First Day of Pre-School

The moment I've been worrying about for months has finally come and gone. And, I was so proud of how Mia handled herself. She did much better than I did. Here she is before we got in the car to go to school. Her toys of choice for the trip? Kitty (of course - we don't go anywhere without Kitty) and my (purple) tanning bed glasses from years ago, which she found in a drawer this morning. Which also stayed in the car once we got to school. Can you imagine her walking in with those? Talk about embarrassing.

When she woke up this morning, I asked her if she knew what today was, and she said, "school!" (We've been prepping her for this for a while now.) She was excited and kept talking about how she'd get to play with markers and Play-Doh and even got dressed with absolutely no fussing - a rare occurance these days. Once we got close to school, she started asking "what u doing? where we going?" I guess she noticed we got off Interstate much too quickly to be going to nana's house. When we pulled up at school, she asked again where we were and once I told her, the tears started followed by, "I don't want school. I want Mia's house." So, I gave her a little pep talk in the car and off we went. We walked in the classroom. I knelt beside her and we watched some of the kids play. Her teacher came and sat down beside us and started asking about Kitty, which she was still holding. The teacher asked if Kitty was coming with her to school today and Mia said "yes," so the teacher talked about how that was so great, and Mia and Kitty were going to have so much fun, etc. This was nice because the pre-school literature said "no personal toys" because of sharing issues, etc. So, I was worried about having to take Kitty away as I was leaving. The fact that Kitty could stay relieved my anxiety quite a bit.

I tried to leave a few minutes after we arrived, but this was followed by tears and Mia grabbing me saying, "mommy don't go. mommy watch just a little bit." How can you say no to that? So, the teacher recommended that we go over and see the baby dolls. Another little girl followed us and she and Mia started playing. After 15 minutes and a few more pep talks, I told her it was time for me to go - that none of the other mommies were there and school was just for little kids and teachers. So, she started crying again and the teacher asked if I wanted her to take Mia. I reluctantly said "yes." And, much to my surprise, Mia went to her. She cried for maybe 10 seconds and had quit as I reached the door.

Once I got out in the hallway, I realized I left my car keys in the room somewhere but knew I couldn't go back in to get them. Luckily, one of the teachers came out and saw me standing there. Her first reaction was, "She's not crying. She's already playing with some of the little girls." I felt like one of those overly attached parents. Here I was the only mommy to hang out for 15 minutes in the room, and then the teacher catches me in the hallway like I couldn't bear to leave or something. I explained I was standing there because I left my key in the room, so she went back and found it for me. I swear I didn't do it on purpose!

I accomplished my goal: didn't cry until I reached the car. And, then I cried way more than Mia did :)

When I walked back in school, the teacher was holding her at the door and said, "Look Mia! There she is!" I guess a few of the other parents had come to pick up their kids and Mia was wondering where I was - even though I was five minutes early. Looks like I wasn't the only parent anxious about how the morning went :) The teacher said she did great - no tears whatsoever after I left. When I asked Mia about her morning, she said, "Where's mommy? And. Mommy coming soon." She was re-capping her conversation with her teacher. I'm hoping it was her latest conversation and not what occurred all morning. But, that's pretty much all she told me about it. After that, she was ready to go to nana's house for the afternoon.

First major hurdle accomplished. I'm already nervous for Thursday - day 2 of pre-school. Hoping it goes as well as today did. Looking forward to putting week one behind us.