Gracie's First Day of Preschool!

First of all I just want to say how did this day arrive so super fast?

3 years ago when this little girl arrived into my life, I never would have imagined the time would have gone this fast. While I am so excited for Gracie to start preschool, I am sad that she is old enough for school already.

Today was Gracie's first day of preschool. I took the morning off so I could be the one to take her. Today was the last day that the parents could come in the classroom and drop them off. Starting next week, the whole "dropping off" thing starts. Today was also only an hour. Next week Gracie will start going for 2 and a half hours.

So today I walked her in, helped her find her hook to hang her bookbag, got her nametag and the teacher directed her to play with some toys. Then the teacher basically told me to leave. I was like ok. I totally know how she felt because I am like that too in the teacher sense. I must say that it's weird being the parent and not the teacher. I walked out the door and kept turning around to catch a glimpse. She seemed fine so I walked to my car. When I got to my car, I sat for a minute staring at the building, eyes were watering, thoughts of Gracie as a baby ran through my mind, took a deep breath, and drove off.

The hour I had to wait in between was so long. I couldn't wait to go pick her up and ask her how her first day was. I waited and chatted with some of the other parents waiting too. That too, made me sad as really I won't have any other interaction with them because I will not be there to pick Gracie up. If I could only work half-days!

So the teachers came out and told us that we could go get them. She told us that the kids would be sitting on the rug waiting for us to tap their heads and that was their cue to get up. I heard crying though and I got worried. The mom in front of me said that was her daughter but there were other cries too. I thought it might have been Gracie. The teacher said one child started crying and then some others joined in. But when I came in the door, there was Gracie sitting on the rug and she was smiling! I tapped her on the head, she got up and we grabbed her bookbag, said bye to her teachers and left. I asked her if she had fun. She told me she did! Yeah! I asked her all kinds of questions. They went like this:

"Did you have fun at school?" "Yep."

"Did you sing some songs?" "Yes."

"What did you sing?" "We sang the Itsy Bitsy Spider."

"Did you read books?" "Yep."

"Which books?" "I don't know."

"Did you color?" "No, I did not."

"Did you make new friends?" "No."

"Do you like the kids in your class?" "No, I do not."

Well, we will have to work at that one. She couldn't stop talking about school though. When we got to my parents, she was like "Grandma, I went to school!" She was singing some song about school that she must have learned. She kept talking about how she did "cantalopes", which I am not sure what that means yet. She said she is excited to go back too. Her new favorite thing to do now is play school! Yep, it's like me 25 years ago. She tells us to come to class. She gets a chair and reads a book to us. It's so cute.

I am so exited and proud of my little girl. She is going to have a great year in preschool!

Here are some pictures from the first day.

In case you are wondering why she always wears her pink crocs, it's because that it the only shoe she will wear. She has some pretty sandals but never wants to wear them. She also likes to wear her snow boots but I had to hide them so she wouldn't want to wear those.
All ready for school!

Here is her bookbag.


Presley and Evie were looking for her!

Where are you big sis?

All done with the first day.

Now let's go home!