All Grown Up

Johnny moved up to the toddler classroom this week, having spent last week settling in. Being in the toddler class reunites him with his True Love, Elizabeth. He fell hard and fast for Elizabeth back in November when she joined his class, and once she started walking on her birthday, they were a veritable Bonny & Clyde making mischief together all day long. She went to New York for two weeks over Christmas (her parents are academics from Russia on H1-B visas so when her dad's boss moved to Brooklyn he had to go too) and when she got back, Johnny ran up to her and gave her a big hug and didn't let go until she started to cry.

Like his daddy, Johnny has a penchant for older women, so we were all very sad when Elizabeth moved up to the toddler classroom in January. We had a few weekend play dates over winter and went to visit in her classroom at the end of the day quite regularly. When Elizabeth wouldn't stop crying on photo day, they went and got Johnny who cried with her. When spring brought warmer weather we've had a half hour play date in the playground after school every day. It was no surprise, then, that Johnny's settling in in the toddler classroom was a doddle.

Since the move, reports are that Elizabeth has really started to shine and talk a lot more; we all knew that she could, but she just didn't have her bessie mate to talk to. Johnny is learning words from her thick and fast and spent the weekend saying "hi" and "bye" and "thank you" (which he says when he gives something to you because that's what Elizabeth says to him). Today at lunch time Elizabeth kept calling him "Johnny! Johnny!" because we were reading a book and he was off playing with the teacher.

Watching this friendship unfold between Johnny and Elizabeth makes me glad I'm not a stay at home mom. There are many days that working full-time sucks, but there's so much he has learned and experienced that never would've occurred to me that he could.