At ease.

This is a photo Sam's preschool teachers sent us today. Nothing unusual, just Sam looking at a picture book. The one thing that strikes me, though, is how comfortable he is. How relaxed. He is perfectly contented just sitting there, by himself, looking at a book. On Sunday, we were talking about how most everyone will be moving up to new classes at his school soon. Sam and a couple of his friends will stay behind with their current teachers. We talked about how new friends will be joining him in this class and how he can help them learn their way around since he has been there a while now. He could, I said, show them where the cool toys are and make them feel more comfortable.

"And I could help them stop wandering around," he added. My heart sunk. Wandering around is exactly what Sam does in the classroom (or any new environment) when he is not yet comfortable. His teachers reported it at his last daycare when we first moved back to the area and at his new preschool when we finally got in this past March. In all of the photos they sent us each day, Sam was never in the foreground, participating, but in the background walking through the shot. Sam is an observer, and he will often just hang around the fringes, taking it all in. In both classes the teachers connected his tendency to wander around the room all day as an inability to focus or sit still, and they would always praise his developmental growth and maturity after a month or so when he would finally start spending a significant amount of time at any given center. But I know that is really just how Sam copes with being the new kid, reflecting the fact that he hasn't yet found his place.

Sam remembers that feeling, it turns out. When "nobody won't play with me," he said. I'm glad to see him sitting still now, even for a moment. And I'm glad when I pick him up these days, he is always angry with me because I'm too early, interrupting play time with his friends.