First day

It was, as predicted, drama-free.  We picked out clothes last night, and I wrote our last name on them with a fabric marker (lost the darn labels, just ordered replacements).  Rebecca had a hard time getting to sleep. She gets excited and anxious about things like this.  Daniel is more like his dad and can sleep like the dead, no matter what.

Both kids slept to a reasonable hour, got dressed, and started asking if it was time to go to school before they ate breakfast.

Made it there easily on time. M followed Rebecca to the front classroom, I went with Daniel to the back.  Their reactions to the new space and new people were rather as expected.

Daniel could have cared less that I was there.  He greeted his teachers, and proceeded to pick up nearly every item in the room and say (or nearly shout) “Hey Teacher! How does this work?”  He investigated everything, flitting and floating all over the room. He had a hard time finishing one task before starting another, and had a hard time keeping his curious hands out of other kids’ work. He probably chatted more with other parents seated discretely around the room than he did with me.  When it was time to sit and sing a song before going outside to play, he plopped right down in the circle and sang along.  While he may have said one or two things to me the entire hour and a half, he was mostly off on his own. Rarely stopped talking, rarely stopped smiling.

For a report on Rebecca’s class, I had to rely on M.  A hard letting-go moment for the one who has been there for every class and every teacher over the last three years.  She is the one who has been talking the biggest, most excited game about starting school. Which only makes me think she’s going to completely freak on Thursday at drop-off, and today may have been a slight indication of that.  Reports texted from M (yes, we were texting in class – the teachers told us to bring things to do and look busy!) was that she did interact with her teachers, and when she chose an activity, she was pretty focused on it but somewhat socially aloof.  And she did tend to situate herself pretty close to M most of the time.  On the playground, she was totally in her element and had a blast.  Getting into her carseat to go home, though, she had a meltdown over some small, inconsequential detail.  Not surprised.  She’s excited, yes, but she’s also anxious about this transition.

All-in-all, a good trial run.  It remains to be seen how it goes down when we hit the drop-off line and a full classroom full of kids.  I predict Daniel will happily climb out of the car, while Rebecca may need to be pried out with a crowbar.  But you just never know.