Abby's First Day of Preschool

The day Abby has patiently been waiting for has come; her first day of preschool. She was ready, and anxious for this day to come, and there was no separation anxiety to speak of.

Our saving grace actually came in the form of our little friend, Avry. To make a long story short, Avry and her family are staying at our house in Ohio, as they have several days of appointments in Cincinnati. Avry and the girls hit it off, and Avry has been hanging out with us doing projects, activities, etc. The anxiety of leaving Abby was lessened by the fact that we had a new member of the gang here to keep us busy.

Dropping Abby off was smooth. She found the tag with her name on it right away and placed it in a pocket effortlessly. Her class starts out in the art room in the morning, and while I filled her teacher in on Abby's habit of putting things into her mouth, Abby jumped right into painting. And with that, Lauren, Avry and I were off.

We spent our Activity Day at the mall.... first stop: The Food Court. Here we were greeted by scores of senior citizens enjoying coffee and breakfast. Heads turned as we walked through the group (the closest I've ever come to feeling like a supermodel or A-list celebrity), each of the elders with a smile on their faces as Lauren & Avry pranced through the crowd, hand-in-hand, ready to dig into coloring with their school supplies packed in their bags. After coloring and a snack, the girls played for awhile in the mall's play area. We also did a little shopping, and before we knew it, it was finally time to pick Abby up from her first day at preschool.

The girls and I arrived before Abby's class had returned from the playground. Lauren's eyes were frozen to the window, and when she spotted her sister she yelled out her name, and then filled with disgust as she realized Abby was walking through the parking lot without someone's hand. They're sticklers for the rules.

But apparently there is one rule I did not arm Abby with: staying to the right when you go down the stairs. In fact, according to Abby's teacher, Mrs. Hart, Abby was so upset about having to stay to the right and hold onto the rail that she burst into tears. What?! My child not like to be told what to do? Never! Oh, that kid is just like her mother. But all was smoothed over when the class made it downstairs for snack time and it was Abby's turn to share something special she had collected over the summer. Her choice, a picture of her with Aunt Heidi at Lake Wenatchee in Washington. According to Mrs. Hart she did a thorough job of telling about her trip (sorry, I forgot to ask if she included the details of the chip-throwing and middle-of-the-night floor art), and by then she had forgotten all about the stairs.

As we were driving out of the parking lot I asked Abby, "So what did you think of your first day of preschool?" "It was great," she replied. And I truly think it was.

We capped off the special event with a trip to McDonald's for lunch!

I'm lovin' it.