First Day of Preschool

Well, the time has come...Jack is a preschooler!  Look at that big kid.  He refused to actually wear his backpack so that's the best I could do.  

Jack was very familiar with his preschool.  We had been doing mommy and me classes there for about 8 months.  It only took 6 months for him to actually warm up to the place and start running into the classroom and spending time away from me.  But, nonetheless, it happened and that's why I had high hopes for the start of preschool.  The week before, we talked about it a lot at home and he was so rational and seemed to know exactly what was going on.  And then there was the reality...

The first day when I made the move to leave he flipped out.  Starting crying and sobbing and gave me the tightest hug and wouldn't let go.  The teacher took him in her arms but I could hear him crying "mommy" all the way to my car.  That was hard.  But at least he didn't cry the whole time, according to his teachers.  Of course, that first day, one of the other moms arrived to pick-up before me (even though I was early!) and Jack saw her and started to cry.  But that's apparently normal and other kids did that too.

As of now, Jack has completed a total of 3 whole days of preschool.  (He's only going two mornings a week.)  Today he cried again at drop-off but the teachers, sort of learning his personality, had a solution.  The kids start outside on the playground and Jack was begging to go in the classroom.  So one of the teachers took him in the classroom and got out his FAVORITE number puzzle.  Then, amazingly, he stopped crying.  It was so nice to leave and not hear crying.  All because of a puzzle with numbers 0 to 9.  Just like we have at home.  It seems that numbers are his happy place.  

And he's doing pretty well during the day according to his teachers.  Today they had gymnastics and I guess Jack chose to sit and watch.  Shocker.  Though I don't blame him for not jumping into a big gymnastics class.  But the teachers said he was watching very intently and smiling and enjoying observing everything.  When I got there they were having story time.  All 16 kids (sans Jack) were sitting on the floor in a semi-circle around the teacher who was reading a book.  Where was Jack?  He was sitting up in front next to the teacher in his own chair.  That's my boy.  :)

And here are two pics from school....

I think he'll probably cry at drop-off for a while longer.  And it'll be an even longer time still until he's "playing" with the other kids and joining in activities.  But that's okay.  He'll get there!