This Monday, she started the Pre-K Counts program at Osborne Elementary. It's another full circle event, which one often finds themselves if living near Sewickley, as I dropped Ayla off at the same school I first attended in 1985! Of course now it has been renovated and looks more like an outlet mall than a typical elementary school.
The program is five days a week, starting at 8:45 am and lasting until 2:45 pm. Coming from her pretty lackadaisical existence in our house for the past four years, that is a big transition. She's attended group activities like library story time or her dance and swim classes - but to be away from home for six hours at a time, eating meals there is almost like taking on a full time job.
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| Faithful fuzzy was taken to school, too. |
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| The new tutu dress from Eve helped us to get her dressed without a fight. |
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| Good thing Ayla isn't grumpy in the morning! Check out that cool backpack! |
But in reality, I was more stressed out about it than she was. It's hard to extract information from Ayla when she gets home. I try to use the open-ended, "School must have been fun today..." conversation starters... but she usually responds with a "yep". I ask about story time, lunch, new friends, the teacher and so on. Should I assume that no news is good news? She has no complaints and was so involved with talking with the other kids that she didn't even notice when I came to pick her up the first day.
I'm so curious to know what and how she interacts with people all day long! Does she actually take the nap for rest time? Is she grumpy when she wakes up like at home? Does she say excuse me after burping at lunch? It's hard to believe that at four years old - I'm already sending her out into the world.
Along with her transition to school, we are enjoying some extra time with Jackson and Elliot on their own. Jackson finally gets some control over the toys, TV and how he gets to spend his day.
We are also shifting our schedules to what "normal" people tend to be... last night I had everyone in bed by nine thirty. Ayla passed out around 8:45 (after a little resistance to taking off her princess tutu) and Elliot was snoozing as well. Jackson spent some extra time awake watching TLC with me until he was grumpy enough to fall asleep. It has been a very rare occasion for me as a parent, to be sitting alone on the couch that early in the evening.... thinking about how to spend the rest of my night.
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| However, Baxter is not pleased about this whole school thing. |
Preschool has been a success this week - I hope it continues to stay that way!
ALL last year...every day..."Spencer, how was school? Who did you play with? What did you learn? Did you play with new toys?" etc...NOTHING. All.year.long. Then, in June. We were taking a car trip to the grocery store and she told me about her ENTIRE year, in a matter of 10 minutes! "Mommy, did you know you need to raise your hand to talk? I played with Reynolds so much at school"...etc. Don't worry, you're not alone in your unresponsive world!
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