Here we come to a turning of the season

Fall is finally here. We are so busy but it's pretty great.

filling (killing) time

Now that Elliott will be going to preschool two mornings a week, I find myself in need of ideas to fill (kill) time between dropping Nico off at his school at 7:55 and dropping Elliott off at his at 8:30. E's school is maybe five minutes away from N's, if I hit all the red lights. He's also not allowed to go into his classroom before 8:30, so there's no early-arrival option. On Tuesday last week we tried to use up the time by driving out to the second-farthest Starbucks, but the drive-thru line was so long that we wouldn't have made it back in time. On Thursday I doubled back and ran an errand to my mom's. All the practical places I may need to go on a weekday (bank, pharmacy, library, post office) don't open until 9:00. If I get groceries I have to lug anything cold into work with me for the day. I really should not go to Target two mornings a week, plus E and I already make a 45 minute dash-and-grab Target trip on Mondays to kill time between N's 7:55 school drop-off and E's 9:00 music class. Target three times a week would be a financial disaster.

I had the thought that I could put a basket of books and coloring supplies in my car for him for the mornings, but I feel like that might eat into his limited supply of sitting-still juju for the day. Elliott would love to sit in the hall outside his classroom and watch YouTube videos on my phone, but that seems like a lame way to blow our screen time budget. I would love to sit in the car and read a book of my own for 30 minutes, but that seems unfair to E. He would enjoy playing on the playground at preschool, but the slides and swings are always covered in dew that early in the morning. Perhaps I should just start taking along an extra pair of pants and a towel, which would solve our problem at least until December or January when it finally gets cold. Maybe on rainy days I can let him run laps in the gym before we go to his class.

I am a natural multi-tasker and time-gap-exploiter, so having a usable chunk of time that I can find absolutely nothing to do with is kind of bugging me. Plus I don't want to hand off an already-bored, already-crabby Elliott to his sainted teachers. First world problems, I have them!

Sulk level: grand master

Elliott had his preschool orientation / short day yesterday, wherein the kiddos come in for 45 minutes with an adult and do a few practice activities. We were the last pair to go in, so everyone else was already sitting at the little tables when we arrived, but since we had visited on Tuesday to meet the teachers and see the classroom, Elliott knew exactly where the good toys were. I had to drag him away from the basket of cars and trucks and block his escape from the chair while trying to convince him to participate in making his "friendship pizza." He was clearly thinking, "This is BULLSHIT, MADAM," though he eventually started to enjoy sticking the little die-cut pepperonis and mushrooms with his classmates' names on them onto his paper plate pizza.

At the end the teachers brought out yellow shredded paper to be the cheese, which was honestly really adorable and pretty realistic-looking. In fact, Elliott thought it was actually shredded cheese (which he loves), snatched some, and put it in his mouth. He was deeply offended upon discovering he'd been deceived. Once he'd picked the pieces off his tongue, he gave his pizza a dark, dark look, and then very deliberately pushed all the fake cheese far off to the side. When I tried to glue a few shreds onto his craft he plucked them off and threw them away.

The kids got a little bit of free time to play, and then got called back to the mat to sing a song and say goodbye. Here's Elliott after I made him put away the cars, while all the other children were singing Teddy Bear Turn Around:

The drama is strong with this one. He's cute, though.

Reading:  The Shepherd's Crown by Terry Pratchett

Playing:  American Idiot by Green Day