Move On Up!

Yesterday, Molly had her “moving up” ceremony at preschool. It marks the time when the Lion Cubs become Dinosaurs. Since the Dinosaur’s classroom is upstairs, they literally get to “move up” to the second floor. And the ceremony helps reinforce this change. Each child was called one by one to receive a dinosaur necklace from one of the outgoing Dinosaurs. Then, while the rest of the parents and kids clap and chant “move on up!” one by one they each marched upstairs to the second story deck where their new teacher was waiting.

I remember last year, the whole concept of changing classes was very fuzzy for Molly. She was a Beluga becoming a Lion Cub. She was thrilled about the ceremony (which she called a “Sarah-mony”), and the change, and the process. But, she had a lot of questions about the change. Like, “Will I still be Molly?”

This year she was still thrilled about the whole event, but she clearly understood more about what it meant. The day before she talked a bunch about the chanting (“I’ll walk up stairs and everyone will say “move up Molly, move up Molly”!), about being a Dinosaur (“I like the blocks they have”), and about wearing a fancy dress (she wore a chiffon-ey bridesmaid-style dress given to us by my boss for our dress-up collection). When she got to the top, she yelled down: “Look at me Mama! Look at me Daddy!”

She also seems to be trying to understand more about change. When we were sitting together having snack after the ceremony, she said to me:

“Ceremonies are exciting, but also sad”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m excited about being a Dinosaur, but I’m also sad about not being a Lion Cub any more.”

Me too, my dear. Me too.