We Survived!

We all survived the first day of preschool! I'm not too surprised and it's nice to have that behind us. We asked Karleigh how she wanted to do the first day... just have daddy take her or have all of us take her. She decided that she wanted all of us to take her so that's what we did. She found it kind of hard to sleep last night because she was excited so of course she was a little tired this morning. Jim is a morning guy (so nice!) so he carried her downstairs and let her wake up on the couch for a little bit. The bummer realization was that we were still walking around in a fog this morning when we heard the buses go up our hill... yes buses, plural, at 7:15 am. Now, most of you haven't been here but our hill is fine for one car at a time, it's a little dodgy when you meet someone and now, with the new busing schedule, they managed to have two buses, up the hill at the same time. Bet they'll be changing that up a bit! Anyway. We all got ready, snapped a few pictures, Rylan got buckled in the van with me, Karleigh buckled into the car with daddy and off we went. It was the longest trip to town EVER! Not because I was all emotional or anything like that - today was the first day back for the entire BG School Dist. (ok not the entire district, but for all the schools around us) It took us 35 minutes to go 7 and a half miles. Obviously, the bus driver that we got behind was new. He didn't know his stops and slowed down (from 25 mph max) at every. single. driveway. Jim and I were cars number 2 and 3 of at least 21 behind this bus that we followed all the way into the city limits. After he turned off to continue his route we ended up in the jam of cars and buses all taking their little one's to their first day. Note to self... flowers for the teacher seem to be common around here... almost as common as seeing kids under 12 in the front passengers seat (which is not legal in Washington but who's really paying attention???) Finally we got her to school, buzzed in and she walked right past the two other crying kids, said "bye!" and sat down at circle time. That was easy! Well, it was easy for her, not so easy for Rylan. By the time we got him back out to the van he was bawling. "We need go get Karleigh!" "Karleigh!" We told him that he and I would go pick her up in a couple hours (a time frame he totally doesn't comprehend) but then I suggested that we go shopping to help pass the time today since we were already in town... "shopping!" He composed himself quite quickly but still about every 2 minutes -

"We go get Karleigh?!"

We will, just not yet buddy - hey look! Cows!

"Oh yah, I see cows - Karleigh! Oh... no Karleigh." --- silence--- "Ohh, look an airplane, we go get Karleigh?"

Nope, we're going to go shopping, get gas and then we'll get Karleigh! Followed by as many distractions as possible.

Finally he realized that mommy alone just might be ok. So, since it was early in the morning, we headed to Target to wander around and then went to the mall. He was a total little man, holding my hand most of the time and never running off (well, once...) He got to play in the play area for a little while and then we went and tried on and bought his Halloween costume - that's the one time he took off of course, in full on monkey gear to the front of the store. Of course, no one could resist laughing at and talking to the 2 1/2 year old trying to escape the store looking like a monkey. He's just too cute for his own good some times. I also think that having Karleigh at preschool is going to be great for HIS verbal skills. He took the costume and showed it to EVERYONE at daddy's work and we were good. The nice thing is that first thing in the morning, the mall is generally filled with:

A. old people who love little kids or

B. parents who have just shipped their little ones off their first day of school (phew)

We stopped and looked at the puppies and kitties, got gas, and were back into town early (make a mental note of that) so we went to McD's and got a couple milkshakes, went back to the preschool and waited about 15 minutes until it was 11:30. I went in to get Karleigh and the director met me and said she had a great day etc. etc. but "now she's kind of sad because the daycare kids are eating lunch and since she doesn't have to bring a lunch... blah, blah, blah." I walked in and she was sitting at a table with 3 other kids who ALL had red cheeks. They had started lunch early! I was in the parking lot the whole time. I tried to be nice about it and just said "Oh no, maybe I need to set my clock in the van to the school clocks so we can avoid this in the future." The director then said that sometimes some of the teachers get ahead yadda, yadda, yadda but that frustrated me. Her day would have been perfect if THEY had stayed on schedule or waved me into the building. I was sitting right at the front door just waiting so that I wouldn't interrupt. However, I will now show up closer to 11:15 so she doesn't have to go through that again. Live and learn for all of us I guess. Other than that, she says she had a great time and she wants to go back which is a positive sign. I'm sure she's not scarred for life - I don't remember my first day of school at all so unless we make a big deal about it, she's bound to forget her 5 or 10 minutes of sadness. I won't, but she will.