Moving Up--Again!

Excuse me, have you seen my baby?

I saw snippets of her, while I rocked and held super sick Charlotte. But now Charlotte is all better and back to her little-girl self. And no longer my baby.

Recently, the director of Charlotte’s school contacted me. She said that she thought Charlotte was ready to move into the next class, and she wanted know my thoughts.

Huh? Charlotte doesn’t turn two until January 30, so we figured she’d move up in February at the earliest, but probably around March or April of next year.

So, this came as a surprise.

Now, our (no longer baby) girl will move up November 1. We considered December as well, but the difference is a mere month. And, well, let’s be honest. The older class has significantly lower tuition. SIGNIFICANTLY lower.

With the kid-to-teacher ratio bumping up to 6:1 (from her current 3:1), child care gets less pricey. As you can imagine, Chris has been on cloud nine. Charlotte’s current tuition rivals our mortgage. It rivals COLLEGE tuition. And when people (Dad) bug me to bring forth another child (grandchild), I list numbers. Very, very high numbers. Obviously, tuition constitutes an ENORMOUS slice of the Hofmann financial pie. That usually quiets him.

Then Mums starts in.

Anyway, the fact that we get a couple extra months of lower tuition is amazing. We didn’t plan on it.

So, last week, we met with the school staff to further discuss the move. Charlotte is very young. She’s bright, curious, sociable, and happy in the school environment. She transitioned to her current class like a pro—she had a ball doing the big-kid things. Best of all, they inspired Charlotte to DO bid-kid things. For example, she had zero interest using utensils to eat. She wouldn’t use them .  . . . until she watched one little boy eat his yogurt with a spoon. If he could do it, so could she. Charlotte grabbed her spoon from the teacher’s hand and fed herself. And from then on, she wouldn’t allow anyone to feed her. She insisted on doing it (messily) independently.

The idea of dropping Charlotte off in the next classroom boggles my mind. I mean, this room is for, like, REAL preschool. It goes out into the big-kid playground (oh, she’ll LOVE that!). It has 12 children!

My baby girl, so grown up. Such a big girl! I just can’t believe it.