There is so much to write about—this whole school thing has been so monumental, but I really do not know where to start! I guess the best thing was that the big day, the day where I left her there all by herself, went off without a hitch. She gave me a hug and a kiss and barely flinched. No tears. I, on the other hand, was a total disaster. When I returned, she leapt out to get me, yelled “we painted CORN!” and ran back to her teacher who was getting her dressed in her outerwear. I think the weirdest part for me was that I had no idea as to what was going on in her life for 2.5 hours. When I have left her with a grandparent, I get the full report at the end. Here there is no time for the teacher to elaborate on everything that happened. And Ava tends to report things with a twist of 3-year-old logic, which says that events need not be in sequential order, nor do they need to occur on the same day with the same person for them to be earnestly relayed as exactly what happened just a half hour ago. But I got enough consistency out of her to piece together the happenings of the day, and it sounds like she really grasped the routine of things pretty quickly.

I am very proud of her.

Carter and I spent the big day in Lake Placid, waiting for her and getting outrageously dirty. It was drizzling, and the playground was wet, and we just got muddy. And later in the day, after I picked her up, we all went to the playground in Saranac Lake, blessedly empty, and got even dirtier. There is something very satisfying in getting really dirty—the process of getting clean is so much more rewarding!

After the summer where there were very few structured activities, it is sort of a relief to have an externally imposed schedule on our lives. The days FLY by.