1st day of preschool

It finally arrived--Emily's first day of preschool!  She/we couldn't have been more excited.  She wore her backpack around half the morning asking if it was time to go yet.  Since Emily had packed and unpacked it several times in the last couple weeks I had to do a final check.  I decided to confiscate the bottle of bubbles from the birthday party last week and the pop-up Frisbee from the summer reading program.  I'm sure the teachers appreciated that. ;o)  I let her wear the dress-up bead necklace but convinced her to save the fuzzy leopard-print slap bracelet (again from the birthday party) for another day.  She was very excited about wearing her new tennis shoes, which thrilled me since I bought two pairs of tennis shoes last winter and neither one ever made it on her feet.

Austin made a special trip home from work just to go along to drop her off after lunch.  When I told Emily that Daddy was coming home to bring her to preschool she said, "No, Mom.  Girls go to school by themselves.  When the school bus comes I'm going to get on all by myself."  Well then.  She might be a little disappointed since she won't be able to actually ride a school bus for at least two more years (per Iowa code requiring restraints for all children under age 6).  She talks about it whenever we see one, though.  She also informed me, "Mom, I'm just growing up!"  LOL.  Yes, you are, honey. 

Apparently the van turned out to be an okay form of transportation.  All four of us went in to hang up her backpack, help her wash her hands and walk her to her classroom per preschool policy.  We made a brief stop to find her name on the Little Lambs bulletin board.  Then she walked right in and didn't even turn around to say good-bye.

Austin went back to work, and I put Lincoln down for a nap after holding him off all morning.  Then I had a glorious 2.5 hours of silent time to myself.  It was everything I had hoped and imagined it would be even though I spent most of it napping. ;o)  Unfortunately, I had to wake Lincoln up to go get Emily.

Emily had a great time at preschool.  I tried holding off on asking too many questions until I could get home and take a video of the post-preschool interview (below).  In the van she talked about how they couldn't go outside for recess because the teachers said the balls would blow on the road and get smashed (it was really windy).  She talked more about the Bible story about the lost little lamb and how they practiced taking turns helping the teacher.  We also had to make several phone calls to report to various people how the day went.  Each one revealed some more details about her day.  She was ready to go back already on Wednesday but will have to wait until Thursday.  It looks like Emily is really going to enjoy preschool--or as she sometimes calls it, "pretty-school." :o)