Who knew the first day of pre-school could make me sit on the edge of bawling for five days? Sheesh. I know she'll be fine... I've said to various people, choking back tear deluges of various magnitudes.
After my weepy four-hour insomnia thing Thursday night and after an unfortunate frog puppet incident which I won't get into, and after confirming that even A feels like throwing up when thinking of leaving her there all day long, we decided to make it a half-days for a while. Two days a week, half days. Financially this is sort of foolhardy. We are paying for two full days whether we use them or not. But we don't need the full days until I go back to work in January; we're just starting now because now's when the opening is available. And it just feels better to ease into it.
Ingrid woke up this morning excited about the much-hyped first day of school. She wore her striped pants. She'll be fine, the teacher said as I grappled with the doorknob and tried to make my hair hide from Ingrid the fact I was trying not to cry.
I came home and put away laundry and cooked sweet potatoes and nursed the baby and cleaned up the living room and read e-mail and nursed the baby and ate a cheese sandwich, all the while sort of feeling like time had been sucked into a weird little eddy. Then at 12:15 when it was time to get her everything started wheeling forward again.
She was fine, the teacher said. She didn't cry. She participated, and she made a project by herself. She played with the other kids outside. The project was the outline of a flower, colored in with water color paint. She's very mature, the director said. She did great.
I didn't sit in the circle, Ingrid said in the car. I was a little bit worried about you. That girl wanted to hold my hand. I ate rice. And milk. And fruit. Watermelon. I played on the slides. I didn't play with the beds. Will I sleep at school?
She does seem to be fine. She's napping. I do too, I guess. I think it is going to take me a while to get used to her days being such a mystery, though. I mean, watermelon and rice? Probably not absolutely accurate. Slides? Ok, but what about the other three and a half hours? And not crying but worried? She'll be fine, right?
10.22.2007
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I think she will be fine.
ReplyDeleteI am in week 4 of my kid's Mother's Day Out program and it is getting better. Today, he actually wanted to go into the classroom. Wow.
I liked how you described it as a "day of mystery". I, too, found that weird to not know what he was doing for all that time.
One thing the school told me to look for is a "regression". Meaning, he would be okay for a week or so, then would have some days where he really fights it. For us, Week 3 was pretty bad.
Congrats for making it through the day. Funny, when I read "rice and watermelon" I had to ponder that combo.
ReplyDeleteyes she will be fine!
ReplyDeletethough i have to say my visit to preschool this morning left me absolutely *exhausted*.
It makes me crazy that I don't know what my son does every minute that he's at school. Whenever I ask what he ate, he says, "crackers." Really? Nothing but crackers for the last two weeks?
ReplyDeleteI hate not knowing what she does at the babysitter's. Nobody ever gives me enough info! At least she can talk! Glad it went well and all's fine. :)
ReplyDeleteWow...go Ingrid! All growing up and in preschool too?
ReplyDeleteThis is probably not helping you, but wow...I think this is amazing. And it sounds like she did wonderfully. Good job, Mama.