safety first

Today Ada's daycare class hosted a Mother's Day Tea, I was actually shocked that it was time for Mother's Day, but such is the life of a mother of a toddler, they suck away all concept of time. But I digress. Since they held the tea in the morning I was able to attend, YAY.

Ada and I arrived just as they were starting the tea, and they situated all of the kids around the little tiny tables they eat all their snacks and lunches at. Then, they brought out little tiny chairs for the three moms that showed up, and we got to sit next to our little ones. Ada seemed at a loss - what in the world is MOM still doing here? But her buddy Reese was very excited to see me and kept talking to me throughout the whole tea. Reese and I are now officially buddies.

The tea consisted of little croissants and iced tea for the parents and apple juice for the kids. While we ate, Miss Claire read us a nice book and then led the kids through a wonderful rendition of "If you are happy and you know it" and "Slippery Fish". During the performances all of the kids and Moms ate and drank and when they were done, all of Ada's classmates got up one by one to throw away their trash and then progressed to play time. All but Ada. She didn't get up because, well, she was still eating. And not a second or third helping. She was savoring every last bite of croissant like it was flown in, fresh that day from Paris. I can attest that it was not. And as I was prodding Ada, asking her if she was all done, Miss Claire came over and told me about Ada's ability to draw a bite of food out all morning long. This doesn't surprise me, this is the Caruso part of her lineage coming out (Elliot is famous for this). BUT the second part of what Miss Claire said made me wonder a little bit. When she is FINALLY done eating, Ada will not rush to get up so she can quickly get to the toys, nope, she sits there watching all the other kids, almost as if she is waiting for something. We all know that Ada likes to observe things that are new to her, but kids getting up and playing shouldn't be a new concept at this point. So I started to wonder what she might be contemplating as she finishes her meal. Then it dawned on me, SAFETY. As everyone knows, you should really wait 30 minutes after eating before you start running around again. Otherwise you cramp up and have to take a break.

And I can just imagine what is running through Ada's head each day, "Sure, play hard now, but don't come crying to me later when you want to dance with me during circle time and you cramp up while trying to pull off my new 'hip jerk, swivel, bop' move. You only have yourself to blame." Our little safety monitor.