School Days

We're back in town and Amelia started pre-school today! Things went much better than I could have expected! In fact, as soon as she was up and dressed this morning, her backpack did not leave her body.

She even ate breakfast with it on!

Shortly before we left, we took our dog outside for a bit. Amelia decided to pick a flower for each of her teachers (dandelions, of course!). She was so proud to give them to her teachers and I was proud of her for coming up with the idea all on her own.

I started to get really nervous as we were pulling up. Parents were expected to stay in the room for 45 minutes on the first day to meet the teacher and help their children get acclimated. I told Amelia ahead of time about the procedure and about 10 minutes into our classroom visit, she asked, "When are you leaving mom?".

We made a duck upon our arrival (the mascot for her school are the ducklings). Then she found the "Costume Castle". Needless to say, she was enthralled! She has two teachers and a teacher assistant in the classroom and both the teachers I met were great. Obviously, the teacher who is responsible for Amelia did her homework. She knew all kind of facts about Amelia (I think that Amelia must be the youngest child in the class) and sucked her right into the classroom by showing her where the costumes and baby dolls were located. We also visited the two classroom gerbils and the fish tank.

When it was time for the parents to go, children were melting down left and right. Not Amelia, though, she gave me a hug and kiss upon my insistence and with a "bye Mom" she was off--back to the Costume Castle, of course.

After a short information session for the parents, I stopped by my friend, Amy's house because she was hosting her usual bi-weekly Coffee Club. Its always a great time with other moms and kids and today was a special "boo-hoo" edition for those moms with children starting school today. (Our school district elementary schools all started today, too).

When it was time to go get Amelia, I started to get a little nervous again. I contemplated parking the car and heading inside to get her so she wouldn't have to wait for me, but decided I would go through the pick-up lane instead. When the teacher brought her to the car, she was not the happy child I expected to see. Instead, she got in and immediately said, "But I didn't want to leave my classroom yet, mommy!". I heard this same phrase at least 8 more times on the short drive home.

Amelia was full of details (which mostly included information about her visits to the Costume Castle. She said her teachers and the other kids were nice and they read a book about a duck that got stuck in the mud. They also had a snack---bagels, apparently.

And that is about all I learned about her first day. As I was driving away, I waved at Amelia's teacher who was helping another child into a car. She gave me the thumbs up sign and said "Good Day!" so I think that is the best I could hope for---a happy kid and a happy teacher!

Here's hoping all future days are this easy!