Watson’s First Day of School

 

There were no tears this morning.

There was no weepy mama.

No ‘I wish summer weren’t coming to an end so soon!’

In fact I was ELATED that school had begun! {the kids were too!}

Watson is registered to go to preschool just two mornings a week in the Toddler class. He just misses the cutoff to move up a ‘grade’ so he’s the very oldest in his class. I think it makes for an interesting first part of the year for him, but I’m happy I don’t have to worry about holding him back because of his age. And he seems to do well as the ‘leader’ of the class.

We arrived at school this morning and took some not-tacky-at-all parking lot pictures. {He was in love with his bookbag.}

All he wanted was a hug from Emory and she wasn’t obliging.

This is what a forced hug looks like. He loves his big sister more than anything in the whole world and it’s so sad {but cute!} that his feeling really do get hurt when she won’t pay him any attention.

He seemed fine until we headed down his hall. He got a worried look on his face, but never asked to ‘hold you, mama’ which I was so proud of.

Luckily, as soon as we opened his classroom door to go in he recognized most of the kids from last year’s class. That got him to walk into the room. Once we were in and putting his stuff in his cubby he spotted a giant Thomas toy and he never looked back. After almost two years of going to the drop-in nursery he still cries for a minute every single time I leave him, so this was a big deal.

Three hours later I picked him up and his teachers said he had a great day. I walked into the classroom and he just sat there as if to say ‘why are you here already?’. Normally I get a ‘Mama!’ and he runs to me and jumps in my arms. Not today, and while it was a teeny tiny bit sad for him to not be excited to see me, I was so happy to know he had a great time and was comfortable with his new teachers.

Sadly, Emory had the hardest time on Watson’s first day. Because she’s changing schools and most of her friends are not, she saw them all going into class and didn’t understand why she couldn’t go too. After we dropped Watson off in his classroom and Boland in the nursery, we took some time to walk down the Older Hall and look into some of the class windows. Her teachers from last year saw us and came out and hugged us. We peeked into the classroom where most of her friends are and she was excited to see them {from afar} but asked me ‘Mama, when is I gonna be in dat class wif dem?’. It broke my heart and I felt like there was no way to give her an answer that would make her feel better. No one wants to hear ‘you’ll love your new teacher!’ or ‘you’ll make new friends!’ when they’re going to a new school, but I know she will love her teacher and she will makes new friends, and I’m looking forward to her starting school next week to realize that. Of course she loves her friends now so we’re gonna make sure and be in dance class with them again this year!

Overall we had a great first day of school and we’re celebrating with a Back-to-School Breakfast tomorrow morning, just like last year! Yummy yummy!