Aveline's First Day of "School"

This morning marked Avie's first official day at Gabriela's for the year. As I've mentioned before, she will be there every Monday morning with her big sister. Today was a big day—for all of the children, really. Mondays are their walking days, and last year the whole group usually ended up walking down the street to our house, traipsing through the woods behind our house, and then enjoying a picnic in our backyard. Today, because there are several little ones (around Avie's age and younger) this year, their goal was to make it to the "climbing tree" at Ansley's house, up the street from us, about halfway between us and Gabriela's house. Much to my surprise, when I got out of the shower this morning, I heard little voices in our backyard. I looked out the window, and there they all were, sprawled out on two picnic blankets in our parking area (the cars weren't there) under our screened porch. And apparently they hiked through the woods, along the creek, over to a neighbor's house who has a lot of land and a garden and chickens. Then they walked all the way back. And, according to Gabriela, Avie made it the whole way.

As expected, there was no issue with dropping her off this morning. Elsa immediately sat down at the table with some of the other children and started painting, and Avie made her way for the toys, specifically a favorite baby buggy, which she started filling and pushing around. I kissed and hugged Elsa goodbye, and then went over to Avie and asked if I could have a hug and a kiss. She said "Sure," and then "Bye bye, Mama." Melt my heart.

She was exhausted by the time I picked them up at 1:15 p.m. And starving. The hunger was not helped by the fact that she did not, I guess, eat much of the afternoon meal today, which was rice and scrambled eggs. Hopefully she will learn to eat what is put in front of her. She is usually a pretty good eater. So I gave her a snack when we got home, and then it was down for a nap. I am fairly certain she fell right to sleep. And sleeping is what she is doing while I type this. In fact, Elsa might have fallen asleep too. She is currently in the playroom for quiet time, and I have not heard a peep for quite some time.