coming out of her shell

after two terms and lots of dodging behind my legs, the bean is finally able to shake the directress's hand at our montessori playgroup...on the last day of term, of the year, no less.

the directress commented on how chatty the bean's become. and today, the bean was in top form.

she wouldn't shake the directress's hand at the start of our session but she looked at the other children, point to one and say the kid's name.

she really does like to point and say, or comment: "hair clip", "coin box", "put back chair", "mommy"...

btw, she now says "yessh" more than "yup", but it comes with a lisp, which i think is endearing.

during the singalong session, the bean took centrestage for a short while and stood up next to or in front of the directress to do all the actions to the songs. but not before she tried to pre-empt the directress by posing in 'rocketship' mode. the directress had to tell her, "no, not time to do 'rocketship' yet." ('rocketship' is the second last song we do, right before the 'goodbye' song.)

during the colour song, the bean took it upon herself to call out the colour we should sing for another child who was too shy to pick a colour. then when it came to her turn, after the directress asked what colour we should sing for her, the bean loudly proclaimed, "blooo!" and tweaked at her blouse.

at the end of the session the bean said goodbye to a few of the children. i believe she is the ONLY child to do so, as sadly, no one reciprocated. the directress mollified her by saying, "i don't think they heard you."

but i think her sociability today at our montessori playgroup is kind of unique. it takes her a long time to get comfortable in any new environment to be able to be so expressive.

so i wonder how the holiday break would influence her behaviour: would she become all shy and self-conscious again after 2 months away from the montessori environment? would she remember the directress and the other children?

we shall see.