another sunday, another monday.

So tomorrow, Monday morning, marks the beginning of Emma's third week in preschool!!! YIKES! It's been good, although it has taken some adjustment for all of us.

We don't have many pictures yet of her at school, but this one was on the first day after I picked her up:

And this is the little playground/courtyard area inside the school:

Our morning routine works something like this: Josh wakes up the earliest and gets all ready. I wake Emma up abot 7:15 and start getting her ready, and the three of us eat a simple breakfast like granola or a muffin together. Josh then takes Emma the one stop on bus 31 or bus 79. Emma gets to use the bus pass to swipe their fare. She gets to preschool about 8:10 or so and "eats" a quick breakfast with the other kids.

I say "eats" because if there have been any issues so far, they have all been food-related. I think it's kind of funny because she eats asian food actually better than she eats western food. But, then again, asianese are sometimes a little overboard when it comes to how much food kids actually need to eat. The history of it goes way back, to times when people honestly couldn't be picky or they would die. But honestly, we're not in that situation now. They get a little frenzied when emma doesnt' eat all of her veggies (I mean, I'm not crazy about seaweed soup either, so it's hard to blame her) and their mouths drop in astonishment when emma polishes off bowl after bowl of rice (remember her birthday request? The girl loves rice!)

Each day, they give us little progress reports on how she ate, if she obeyed the teachers, if she played with the other kids. We are very pleased with her progress so far. Last week's goal was for her to try one bite of everything on her plate. Here is one of the conversations I had with her:

Me: Emma, what did you eat at school today?

Em: Ummmm, rice.

Me: What else?

Em: Rice. I mean, more rice.

Me: Did you eat anything else?

Em: No.

Me: Ok, what did you not eat?

Em: Eggplant. And soup. And meat.

Me: Oh. Ok.

They get to play outside, and they do little calesthenics, and they play games and sing songs. Then, after "lunch", or by 11:45 I go to pick emma up and she gets to swipe the bus pass for us to go home and eat again.

This weekend while josh and the girls were coloring, he was surprised to hear her singing "head and shoulders, knees and toes" in asianese -we had not taught her that, so it was something she picked up there. Her progress reports to us usually include her telling us who took her toy, or who was crying for her mommy.

On Fridays, we've started a new tradition of having a picnic at a little courtyard in the apartment complex where her school is located. The weather has still been chilly, but it's great to be outside and enjoying the sunshine! Last friday the sun was shining exceptionally brightly, so we called up all our friends and had a group picnic - the first of its kind! We totally maxed out the blanket, don't you think?

If there's one person who is not sad about emma's new class, it's samantha. She secretly loves all the mommy time she's been getting, and we do have fun. No one takes her toys. No one bosses her around. And she doesn't have to share her momma with anyone!

One day, after we finished playing puzzles together, we decied to pr for emma. Here is the transcript of mantha's pryer:

God? Thank you [for] Emma, Emma's [preschool]. Emma, have fun. Amen. Mommy, play more puzzles?

I have been surprised that mantha hasn't missed emma more, but her squeals still reach high on the decibel chart when emma comes home.

Here's a quick video I took of mantha as she was giving one of her concerts at the piano in Emma's absence. (I'm not very familiar with editing my video for putting it on blogs, so please pardon the previous scene at the beginning!) Sorry, the video took a little too long, and now it's bedtime. I'll try it again tomorrow.