Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Sophia's first day at preschool




OK, I admit I was a little more nervous than I had expected about Sophia's first day at preschool. She was so nonchalant the night before, telling Rick and me to stop talking about her big day. I think she internalizes stressful or exciting things. It's another thing she inherited from Rick; I just don't understand internalizing any emotions.

The next morning, I made her a breakfast I thought she would want to eat--pancakes. She hardly touched them. And instead of getting ready for school, she did everything in vain to thwart all efforts. So I figured she must be a bit nervous. Or a typical three year old. When we finally got her ready, she was good to go and off we went. We were one of the first ones there, and waited outside until they opened the doors. Sophia immediately wandered into the play area to explore.

She was confident, curious and ready to start her first day. My hands shook a little as I signed her in. After about 10 minutes, I looked around to see if other parents were leaving and most were still there. I asked one of the teachers when we should leave and she said it was up to me, if Sophia felt comfortable. I asked Sophia if it was OK that I left and she said it was. I asked her if she had any questions and she asked, "Are you going to pick me up from school?" I told her I would. She seemed fine so I gave her a kiss and walked out the door.



I told the teachers to call if there were any problems. When I got home, I literally walked around in circles, trying to figure out what to do with the time I had left. I kept looking at the clock and time seemed to have slowed down. It didn't take long to direct my focus to cleaning up after our hectic holiday weekend, but I kept thinking how weird it was to have Sophia away with strangers for the first time ever.

When I picked her up from her school, she ran over with a big hug and a smile. She told me she wanted to go get a smoothie. She seemed completely unfazed by her big day. I got her in the car and asked her a ton of questions on the drive home. So many questions, that she told me at one point, "Mommy you are driving me nuts." So I stopped asking. What I gathered is that she played the whole time, sang some songs, had rainbow goldfish crackers for a snack, it was fun, and there were a few kids that cried the whole time and wanted to go home. But she didn't cry. We go for day two tomorrow. I will try to act cool and composed, just like my big girl.

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