First Day of Preschool

A. had his first day of preschool today.  We all survived, and nothing bad happened. (I will repeat this to myself.) “Preschool” is 9:30-11:30am Mondays and Tuesdays, with a parent present on one of those days. Wifey is going Mondays and I’ll go Tuesdays, at least to start out.  It was hard for him, and consequently, us. He worked really hard to be OK there, and if I take a step back I can see that he really did a marvelous job. Mostly, he was overwhelmed. He’d never been in that kind of school/societal environment before, where he’s expected to do things in a group of people and perform challenging tasks like sharing, pouring water into appropriate vessels, watching a puppet show without grabbing the puppet. I think ALL the other kids had a leg up — they’d been in a preschool program, or day care — so they followed the rules, moved from “station” to station peacefully, ate oranges right off the rinds (we’ve been indulging him senseless by feeding him bits of orange taken off the rind) and drank out of a non-sippy cup (A. still uses a sippy cup, because, well, we didn’t realize there was a social stigma against sippy cups.).  He is a sensitive spirit, and is affected by his environment and happenings. Transitions are often hard, encounters are often taken to heart, things really should be in their proper place for the world to spin correctly. This first day of preschool was a merry-go-round of transitions, weird snacks, lots of activities and new people.  He made a few pleading “should we go home?” runs for the door, but mostly, he coped. During one round of heightened distress, I sang him his special song about all the people that love him and he calmed, leaned his ear closer to the song, tucked into me and smiled. When we all sang “Twinkle Twinkle” at the end, he was visibly touched that everyone apparently knew his special song (what are the chances?!) and was moved as he contemplated that this all must be for him.

Tonight he and I called his Grama and told her all about preschool. In the story we told (because we become our stories), it was all really wonderful and all the kids are his friends that he loves to share with. Snack was lovely and Teacher Linda thrilling. We can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

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