Every night at dinner, Drew and I ask the girls how their day went. Who did they play with at recess? Did they eat their entire lunch? Did they wash their hands before lunch? And do they SWEAR they did not throw anything in their lunch away uneaten?? I like to know exactly what they are eating and/or not eating. And the questions go on and on like every parent does every night sitting around their dinner table.
As I have mentioned before, I try to ask questions so specific that even the smallest grunt on their part would suffice. It seems to work because when I ask pointed questions I get answers and when I just say, "how was school today?" I get nothing.
When school first started I worried about them during recess. I worried that they wouldn't have anyone to play with and once or twice Belle came home and said just that. Kids were off playing and she had no one to play with. It got even worse when one night she told me she asked some girls in her class to play and they said they couldn't at that moment because they were already playing.
My heart just about broke when I heard that. Things have improved dramatically since that time. She has clocked more hours in the school and has had a chance to meet more children. Now its like she's been there forever and there is always someone to play with at recess.
Their school has this great program where every week certain children in each class are picked to be 'Ambassadors'. They wear this bright yellow netted shirt so that they are easily identifiable to the other children on the playground. The whole point is that if any child ever finds themselves without anyone to play with, they go and play with an Ambassador.
What a wonderfully genius idea! I had never heard of anything like this before and we'll just add that to the growing list of why I love the suburbs so much.
The other night we asked Belle how school was and who did she play with at recess? She told us school was good but there was this boy who really liked her. His name was Scott and every day at recess he tells her that he likes her and that she is his girlfriend.
She said "he keeps bothering me and saying all this stuff to me." I told her to be gentle with him and even if she didn't like him back, it was so cute that he had the guts to tell her that he liked her. He is a boy who follows his heart and is confident enough to not care what other people think. What a great thing and what a special boy.
I told her that girls have the ability to crush boys spirits and to please be gentle with his feelings. So the next night we asked her about Scott again and if he had said anything else to her that day in recess?
She said yes, he told her again that she was his girlfriend and she insisted that she was not to which he replied, "yes you are because that is exactly what a real girlfriend would say."
