Free Coffee! Free Snack! No Strings!

Our neighbours, the ones with the little girl who is halfway between my two kids’ ages, have been raving about StrongStart to me for months now. It’s a Provincially funded program for children aged 0-5 years old, it’s free to attend and according to my neighbours, it is this magical land full of toys and education and free, did they mention free?

So I looked it up, which was easy because I have had a pamphlet magneted to the fridge for months. The woman who gave it to me was really obnoxious; she wouldn’t shut up about the importance of Early Childhood Education and then she asked me about the preschool I chose for Trombone and told me I should have chosen a different one, so I was not inclined to go, but also I am bad at throwing pamphlets away. Anyway, there are two StrongStart programs in the Mizzle; one across the bridge where the obnoxious lady works and one fairly close to us that runs every day from 9 am – 12 pm. You can drop in whenever you want and leave whenever you want.

Today after we dropped Trombone at preschool, instead of going to the mall or wandering around another random neighbourhood, Fresco and I went to the StrongStart program. And now I want to rave about how awesome it is.

First it made Fresco’s day because there were stairs to the portable trailer where the program takes place and he got to climb them. Usually when he starts climbing a flight of stairs I have to retrieve him and it gets ugly.

Incidentally, this was also the highlight of Halloween for Fresco. At the last minute we decided to take him trick or treating too, even though he only has 5.5 teeth and I think it’s dumb to take babies trick or treating (but you know I am a grinchy mcGrincherson when it comes to Halloween anyway so) and while Trombone took quite quickly to the ritual of greeting / candy / thanks / next house! / OMG MORE CANDY RU SERIUS?, Fresco’s appreciation was reserved for the amount of trespassing on ordinarily forbidden porches he was allowed to do.

That’s pretty much it for Fresco. Let him climb your stairs and he is in love with you now.

The facilitator greeted us and told me that at the moment it was free play time but that at 10:15 they would be cleaning up and having snack and she would be providing the snack and oh, there’s coffee on over there, go help yourself.

That’s pretty much it for me. I am in love with you now.

I got some coffee and watched Fresco run around the room, which was impeccably set up with a big play mat full of blocks and bricks and dinosaurs, a kitchen and dress up corner, a table with a craft involving coffee filters cut out into leaf shapes and eye droppers full of coloured water to stain them with. There was a library corner with books and pillows, a craft table for older kids where a group of moms with infants were making bead necklaces, a paint easel with FIVE colours of paint on each side (even Trombone’s preschool limits the paint to 2 pots per side) and little child-sized sinks for washing hands. There was play dough and pom poms for gluing and a doll house and a few baby dolls that all had different skin colours. One little girl had one doll in a doll stroller and another doll in a baby carrier on her back and was walking around the room nattering on about the shopping she was doing.

We cleaned up at clean up time and then all the children sat at the tables and waited quietly. One very friendly little girl informed me that we would do “Roly Poly” and say thank you for our snack and we did. Then she told me that my baby was very cute, much cuter than her baby. The facilitator brought out orange and apple slices, rice crackers, goldfish shaped crackers, arrowroot cookies and poured water for everyone. Fresco just sat there like a well behaved little kid and ate his food and drank his water.

After snack they were going to play in the school gymnasium but we opted to leave and go pick up Trombone. The facilitator said she usually does circle time and songs and books too but she is getting over a sickness and decided to skip it. Today there were about 15 kids there but she said it was a slow day; sometimes they have twice as many. On a rainy day in the middle of winter, yeah, I could see that. Let’s give our house a rest and go make a mess somewhere else, my sweet, crazy children.

As the days get colder and wetter and darker, it’s nice to have another resource that doesn’t cost a lot, where Fresco can’t hurt himself, where both children could amuse themselves without my sweating like a racehorse trying to keep them both in sight. And the fact that there are sinks and soap makes me feel better about going there than to my other indoor haunts; the library, the drop in gymnasium, the mall.

I mean, yeah, those places have sinks but have you ever tried to wrestle two children into a mall bathroom sink and actually get their hands clean? Without either of them drowning or licking the puddles on the counter? Because I fail at this, I’m not ashamed to say.

They’re all over BC, the StrongStarts. You can see a list of schools that have them here. (According to the government bafflegab, the program fulfils part of a throne speech commitment to using underused school spaces due to declining enrolment. I don’t know anything about this issue. I don’t trust the government. But I like the StrongStart, so far.)