Two weeks ago, Beckett moved up from the baby room at the hippy school to the Toddler class. And you know what? No matter how much I gripe and complain when the outrageous hippy school bill comes due at the beginning of each month, there really isn’t any place I’d rather Beckett spend his days than at this wonderful school.

Now that he’s in the toddler class, he brings his own lunchbox to school. I took Beckett on a Target run, and let him pick out his own lunchbox before the first day. Here is the lunchbox he picked out. His name is George.

George is a catepillar. And George has an ice pack. When Beckett walks into school in the mornings, he carries George in, all on his own, and puts George on the little lunchbox shelf outside of his classroom. Then he finds his picture card in the basket by the door, and carries his picture in to put on the “I’m at Hippy School Today!” board, which also doubles as the class refridgerator. He walks into class by himself, and now Basil and I are stopped at the door, and not supposed to come in with him. Beckett still cries when I drop him at the door, but he’s normally all better after only a minute or two of sobbing uncontrollably.

How do I know? Because the toddler classroom comes equipped with it’s very own prison lineup window, and clingy parents, like myself, can turn off the hall light, and watch through the window for as long as we like. Yesterday morning, Basil and I took Beckett to school together, and lingered outside of his classroom, staring into the prison lineup window, and snapping pictures of our toddler in his all grown up classroom.

Observe:

It’s easy for a half hour to zip by when you’re watching what goes on behind the one way glass, and behind the scenes at the hippy school. There is jumping on mini trampolines in front of a mirror, crossing the occassional foot bridge, and cooking your own version of alphabet block soup. There are books, and pizza puzzles, and oriental rugs to flop down on when your toddler feet get tired.

As we stood there and watched Beckett do Montessori approve puzzles, and actually PUT HIS TOYS BACK ON THE SHElF after playing with them, we got a little verclempt. He’s learning, and growing, and becoming a little boy. And it’s painfully clear that the morons he wound up with as parents are in dire need of this kind of professional academic backup. The scenarios we see unfold behind the prison lineup window are structured yet exploratory, calm, and magical.

Here is what it looks like when Beckett leaves the soft lighting and jazz infused classroom, and returns home to the Dynamic “D’oh” Duo!

If this look doesn’t scream, “Help, I’m surrounded by morons!!”, I don’t know what does.

Hang in there, little buddy! We’ll try not to embarrass you by constantly hanging around outside the prison lineup window, and leaving breathy snort marks on the glass. Just try to keep in mind that we’re too stupid and in love with you to notice the bumbling baffoons we have become.

I loaded a bunch of new pictures to the September Gallery or if you’re a flickr head, you can see the DarnLucky Flickr Gallery Here!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 14th, 2005 at 2:25 pm and is filed under Journal Entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.