#PreschoolProblems

Sam is still doing well at his new school. He's brave with Bruce at drop-off, but still gives me fits. The daily reports from the teachers still show him participating, attentive, happy (and, as an added bonus today showed him picking his nose in almost every shot). The teachers say he is a little apprehensive to join the gang of "big boys" who play a little rough on the playground (they ARE big! some of them will be starting kindergarten in the fall), but that he's happy to play with them one-on-one.

When he is telling me about the new friends he is making in school, he does it in the quirkiest way, like we are two friends chatting at a cocktail party. He'll ask, "Do you know Chloe?" "Do you know Jack Cleveland or Jack Lau?" His world is still small enough that I'm imagining he thinks there is a finite number of people to be known. Here's a shot of him today with his new friend Chloe.

He is not without his share of concerns, however. He confided in me upon pick-up last Friday that he had cried a little bit on the playground that afternoon.

"You did?" I asked. "Why?"

"I was worried about you," Sam said.

What a sweetheart, right? Already showing so much empathy. My heart swelled.

"Aw, honey. What were you worried about?"

"I was worried that when you came to pick me up you weren't going to bring my snack and my water in my own cup."

....Well, at least he's not too sensitive. Life is hard on the poets. And yes I am refining my "children in the third world are lucky to have any snack at all after preschool" speech, but I don't think he's mature enough for it yet.

(He is referring, if you must know, to the fact that his dad alwayseverydaywithoutfail brings him the same snack in the same cup and water in the same Sam-approved cup. I often bring him a bag of something I got out of the vending machine at work and the dregs of whatever I happen to be drinking at the time. It upsets him. Apparently.)