used to the idea of going to school.

I am happy with her progress. DH who drops The Little One to school tells me she still cries when he leaves her. But at least I don't have to accompany her in school. The school owner says she cries on and off. She stops crying when its time they did some craft, even though they felt the craft activity may be too advance for her but she seemed to like it. Not surprising since we have been doing those activities at home.

I tried a combination of bribery (Ice cream for breakfast and cookies in her lunch box,) stickers as positive reinforcement and homeopathy and Bach flowers remedy. Pulsatilla seems to help ease the transition and Bach rescue remedy pastilles as a treat on her way to school. And prayers of course! Lots of prayers, morning, midmorning, day and night!

Already I have seen many changes in her. She is getting stronger physically, gaining better control of her motor skills. She can climb the stairs to the slide all by herself. She knows the difference between pull and push. One afternoon, while having lunch, she was making airplane noises while putting cookies in her mouth. I was surprised when she proclaimed, "Eplane!" to me.

While looking at pictures, she pointed "C!" to me. Then I realized that she is pointing to the sea. It was a picture that Elisa (or was it Taufik?) had taken for us in Kh0b@r with the background of the sea. How does she know these things? I guess she has been taking notes all along.

On the other hand she has perfected the art of fake crying. She does it to get my attention. Something that she didn't use so much. She sometimes give up a high pitch cry to get attention. Perhaps its something that she realize works in attracting attention. I have tried to ignore the behavior hoping that she would not be screaming so much.

She is constantly testing her boundaries. When I tell her that a behavior is unacceptable, trying out different variations to make sure that they are all not acceptable or if she could get away with anything at all.

She can ask for "Ice cream" quite clearly and "gogurt" (yogurt). Her current favorite food is "mush-room" and "bisket" (biscuit.)

I wish that the school would be more stimulating but unless trained staff are employed I don't think it would happen overnight. On the other hand, the opportunity for her to interact with other children some old and some younger than her is quite valuable. And that she understands that she could have some fun without mummy being beside her.

The only thing that makes me a little nervous is that in 2 weeks we're scheduled to go away for a month long holiday, and I hope we don't have to start the adjustment period all over again from scratch.