nursery to primary

Zack had his "Goodbye" Party at nursery today, altho' his last official day is only on Friday this week. There is so much excitement about going to Primary school - each child was telling me where they were going and if they had a uniform or not. Zack wore his new school shoes that we bought this morning (sorry, no photos there), and was eager to wear his uniform until it was time to go and then it was "batman mommy". Ah well, there'll be lots of time to wear a uniform and fewer occasions to be a superhero!

Charlie & Lola cups used for party tricks

"it doesn't work any more. I want a new one!"

car

Calvin's favourite word is still "car". Zack gets annoyed now and shouts, "train. train. train.", when Calvin means train. Sigh. You get used to it tho'.
This evening while Zack was bathing, I sat with Calvin while he played with the garage and his cars. The light was beautiful, so I got quite a few lovely shots. Here are just two.

payback time

Mrs Sweby at Montessori Nursery, N10 sent me my deposit back by cheque today. Will attempt to deposit it.

drunk and disorderly

So it all came to a head last week Monday. After four sessions of "settling in" at a North London Montessori nursery nearby, I took Calvin to his first day. Dropped him off at 1:30pm and when I turned up to collect him at 4:55pm there was this strange old crone sitting in the kid's play room. She looked awful, gaunt and sallow. She had grey blotches under her eyes and across her nose. I really wasn't sure who she was or why she had all the staff sitting in a circle around her. Her skirt was hoiked up, and her legs akimbo. A part of me was already scrambling through the ID parade... she was probably the owner. Then she spoke and I was right, it was the owner who'd I'd only spoken to on the phone. She was going on and on about ofsted and the parents, and how she couldn't do enough for them. I said, "Excuse me?" but I couldn't understand what she was saying. I was looking around the room, from face to face, at each member of staff. All I got was blank stares or averted eyes.
In the meantime Calvin had seen me, stood up and was walking towards me. His face said scared and unhappy. I grabbed him and slung him onto my hip. By now I'd caught one of the girls (who I'd chatted to the previous week) rolling her eyes. Yup, I could smell the booze at 2metres. So I guessed A + B = blotto.

The end of it all : I've pulled Calvin out of the nursery. He's going to go to Zack's full-day nursery from mid-September.

No point in being stupid about this. Two weeks ago my gut feel was "there is something weird here with the staff". Yes, the peer pressure amongst fellow North London mummies was that Calvin should only attend a half-day session BUT I cannot have my child in THAT nursery. Zack's little nursery - Greygates - is just lovely. The staff turnover is neglible and they are genuinely affectionate, well trained, career child-carers. I don't have a qualm about sending him there other than the long hours. I was only trying to be "open minded" by going for the Montessori. It failed. There you go. Now we're onto plan B, which really should have been plan A.