Guess who's going to pre-school?

Last week Mom, Langston and I visited two day care locations looking for a place that Langston could spend mornings meeting new friends and I could get a little work done uninterrupted.

The first place we went to was... interesting. It was very quiet even though there were several kids there. The administrator showed me the group Langston would be in - there were two kids and the teacher was 'helping' them to finger paint. She would take their hand, dip their fingers in the paint, move their fingers over the paper, wipe their hand, and start again with the next color. There was very little left to chance. Mom also noticed that several of the kids paintings on the walls were all exactly alike; there was no coloring outside the lines or any individual personality showing through. There were very few toys and the toys that were there were meant for very specific motor skills - nothing for imagination or fun.

Langston was not impressed. He stayed by my side the entire time and was not interested in talking to the administrator the couple of times she tried to engage him.

After this visit, I started looking on-line for nanny services as I was sure the daycare center idea was a bad one. I was pretty dubious about the second visit I had already scheduled for the next day. But, I figured, at worst the second school would just confirm that I need to find a part time nanny.

Boy was I surprised when we walked into Superland Montessori! Miss May took us on a tour and we were thrilled with what we saw. There were tons of kids having a great time - it was loud with laughter, play, and the occasional disagreement. There was a large play area in the center of the facility that had lots of fun moving toys, slides, playhouses, etc. Along the edge of the play area are several small classrooms. One of the smaller rooms is a music room with lots of instruments. As we walked by one of the other rooms I saw toddlers with aprons on spraying colored water at paper. In another room some older kids were doing Montessori motor skills.

While I was on the tour, Mom and Miss Isabella played with Langston and he was quite content. Langston was not at all happy about leaving. A very good sign.

Needless to say, Langston is enrolling at Superland. We went back this week so I could fill out paper work and Langston could spend a little more time getting use to the environment. This time Mom left Langston alone with Miss Isabella. He again had a great time and was reluctant to leave. And in the short time we were away, Miss Isabella observed and noted several of Langston's personality traits. This gave me lots of confidence that she is very capable of helping Langston transition smoothly to the new setting.

Langston starts school on Monday. And, if all goes as planned, he will start riding the bus on Thursday.

Here Langston is in one of the cars in the play area.