London's First Day of Preschool!

London has been anxiously awaiting starting preschool for weeks. She received a letter and activity in the mail from her teacher a couple weeks ago and has asked everyday since then, "this day do I go to school?" So, finally last Monday I was able to tell her tomorrow you start school. That was a MISTAKE! I remember when I was a kid I could never sleep the night before school however, I didn't think that would be the case with a preschooler. I shouldn't have been shocked since London will use anything to get out of sleeping, but that night was a nightmare to get her to sleep. We have slowly been making progress with her and her sleeping, but I still sit outside her door until she falls asleep which then lasts until sometime in the middle of the night when she quietly sneeks in our room without waking us up and lays on the floor, she has learned not to wake us up since we send her back to her room (we still have a long way to go but for now I'm just so grateful that I am no longer getting up with her multiple times during the night). Anyway, so I was sitting outside her door waiting for her to fall asleep and all she could do was talk about preschool and what she was going to learn and "what is my teacher's name again?" and "who is going to my school with me?" and "is sissy coming with me?" at which I replied "no, she is too little" and she assured me it would be okay to send Kennedy because she would, "look after her". So, finally after about two hours of questions (the last hour of which I ignored) she finally went to sleep, only to wake up multiple times in the night each time with a new question about school. Midnight: "Are you staying at school with me?" 2:00 am: "Who's taking me to preschool?" 4:00 am: "Is it time for school?" (anyway, you get the picture).




Once she was in bed I was the typical first time school mom, I picked out a cute little sun dress and made sure it was washed and ironed and set all her clothes out. So, I wake her up (she is not an early riser especially after the restless night she had) and inform her it is time to get ready for school. I have daddy get her breakfast with cereal and toast and juice so she won't get hungry while at school. Then, it is time to get dressed. I tell her I set her clothes out in her room and to go get dressed. She goes to her room and comes back with a disgusted look on her face and says, "That's not what I'm wearing to school, I want to wear my brown polkadot dress". After trying to convince her that the dress I picked out was much nicer I finally caved and went to her closet and pulled out a brown dress she has with little dots on it. She says, "No, not that one, my new school one with the blue and brown dots on it, come her and I'll show you". So, she takes me to her closet and points out a new outfit that I had bought her back in July for fall, it is really cute, but not quite in season. I tell this story so you know that I do not try to abuse my child by sending her to school during 90 degree weather in long sleeves, but those of you who are moms just know that sometimes it is not worth the fight. There was no convincing her that she would be too hot or that she could wear that next week, she had decided probably weeks ago that that was what she was wearing for her first day of school and no one was going to convince her otherwise.




So, finally after all of that, it was time for school. Daddy, mommy and Kennedy all took her and dropped her off. She didn't even look back. It was a hard day for me to see my little girl looking so grown up and Kennedy missed her and kept asking, "where's nondon?", but overall we are just so proud of what a big girl she is.

Luckily, the next day I did convince her to wear the cute dress I had picked out. However, being the observer she is she said she needed a jacket because some of the kids at school took jackets (probably kids whose parents dress them appropriately for the weather). She said, "there is one big girl in my class who could do her zipper on her jacket all by herself so I think I can do mine too". So, I gave her a cute pink jacket to put over her dress, but it never did get zipped (maybe she'll ask the other girl for some tips). I guess that's the hard thing about being one of the youngest in your class. Let the peer pressure begin!