Official First Day Of Preschool

Owen is officially a preschooler!  Today was kind of traumatic, I'm not going to lie.  Lots of crying before we even left for school...I sort of knew that last week's accidental dry run would have set the anxiety wheels in motion, but I suppose it's to be expected.

Once we got there, he actually did better than I thought.  He was very nervous, but he was holding it together.  Steve and I stayed for a while and he was engaging in some of the toys and activities but you could tell by his face he was on edge.  Then, one of his classmates lost it big time.  His mom left and the little boy started screaming like she was leaving him forever.  This really unnerved Owen so when we left, he lost it too.  I felt so sorry for him and it was so hard to leave him there knowing that he didn't know the teachers at all (they weren't with him during the orientation last week.)  I must have made Steve reassure me that we were doing the right thing at least 100 times.  We stayed outside the classroom listening to him cry for about 10 minutes (along with the mom of the other screaming child) but then we were scared he might come out into the hall to get his bunny which was in his backpack in the hall cubbies for just such an emergency, so we left.  I cried all the way home. 

About 5 minutes after we got home, my phone rang and it was his teacher...my heart dropped thinking that she was calling me to say that he hadn't calmed down and we should probably come pick him up.  But, she was calling to say he was doing fine!  She said he was really upset for a while, but asked the adults to leave him alone and so they did.  She said as soon as they gave him some space, he calmed right down and started joining the rest of the kids.  I was so relieved!

When we arrived to pick him up, we peeked in the window and he was doing fine on some task with the teachers, but when he looked up and saw us outside the window he lost it.  My instincts are telling me that the teachers may have told him after he saw us that he could come out when he finished whatever he was doing and that's why he lost it.  I tried to ask him, but he couldn't tell me what exactly happened in those moments.

Anyway, I was feeling pretty defeated at that point, but when we walked outside 3 of his classmates were playing in a small tree in the front of the school.  Owen suddenly became happy again and wanted to join his friends so we did that for a while in order to cap the day off with something positive.  After his friends left, we stayed for a bit and played some more on the school grounds.  I was able to ask him questions about school while he was distracted by the tree so this is what I learned about his first day of school:

• He got sad.
• Some boy name Jack kicked him.
• He had crackers for snack.
• He made a placemat with pictures...there were no pictures of Charlie on his placemat but there were pictures of Mom, Dad, Bubba and Adam.
• He played outside in the sand.
• His favorite person to play with was Sam.
• The teacher got Bunny out of his backpack for him when he was sad, but he told her he didn't want it.

After our little play session, we headed out of the parking lot and he was happy as a clam.  He even started singing "open shut them" and when I sang along, he corrected me on how his teacher sings it.  So I'm taking the fact that he seemed to enjoy some of the memories of school and wanted to continue playing with his friends as a good sign that he really did have fun there.  I am going to blame the crying on some massive separation anxiety which I will grant him because A: I've never left him anywhere like that before and B: I had it too.

I didn't get any "here we are before our first day of school" pictures because there was far too many tears, but Steve was able to get a cell phone photo of Owen after school (after our play session) when he wanted to wear his new backpack and go look at police cars.  How cool is it that the preschool is located at City Hall where there is a parking lot for police cars?  He kind of appreciates it now...I'm sure once he stops crying at school he is going to LOVE it.

Sniff.