World book day

Yesterday was World Book Day, as anyone with nursery or school aged kids most likely already knows.  Ollie started nursery in January two days a week and has screamed and made himself sick every time he's had to go in since.  Forcing him to go went completely against my child-led learning philosophy, and I was on the brink of pulling him out.  This week was suddenly different and I think the nursery's idea of getting the kids to dress up as characters from Alice in Wonderland may have been part of the cure.

Ollie has limited screen time, as more than an hour a day of TV or computer time is really negative to children's development, and he had never seen the Disney film.  He's definitely not ready to sit through the actual unabridged book, so I thought a film night was in order.  We made popcorn and watched the film together, while I sewed a pompom tail on his white rabbit outfit and made him a cardboard pocket watch.  Ollie was actually looking forward to getting dressed up and showing his teachers and the next morning, for the first time, we had no tears.  When I picked him up he was also really happy for the first time, back to his normal (extremely) chatty self, not the silent, depressed little boy I'd been bringing home for the last two months.  To the contrary, he spent the next few hours until bedtime running around and shouting 'I'm late, I'm late!'.

I'm really lucky, as I seem to have had a much less stressful World Book Day than the other mums at the playgroup I took Toby to that day, whose children announced minutes before they left the house that they couldn't wear the costume that had been procured for them because they didn't have the book that went with it.  At least at age three I expect Ollie to only give me a fraction of the information I need to get him ready for events at nursery - I must never lose this expectation in favour of the idea that older kids can and will relay on all the information they're supposed to :)  Parents who manage to get their kids to school with even half the things they need, I salute you!