Where's Yaya?

Amid torrential rains this Tuesday, Alia embarked on her 3rd year of preschool at Hope Children's Center. I told Alia she couldn't wear a dress, which of course devastated her, but she eventually settled on wearing her Hope T-shirt. It's hard to believe that I bought this for her two years ago, and it's still a little big on her. Marc later commented that this wasn't a very special outfit for the first day of school, but I have to give Alia some freedom. I just really don't want her to wear dresses to school because:
1. I know she doesn't really understand the not showing her underwear thing
2. She often comes home from school very messy, and I just think she should be in true play clothes.
3. She wears the same dresses repeatedly, and her other summer clothes need to be worn once or twice!

So even though I used to let Alia wear whatever she wanted outside the house (as long as they were real clothes, of course), I think it's a fair compromise to not wear dresses two days of the week.

Alia's new teacher, Mrs. McDonnell, seems to be caring and involved. She's given home projects twice now, and she frequently sends e-mail updates on what the children are doing. Not surprisingly, Alia at first was calling her Mrs. McDonalds.

When I left Alia in Mrs. McDonnell's class on Tuesday, she was eager to start the table work Mrs. McDonnell had set out and unafraid to be left there. She's such an fearless girl, never worried to be in a new place, yet she's shy around adults at the same time.

On the second day of class, Alia drew a self portrait of herself and a picture of her family. For the third time, she drew a picture of me and Marc crying. I asked her why we were crying, and she said it was a picture of us when we were all babies.


The last picture is a picture Grant drew today. He was quite lost on Alia's first day of school. When we got in the car, he kept pointing to her seat and saying, "Where's Yaya?" (He's reverted to his first name for Alia again, yaya, even though he can say Alia now) When we got home, he started looking around the house for her again. He loves his sister.

In the slide show (click on top picture) I have pictures from a recent play date at Austin's Science and Nature Center.

Tomorrow we leave for Disney!