Waving goodbye to the “Village” :(

Bridget and I shared our last baby music class together last Tuesday. The baby class (0-18mos), aka “Village” in Kindermusik, is no longer developmentally appropriate for her so this Spring semester brings us “Our Time”…just a month early. She’ll be nearly 17 months old when we start in a couple weeks and I know she’s going to thrive in this lesson format, though my heart will always beat strongest for Village. It’s where she can I shared our first Kindermusik experiences, its the time that marks the end of my public school teaching career, and it introduced me to even more amazing aspects of my angel’s unique and adorable personality. Who doesn’t love the age 8-12 months??

Julie and I were just talking about what a special time that quarter truly is. Crawling, walking, talking, laughing, exploring, eating…so many big steps are taken during this time and we loved every minute. When I was having a bad day this past week, I found myself wandering through old Facebook pics of Bridget to brighten my mood. I stumbled across these two gems. Look at Abby’s face in the first one!!!:

Ah, it really does happen so fast. You know I was reaching for the Kleenex box, but at least doing it with a smile when I gazed at my sweet noodle doodle here.

Back on track: we’ll join the 18mo-3yrs class called “Our Time” and it will be fabulous for her. It’s still Mommy & Me, but there’s less carrying around of her, more instrument exploration (if possible, considering how much is done in Village!), StoryTime, and more dancing. I’m actually excited about seeing how much faster she starts learning new skills now that she’ll be the youngest in the class again as opposed to one of the oldest. I could go on and on about all the observations of skills she’s aquired that I 100% attribute to her time in Kindermusik, but that’ll be another post :). Here are some shots of her during our last Village class last week (and one from her first day of class during my practicum this summer!):

Again, so glad those days of wearing bibs 24-7 are past us…

Who is that big girl and how did she grow up that fast????!!!

 

You’ll notice that she’s a bit of a toy hoarder. Maybe I need to lay off watching “Hoarders" for a while…:)

  

She and Ella getting into trouble. Ella just turned one and her sweet Mama, Paige, found out she’s expecting again! I’m so sad to leave class with some Mommy/Baby pairs we’ve been with for a year! I can always hope they choose the same time as us when it’s their time to move up, too :)

Ball throwing and hoarding:

 

I think she’s only supposed to have one of these…

At least she attempts to share :)

Another good thing about moving to Our Time is the change of classtime. Village is scheduled from 11:30-12:30, which I picked back when she was taking two naps. OT is 9:30-10:30am. Duh, Anna. She moved to one nap two weeks into the semester and is ALWAYS ready to sleep around 11:30. Oh well. One day a week we push it back an hour or so and she makes it, but I’m sure you can imagine all the creative moves I come up with on our 20 minute drive home to keep her from crashing out in the car, eh?

She and Ella taking center stage again:

 

This little boy in the green shirt is the other one who’s moving up to Our Time. His mom, Lindsey, and I are joining the same class. At least we’ll know one person! (Miss Vanessa was teaching this class ‘cause Jeanie was out of town…we drive out of the way to come to Jeanie’s class!)

 

Going, going…

   

GONE. :)

These three started this way during quiet time and stood like zombies for a good 10-15 seconds (and most of you know that’s an eternity for a toddler). I got my camera out just in time to catch this video…my girl is so tired!!! 

Starting to voice our opinion about sleepiness…

  

But she managed to let Mommy get this special memory for our us as she just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Love you, baby girl!