10.22.2007

Fine

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?

6 comments:

  1. I think she will be fine.

    I 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.

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  2. Congrats for making it through the day. Funny, when I read "rice and watermelon" I had to ponder that combo.

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  3. yes she will be fine!

    though i have to say my visit to preschool this morning left me absolutely *exhausted*.

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  4. 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?

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  5. I 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. :)

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  6. Wow...go Ingrid! All growing up and in preschool too?

    This is probably not helping you, but wow...I think this is amazing. And it sounds like she did wonderfully. Good job, Mama.

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