First Day of School

Charlie survived his first day of school today! He got up early this morning and ran around the house like a crazy boy while we got ready for his day. He loved dragging his paper bag of wipes, diapers, tissues, etc around the kitchen –

but he wasn’t so crazy about wearing his backpack – at least at first.

      

Preschool starts at 9:20, so I showed up a few minutes early (of course) only to find out that most of the kids were taking the bus and he was the only one there yet.  So I had to leave him by himself with the teacher, which meant he wasn’t distracted by the other kids and was very tearful. I passed him off, said a quick I love you, and headed back to the car as fast as I could go, hoping that would ease the separation. I teared up a little myself, but mostly held it together, and apparently he only cried for about 3 minutes. The teacher said once she sang to him, he dried up – no surprise there.

His teacher, Miss Lynne, is really nice – when I picked him up this afternoon, she said they wanted to keep him!  She called me this afternoon to talk to me about his first day, which I thought was great. She says once he’s acclimated to the classroom, they’re going to start working on getting him to partner up with another kid b/c he enjoyed hanging out with the teachers rather than playing with the kids (no surprise since he doesn’t have siblings or a regular play companion yet). She also said that at some point, they’re going to start working on potty training – more power to them!  I think we still have a ways to go before he’s ready – but I know he’ll get there.

I have to admit that while I think it would be very hard to be a stay-at-home mom of a baby, being a stay-at-home mom of a preschooler is pretty sweet!  I took the day off work today so I could be with him on his first day. After dropping him off, I headed to Old Town for some retail therapy – and then when he got home, we played for about 90 minutes and then he went down for a nap and I sat out enjoying the sun and reading. We finished the day by taking a long walk that ended at the park. Pretty great day in my opinion!

It’s amazing how far he’s come at the park the last few months. He used to yell at us when we made him go down the little slide; now he climbs up the stairs, runs across the wiggly bridge, and pushes himself right down the slide with hardly any hesitation. He loves it!  Tonight he even slid down the big kid slide on my lap three times, which means he had to climb up the steps to the top by himself (with me close behind) 3 times. The slide has to be at least 10 feet tall, and he just pulls himself up those steps and then scoots over to the side until I can sit down and pull him onto my lap, and then he just laughs and laughs as we fly down. It’s pretty cute!

Charlie is saying Daddy constantly now.  It’s a little more “Dayee” than “Daddy”, but he knows what he’s saying/what it means, which is huge. They’ll work a lot on language at preschool, both spoken and signed, which will be really good for Charlie.

I just can’t believe how far our little boy has come! We’re so proud of him.