Sniff...Our little man is growing up!!

Today's a big day in Aidan's young life. He graduates from the Special Delivery classroom to the Happy Hippos room.

It actually is getting me a little emotional and picking him up this afternoon is going to be pretty special in itself.

Developmentally, this is perfect timing as the make-up of the infants classroom is pretty young right now, so he doesn't really have any friends in there and his buddies Norah, James and especially Tyler are already in the Hippos room. He's the only walker in his current room.

I don't know what other schools/daycares do, but Goddard has had him on a two-week transition from the infants room to the Hippos room where he spends a little time each day, increasingly each day until today when he's basically in for the full day. He's so funny because as they get ready to take him BACK to the infants room, he throws a little fit and cries. Hey, who likes getting bounced from the cool kid's party, right??

He's such an eager learner that he understands that he's stepping backwards in his environment and he doesn't want to go. The Director said that his acceptance of the transition was far better than they normally see but I'm sure kids of different levels take change differently.

I do think that how we work with him, getting him out to restaurants and events and broadening his experiential world helps him adjust to change a lot quicker than most kids. You can imagine what his little brain is going to do in 7 weeks when we load him up on a 767 and wing on off to Barcelona for a couple days and a 10-day Mediterranean cruise!! At 17 months he's going to see monkeys and birds on Las Ramblas, Sagrada Familia, the Greek Theater in Taormina and probably the Vatican in Rome. It took me 39 years to get to Rome and 18 to get to Spain so he trumps me on BOTH!

Yesterday was the first time we "walked" into school together. I'm usually the one dropping him off in the mornings and I thought it was time he held my hand and we walked in. Other than his stopping every 5 steps to turn around and look at the car, it went very well. It's not that he's getting too heavy (although he's crankin' out 22 lbs right now), but it's this sense of change and maturation. They decided to keep him in the Hippos class all day and it was his first time sleeping on the cots. He also had his first official lunch of Sloppy Joes, tater tots and apple sauce. Yeah, he wore a fair amount of the Sloppy Joe's. He seemed so happy when I picked him up. He definitely didn't want to leave and frankly how cool is THAT that he doesn't want to leave school? Let's see how long that lasts in life (eh, 3rd grade??)

But today is the final day and then he starts his move "down the hallway". Thanks to Leah, Anahi, Roxayn, Kim, Simone, Danielle and all of the others who have watched our little man from 3 months to 15 months. I will always admire you for the work you do with these kids and can never thank you enough for how you've taken care of our son! It has clearly impacted how he views the world and makes him want to come to school every day.