1st Day of Preschool!

Well, I can honestly say that I have been dreading this day for quite some time.  Most moms would be super excited to send their kids off to school, not me.  For one, I enjoy having them around and this just means that school will be a part of our lives now for a long, long time.  They are growing up.  And two, here's the big one: Jack's anxiety towards school.  My stomach was in knots just thinking about this day the whole summer.  Whenever school was mentioned, Jack would say, "I'm not going!"  We told him that he could pick out a backpack.  Still, he wasn't going to get one because he wasn't going to school.  Ugh!  Jacky is a bit more emotional than the other two and tends to think and dwell on things longer.  Then the question kept going through my head, are they too young?  We are right on the cusp of the date they allow kids in.

Anyway, the day finally came and we were all dressed and ready to go.  I tried taking some pics.  Josh and Abby were super excited.  Jack wanted no part of the pictures.

As you can tell from the above picture, he kicked over his backpack and was stepping on it.  So, he reluctantly got in the car and we headed off to school.  On the first day, parents were allowed to stay for 20 minutes.  Chris stayed home with Brooke.

Right away, Jack was clinging to me and didn't want to put his backpack away.  He didn't want to wash his hands, either.  I looked around and there were all these happy kids with their parents all excited for school.  There was only one other boy in tears because his dad was slowly sneaking out of the classroom.  We all sat down in a circle while the teacher was talking.  Jack was sitting on me, whining.  Then came the dreaded exit of the parents.  Jack started screaming and holding on to me.  One of the teachers grabbed him and he broke my watch because of his tight grip.  His eyes were super puffy and he kept calling for me.  Before I knew it, tears were in my eyes.  Then, to make matters worse, Abby and Josh started crying.  And, the tears were overflowing for me.  Jack kept saying, "Get me out of here!"  So, I made my way out of the classroom, blubbering, and headed home guilty as ever.  What a sight we must have been!

I couldn't wait for the 2 hours to go by.  Finally, it was time to pick them up and I was just petrified.  I was worried that Jack was crying the entire time.  We parked and were ecstatic to see this:

That's Jack and Abby up front, holding hands!  Josh was the door holder and is all the way in back.  We went in and waited for them to come inside.  He was all smiles!  They were so excited to show us their art work.  Jack only did one drawing, but he was so happy!  The teacher said that the crying only lasted for a little while.

I know that this is good for them and they need this.  When filling out the school forms, there was a question about what I wanted from this program.  My answer: independence from Mom.  We are slowly working on it.