A daycare update...

Ash got a new teacher in December and it has made a world of difference at daycare. She is great. She loves him. He's ok with her. Not totally in love yet like he was with Elshia.

They started a superstar of the week program and Ash got to be the first Superstar! Each kid has a little paper cookie taped to the door and every time they do something good their cookie moves up a little. The first one to the top for the week is Superstar. The Superstar gets to always be first in line, make all the choices, get special privileges, and bring the movie for movie day. Ash chose Ice Age 3 and he was so excited to take it (but only with the understanding that it was still his and he got to bring it back home).

He also doesn't use his binky at daycare, which is an awesome first step to getting rid of it.

At old daycare they let the kids get a treat each day when they left. Ash loved picking out a tootsie roll or whatever each night. At new daycare they don't do this... and Ash was VERY disappointed. So I started bringing him a treat each night. Every night he runs up to me and says "What you have in your car?" And if I don't tell him... he gets in the car and starts climbing over the seat into the front to try to see what it is. I also use this treat as a bribe to keep the binky out on our way home. So far car rides and naps are must have binky times. Most days he will take the bribe, but occasionally he has missed the binky so much, he'll opt for the binky over the treat.

He still misses old daycare. We were talking about birthday parties (since Elle turned 2!). Ash wanted to know when his birthday party was. I told him it was in the summer... he looks at me and says, "but it will snow tomorrow!" (with total sadness). So he knows summer is a little ways away. He told me he really wanted Kemper (his best buddy from old daycare) to come to his party. I told him that would be fine. He says, "but what if there is no room?" So I had to assure him we would make room for Kemper.

Ash has also learned just about nursery rhyme and starts randomly singing them. He's got ABC's almost down. He belts out John Jacob Jingle-heimer Schmidt all the time. My favorite is You Are My Sunshine. One day at daycare he got a prize for singing "loud and clear." They told me he loves to sing.

So... daycare is better. We're surviving the change. Ash still doesn't have a best buddy like Kemper, but just in the last two days he started talking about Matthew. Hopefully Matthew is a nice sweet boy who likes to break out into the lollipop song and dance around just like Kemper did...