Wednesday, September 8, 2010

He's a preschooler

Today was Handsome's first day of preschool. It was an adventure as I had no doubt it would be.

Handsome typically wakes up between 7am and 7:30am, so of course this morning I woke up at 8am and he wasn't awake yet. I had to go wake him up so that we would all be ready in time for preschool. He was so excited that he didn't want to eat breakfast. He took a few bites of his yogurt and then said that he was done and ready for preschool. DH got him ready as I put my contacts in and got Junior ready to go. When DH went to go get ready, I took Handsome and Junior out on the deck to take pictures (none of which turned out well. Boo.).

We all get in the car and drive to his school. We got there exactly on time when the plan was to get there about ten minutes early. I took a couple more pictures at his school. He was very excited. We went yesterday to meet the teacher and his classmates and he found a toy vacuum in the class. Vacuums are his favorite, so he was very happy to find that. This morning all he wanted to do was get to school so that he could play with the vacuum. We had to wait in line at the door of his classroom so that we could give his forms to the teacher. Handsome kept trying to sneak in before it was his turn because he was eager to get in the classroom. It was finally our turn and he went in without any problem. DH, Junior and I walked away hoping for the best.

At home Junior took a nap, DH studied, and I edited Handsome's pictures. I guess editing the pictures made me feel like he was still at home with us. It felt weird that he wasn't home with us, but I didn't cry. I did get tears, but that's all. I thought he would be ok.

And then it was time to pick him up. We got there about ten minutes early because there was no way I was going to be late on his first day. Everyone was there early and all the parents had formed a line at the door. It was packed. We were further back in the line so we were around the corner and couldn't actually see any of the children. The last 20 min of their schedule is playground time, so they were just coming inside. As they were coming inside I hear one child crying - wailing. I thought, hmm, that cry sounds awfully familiar. DH moved up and peeked around the corner, and sure enough, it was Handsome. He was crying his little heart out. He was the ONLY child crying and he did not care a bit about that. DH asked if we got priority to pick our child up first since he was the one crying. Nope. We had to wait in line and endure the crying. I kind of wanted him to see that the teacher could comfort too, but really I just wanted to hold my baby and tell him everything would be ok.

Finally it was our turn. I was holding Junior, so DH took Handsome from the teacher. He clung to DH like his life depended on it. My poor baby. The teacher said he had done well the whole day. He got a little sad in the morning when he realized we were gone, but they distracted him easily and then he was fine. He had his snack time and loved it. THEN they told him it was time to play on the playground. She said he realized that Mommy wasn't there for the playground and that's when he started the crying. She said don't worry about it, just bring him on Friday and he'll be fine. She was very caring and understanding and I wanted to talk a little longer to her, but I also wanted to get my wailing child out of the building and let the other parents pick up their children.

As soon as we got outside, I traded Junior for Handsome. I held him, told him I loved him and that everything would be ok, and then I asked him why he was crying. Through hiccups and sobs he told me that Mrs. S told him he had to go to the playground but he didn't want to go the playground and that he wanted to go home. He cried all the way to the car and even after I put him in his carseat. He calmed down soon though - enough so that we could go pick up filters on the way home.

In asking him what he did during the day, I got a lot of little snippets. I asked him what his favorite part of the day was. He said he played with the vacuum and vacuumed the carpet (there's no carpet in his room). He said he "sweeped" but when I asked him again, he said, "No, I didn't sweeped! The kids took it away! They didn't share!" He also said, "The kids hit me! That's not nice!" And this is the part where I want to protect him from all the meanies that want to hurt my baby. He needs to learn to stick up for himself and he needs to learn that all kids aren't nice, but he's been so happy that I don't want them to take that away from him. I also don't want him to copy them. I really hope there aren't any mean kids in his class. I know some hitting and not sharing is normal, I just hope no one decides to pick on him. It sounds like he is not one of the more dominant children.

He also said that he "slide" on the playground and that Mrs. V laughed when he "slide." So it sounds like the teachers were trying to get him to play outside even though he wasn't happy about me not being there. He also said he was crying because the time was finished for the playground, so maybe they got him happy and then when they told him it was time to come in, it started over again? He loved snack time too.

I asked him if he wanted to go back to preschool after he seemed to have forgotten about the crying and he said, "Yes! Please! Can we go?! Please!" Then he asked if DH and I could go with him. He wasn't happy when I said no, but he still said he wanted to go. Sadly, I won't be with them on Friday when he goes back. I sincerely hope he does better on Friday. I hope he loves preschool and I hope the other kids are nice to him. I hope he makes friends in his class.

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