Getting Schooled

Sometimes I think Nursery School is more trouble than it's worth - like the million fundraisers and meetings I don't attend, for starters.  Or how every Tuesday and Thursday, Talia is so thrilled to see me, but then throws a GIANT tantrum about getting strapped into her carseat because she's so exhausted. Or how she's learned so many great new things, like how to stomp her foot and roar "Diss is ALL YOUR FAULT, DECLAN!!!" at her little brother, or cross her arms and say "my no wanna be your fwiend anymore, Deckie." (Poor Declan. He totally gets the short end of the stick - he cries his heart out when Talia goes into school without him, and then is the brunt of all her naughty sayings and tricks when she gets home.)

And then she tells me things like "I missed you so much and wanted you to come back and see my turkey!" and hands me this:

..... so then I think that Nursery School is making my kid a genius.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!!

Can-Skate

This morning was Talia's first official skating lesson, or as my friend called it, 'pay a bunch of money for my kid to crawl around and cry' lessons. LOL. The younger class is pretty much 3 & 4 year olds who have never been on skates before, or only a handfull of times last winter. So basically, it was awesome.

Talia was so excited about her lessons all this week. When we tried her skates and helmet on yesterday to make sure they still fit, she exclaimed "I dust love dese skates. Dey are so... so... so SKATEY!" and insisted on wearing them all afternoon. She could barely eat breakfast this morning because she was so anxious to get to the "wrinkle." But when we finally got her all geared up and ready to go out on the ice, she was not as excited. She took her teacher's hand and went off like a little trooper, but the other kids around her started dropping like flies. At one point she was the only one standing, the teacher and assistants had all scattered to help kids get up, and she was freaking out by herself in the middle of the mayhem, screaming her head off. So I broke the cardinal rule of Can-Skate (no parents on the ice! EVER!!) and went out to calm her down and shuffle her toward the closest teacher before I high-tailed it inside the rink where she couldn't see me. After that she was fine, she fell down and tried about 1 million times to stand back up, and had a great time crawling around. She was the only one in figure skates, but when we were taking her skates off at the end of lessons I heard one of the other girls crying because she didn't want black skates, she wanted white ones like Talia. Ha!

After her lesson was over she got a sticker for her helmet and a colouring sheet to take home, and proudly told me she had so much fun!! I guess there's going to be a lot of public skating in my future this winter, as it's definitely going to take some practice to really get her going. But as a former figure skater & figure skating coach, I'm super excited my big girl is in lessons this year!