Taking Steps

Ignoring for a minute the symbolism of her pushing a shopping cart, there's something I really like about this picture. Molly has been actively turning objects into walkers. Pretty much anything more than a few inches high or less than 3' tall and movable. She's all about walking. She loved pushing this baby-sized shopping cart around at Habitot this morning. The only problem was that it actually has wheels, so, unlike the chair she pushes around at home, it moved relatively easily. Placing my hand on side not only gave it enough resistance that she could stay upright, but also steered it away from all the other toddlers storming the place.

In other news, Blogging Baby gave me yet another reason to be scared of sending Molly to school anywhere but our local public school. We've recently begun the process of figuring out when we have to figure out the preschool thing, and/or the kindergarten thing. According to some folks in order to get into a "good" preschool we should have started the interview process as soon as we conceived. Others would give you a little longer, say, once she's born. To settle the matter we went to the East Bay Mom's annual Preschool Fair. Yes, you heard right: Preschool Fair. And you thought they just did that for college. Ha!

To be honest, such things scare the poop out of me. For better or for worse my reaction to being told that I need to have Molly on several waiting lists already and start interviewing at preschools is basically that I don't want to be a part of a school that would require that of me. I believe (and hopefully I'm right!) that having such competitive preschool admissions does not necessarily mean that is the right preschool for us & for Molly. I feel like such schools set up an exclusivity that I'm just not interested in being a part of. And, seriously? How am I supposed to know what is going to be the right school for her when she's only 10 months old?

To add to that, I've started hearing stories of preschools kicking kids out for certain behavioral issues (like biting and not sitting still). No, I don't want my daughter to have to deal with major behavioral issues in other kids, but I also would hope that her school would be interested in actually dealing with those smaller issues rather than passing them off on someone else. Isn't that what school is for? For everyone to learn?

Anyhow, the good news is that we can all breath a sigh of relief and not worry about admissions or waiting lists for a little while longer. I think that it's great for folks who have it together to know what schools might appeal to them and start getting to know those schools. But, as the director of one school at the fair told me, it's still a little early. Most parents at her school start looking the winter before they plan on enrolling, with enrollment happening up through September.

I'm sure you're all relieved. And I'm sure you're all happy to see that our neighbors graciously lent us their camera for a day. :)