Niamh returns to jardin d'enfants

Yesterday at about 9:00 while Muriel, Niamh and I were hanging out at home reading books I got a call from Niamh's teacher at Le Petit Moulin wondering where she was. Pat and I were certain we signed her up for Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, but they have us down for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. I told Andréanne that we'd be right over, and rushed to get ready. But as soon as I told Niamh I'd made a mistake and it was time for school she panicked and started crying. And cried to whole way to school. And didn't stop when we got into school. So Andréanne and I decided that maybe it would be best if we skipped Monday this week and just started today.

Niamh did great this morning. We talked about what was going to happen and that it might be hard, but she'd done it before. We talked about how Lola was scared on her first day of school too, but it turned out all right. We talked about how it was super important that she learn french. And she did great, there were no tears.

That is, there were no tears until right after the above photo was taken, when her new teacher Maroushka (this year there are two teachers who each take different days--Andréanne she had last year, and Maroushka is new this year) said hello to her. That opened the floodgates. She was completely inconsolable and didn't want me to leave, and was still crying when I left.

But after school she greeted me cheerfully and said she'd had a great time. Maroushka said that she had cried for a while, but after she stopped was completely fine the rest of the morning.

Here are Niamh and Muriel after school, on our way home.