The First Day of School

(Continued from below. I know this is long, but the blog is my version of a "baby book" so I've included lots of detail.)

So, what nearly got my baby sent home early on the first day of school?

Two weeks ago, Zeke and I went to the Open House for his preschool and it was as expected. We saw lots of families that we know and Zeke played with anything that had buttons or wheels. He also enjoyed the teeny school chairs they have. We spent at least an hour just hanging out and then an undetermined period of time with me trying to get him from the playground to the car.

I didn't really know how he would take to school. I was keeping my fingers crossed that he would be the kind of kid who cries for a few minutes and then just gets into the swing of things. This didn't seem too unreasonable given that he is a friendly kid who loves playing with toys. This hope blinded me to the reality, though, that he is very attached to both Sprout Mama and Sprout Daddy and gets upset when either of us leaves the house. Actually, if he is upstairs he actually will not start downstairs unless he can get both of us to take his hand and walk on either side of him.

Probably our mistake when the first day of school rolled around is that we both took him and both had to make a quick exit for work, probaby too much. Zeke started crying and grabbing for me, but I left when his teacher said, "Okay, Zeke, say goodbye to Mommy!" Half an hour later, I got a call on my cell phone. I can't tell you how relieved I was that it wasn't the school, but I did get a message from the director an hour after that. Zeke was fine, but was still periodically upset and that I should feel free to make it an early day for him! I called his teacher and we agreed we would talk after lunch and outside playtime. I asked, so she told me that Zeke was the only one year old that was this upset. Poor baby!

I ended up not calling, but returning a little early. Zeke scarfed down his lunch and was so happy on the playground, that they let him stay out there with another class even after the one year olds went inside, so he had been relatively calm. Poor baby! He was so sweaty and exhausted looking when I got there. I start planning about what would happen if he didn't adjust. I guessed I could give up my little jobs and just wait for a year or so. I gave us three weeks to see how it would go. I thought back to some of my acquaintances who never say anything about my parenting choices, but say things like "Ohhhhhh, I would never think of letting Little Snoopsie go to school because he waaay too young and gets everything he needs from me."

Thursday, I take him back. I am armed with everything that I think will maybe comfort him. He is not attached to a "lovey" like a teddy bear or blankie, despite my best efforts. Instead, I bring a sippy cup of soy milk and a juice box -- I guess just in case it turns out that he is just thristy and not traumatized by my abandoning him at school. I also take his toy laptop. I start to leave, he starts screaming. I wait for the phone call.

I get none. At the end of the day, Miss Cindy says that it was like night and day or like I had brought another child in, because Zeke had such a great day. After I left, they let him play with the laptop, all the other children surrounded him and then he let others play with it. I like picturing this in my head. I can hear him saying "Ah-dah!" and then graciously stepping back to let the others try it. After that, she said, everything was great. So far, he has colored, had music classes, made handprints, and of course played outside a lot.

Yesterday (day 4), as we were leaving, he blew a kiss to his teacher. Or so I thought. The class spent the day learning to sign "thank you" so the teacher thought he was signing. I shrug. Blowing a kiss or saying "thank you" -- both are great spontaneous responses to his teacher. I think this will all work out!

Extra stuff:

* There are 8 one year olds in Zeke's class. There is only one little girl.

* Most of his classmates have unique names like Che, Kai and Bea, so Zeke can fit in easily. One of the children on the waitlist for Zeke's class is named Maverick. Like that old Western or the main character from Top Gun. I won't say much on this other than to say that I think this may limit his future career choices. For example, I don't think Maverick would ever make it as an actuary.

* On a related note, I've got to start learning more of the names of the parents of these children. I ran into Kai's mother in the grocery store yesterday and addressed her as such. This also happened when we took Maggie to dog training: I could only ever remember the dog's name and never the owner.

* It turns out that a high school classmate of mine also has a one year old at the same school, just in another class. What a crazy small world. I haven't seen this guy since 1991, but it turns out that he lives a mile away from us and now our children will know each other.

* After two days of preschool, Zeke got a case of the sniffles. That didn't take long! (However, Zeke's cousin Zack did one better by getting croup after one week of prekindergarten.)

* I'm dying to visit the class during the day and see exactly how the teacher and aide manage the class. Really, how do you get 8 little ones to eat lunch or all go down the hall to look at the fishtank?