Pretty as a picture

O sometimes has a hard time when we drop him off at school in the morning. For me, there's a bit of a ritual involving spinning him around upside down, and then either from the swinging or dizziness, he's either good for me to depart or maybe just can't walk straight enough to follow me. But he very sweetly waves and says bye daddy, and all is well. When Meh drops him off, it's apparently far more challenging, with the teachers sometimes having to peel Mr. Clingy off of mommy and momentary sadness as she leaves. (The teachers always mention when we pick him up at the end of a day that it lasts for all of a minute, but it's still the minute that she hears as she leaves.)

We've used a variety of other strategies to help him with the separation; mommy used to give him an object that she'd put "mommy sprinkles" on, and I'd find that object (sometimes a pebble) in his pocket later in the day. But still, I was a bit surprised to pick him up yesterday and find him on the playground vrooming a car (one of the teachers brought in his very own childhood matchbox set!) on a tiny green sheet of cardboard. When I asked if he was pretending it was a road, he looked at me, said, "no, it's a tiny picture of mommy", and turned over what was revealed to be a tiny business card with Meh's choir's picture on it.

The business card went to school again today, and when Meh picked O up, first one of the teachers commented that she didn't know Meh was in a choir. Then she reported that O had spent nap time (where he rarely ever actually naps) sitting quietly and looking at the business card. He does love his mommy!