Nursery

This is Elise before church this morning. She put these shorts on her own head and said, "Hat. Church." Apparently this is what she thought she was going to be wearing to church today.

We opted for a dress, but maybe we'll go with the pajamas-with-shorts-for-a-hat look next week.

Today was Elise's first day of Nursery at church, which is the class for kids 18 months to 3 years old, and the youngest age group to be in a class. (This was their lesson today, if you want an idea of what they do in there.) We have been looking forward to this day for a long time now. Elise is just way too rambunctious to be expected to sit still and be quiet for 3 hours straight during church! Even with Whales crackers.

One hour is more than enough, especially because Matt played the organ today and I got to wrestle Elise all by myself. She almost fell off the pew backwards once, ripped a page in a hymnal, and had to be taken out after she hit her head and cried a little. She was still pretty noisy the entire first hour meeting, but we made it through. The two older women sitting behind us kept commenting on how curious, active, and vocal she is. Definitely not news to Matt and me. We just usually refer to these traits collectively when we say (all the time), "Elise is crazy."

So you can imagine how happy we were when, as of a few days ago, Elise became officially old enough to join the Nursery class. And she is just as happy about the transition as we are. She didn't cry or act distressed at all when I dropped her off. I even peeked in between second and third hours to see how she was doing; she was so busy that she didn't even notice me. The Nursery leaders said she was doing "phenomenal." (Isn't this supposed to be about the age kids hit the peak of separation anxiety? Apparently I was more anxious than she was about our separation.) When I went to pick her up after church, she barely glanced my way before continuing to chase bubbles.

So, all in all, a good day. I have to admit that I'm a little sad she doesn't seem to miss me at all if I drop her off for a couple of hours with people she has never met before. But overall, I am overjoyed that she does so well in Nursery. And that I actually got to sit still and listen in my classes today.