Caty's First Day of Preschool

Today was Caty's first day of preschool - as if any of you didn't know that already. She woke up this morning with a HUGE smile on her face. Scott took the day off - for two reasons, he had a wisdom tooth pulled after work yesterday and also because he wanted to bring Caty to school. He got her out of bed and when she walked into the living room she still held that HUGE smile and said "I'm going to preschool today." We work up at 7:30 so we had an hour before we needed to leave. We had breakfast together, which Caty didn't eat a whole lot of, nerves I think. We got dressed and ready to go. We snapped a few pictures and were out the door. It's only a little over a mile from our house, so not too far.

We arrived and on the walk in she was still smiling. We got into the classroom, I had to sign her in, find her apple on the board with her name on it and find out which color group she was for the day. After we figured this all out, we discovered that she was in the same group as Hayden and Oliver, her playgroup friends. They were starting out the day in the playhouse - a big favorite of hers. During the first few weeks of school, the parents are asked not to hang around too long, so we got her settled in and I took her to the bathroom. I still wasn't 100% sure if she would tell a teacher when she needed to go. We washed our hands and started to say our goodbyes. This is when she broke down; which I was TOTALLY expecting!! She cried and said "I don't want to stay, I want to come home with you." We told her that she would have a lot of fun and that we would see her after school. One of the teachers came over and helped her out as we walked out the door. As this point, you would think that I would have been in tears, but I held myself together. By the time we reached the door, she had stopped crying and the teacher was talking to her. We headed out and peeked in through the window. She was sitting on the teachers lap and not crying. This was a good sign. So Scott and I headed home - I did some sewing (gotta get Caty's fall/winter wardrobe ready) and Scott worked on a paper for his Masters class. I spent a little time on Facebook (Melissa, good chatting with you, even if it was just for a minute), then it was time to head back and pick her up.

We got to the school a few minutes before her class was over, so we hung out outside with the other parents. The door opened and we could go in. She looked so cute, sitting on her carpet square for circle time. She had a HUGE smile on her face - despite what she had been through. Now a little background on why she was so upset about us leaving - as you know, I am a stay at home mom and there is rarely a day that goes by that I am not with Caty. I might go out for a few hours, but that is it for my time away from her. So this preschool experience is going to be GREAT for her. We chatted with Ms Maggie, the director, and she said that Caty had done well. She had a few moments where she looked like she was getting teary eyes - one of those times being when snack was passed out (which surprises me, as Caty is a big snacker). Ms Maggie asked Caty is she would like to go on a little walk, and that seemed to do the trick. We gathered this things and went over to her. We got HUGE hugs and she said that she had fun. She said bye to her teachers and we headed out the door. On the walk to the car and the drive home, we chatted about what she had done - played in the playhouse, played with the train set (another big favorite), made dog puppets, had snack (she said that she just didn't want any, just juice), and had circle time. During circle time, they read a book, sang songs and the special helper for the day got to share her toy from home. We asked Caty what some of the kids names were and she could only remember the special helpers name - Madeline, but it wasn't "baby Madeline" who lives next door to us. She then told us about the field trip on Thursday - we're going to the Folsom Zoo, which I will be attending with her. She also said that she is excited about going back to school - YIPPEE!! Hopefully the next time, we won't have any tears. So the morning was a success!!