As hard as it was to believe, at the end of May Reese graduated from Central Christian Childcare. And Central Christian makes sure you know that this is a major milestone with robes and a choreographed ceremony filled with songs, speeches, and personality. Although we weren't able to capture this, the ceremony started with the kids marching in to Pomp and Circumstance, which definitely flashed us forward a bit to future milestones. Reese was all about business throughout the entire ceremony, watching every cue from her teachers.
Yes, you do see diplomas in each of their hands. Ms. Jacinta, Reese's teacher, had something to say about each child before she presented the diplomas. For Reese, she said among other things that Reese was the "classroom dancing queen," she is "smart, kind, and nice to others," and "when she grows up she wants to be a teacher." We loved Ms. Jacinta and could not have asked for a better teacher. Indeed, so many of the kids said they wanted to be teachers, and that says a lot about how much they loved Ms. Jacinta, Miss Emily, and Miss Precious.
So here is our pre-school graduate. As you can see, she was all smiles and very proud of this accomplishment. What you don't see in the picture is that she was very concerned about doing what she was supposed to do (turning in her robe) and finding her friends. We are also pretty sure she didn't want to miss out on the cookies at the reception afterward.
Needless to say, her parents were extremely proud of her accomplishments as well. We had spent quite a bit of time in the weeks leading up to this day practicing numerous songs that Reese and her classmates sang during the ceremony. This included one to the tune of New York, New York, all about going to kindergarten. Reese knew all the words and sang with gusto. She also participated in the ABC poem - her letters were K, "K is for Kindergarten, Hip Hip Hooray!" and L, "L is for Learning more and more each day." Ms. Jacinta let Reese know that she wanted to have the K in particular because she knew Reese would say it with enthusiasm.
Here you see Ms. Jacinta on the left and Miss Emily on the right. As we have already mentioned, Reese adored her teachers, and we certainly got the feeling that the feeling was mutual. They were sad to hear that she would not be spending the summer there, but we couldn't imagine spending the whole summer with Reese still taking naps. We needed the adjustment to prepare our little pipsqueak for kindergarten and to enable her to fall asleep before 10pm.
One thing we are sure helped her teachers appreciate Reese is shown here. These are the behavior cards in Reese's classroom, and the colors showed each kid's status. In the 14 months Reese attended, her card was not green only once. The one time it went to yellow she was so mortified that she couldn't even talk about it. Always good to know that while she may spend a fair bit of time off green when she is at home, at least she has been a model student at school. Hopefully that continues.
One teacher that held a special place in Reese's heart was Miss Precious. We think they both entertained each other and Miss Precious was impressed with Reese's ability hold relatively extensive conversations with her at school and with her and her husband at the school picnic. Miss Precious also gave Reese a special graduation present - a bottle of nail polish that absolutely made Reese's year. The color is neon orange, so it definitely stands out. That is similar to Reese's personality, so it all fits.
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