More About School

Sebastien and Eden have successfully attended school without a parent twice now. Both have gone without tears and had a fabulous time. Get ready for a long post....

The first day I dropped them off after lot of talk over the previous week, so that by the time we got there, they pretty much understood what was going to happen. I still expected that when I turned to leave, someone (ah-hem Eden?) would be anxious and want me to stay or something. I had all sorts of plans to make this go well. But when the time came, I kissed them good-bye, they turned away and didn't look back. So...that's great! I'll admit I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I may have wandered the hall with Violet a little bit, you know, just to be sure. But it was not necessary for me to linger. They were good.

Did I cry? Well, maybe I teared up a little as Violet and I drove away. But honestly mostly I was just proud, thankful and excited.

When I picked them up, I went a little early and I could see them through the window of the classroom. They were sitting in a circle with the other kids, doing the "Going on a Bear Hunt" song, and fully participating. Bash was bopping his head and doing the motions, and Eden was also doing the motions, watching carefully to make sure she had them right. It was a precious sight.

Mrs. Vos told me that they did great. She said that when she announced that they were going on a bear hunt, Eden looked at her and said, "A bear hunt? That's interesting!" And at one point they were making fuzzy bears, and Bash kept putting on more "fuzz" (paint) and saying, "Is it fuzzy yet?" with every new stroke of paint. She also mentioned that at the very end, with only a few minutes left, Eden got a look on her face, "like she was done with her day here." Mrs. Vos invited her to sit on her lap, which Eden did for a minute or so and then she was all smiles again.

Bash was very sad to leave. He continued to tell me that he wanted to go back to school the whole way home, once we were in the house, and through lunch. Eden was absolutely beat from her busy morning, and did not want to talk about details.

However...when Eden woke up from her nap, I crawled into bed with her for some snuggles. Suddenly, she said, "They had Veggie Tales, and we have Veggie Tales! They were there!" I said, "Veggie Tales? At school...on TV?" And she said, "No.... SONGS!" Well this opened a floodgate of information. She went on about rest time and laying on a mat, and Mrs. Vos turning off the light. She talked about the color of her mat, and the color of Bash's mat, at which point, Sebastien was apparently awake because he said, "yeah...green." She told me about the bear hunt, about the song they did and the craft. She was excited because next week they were going to talk about caterpillars.

Which leads us to this week. Both of the kids have had colds this week, and I was praying that they would not have to stay home from school. Thankfully no fevers and enough improvement meant that they could go today. They were both so excited to go back.

I have not gotten a lot of details about their day today. But they did well again. Neither were sad when I left. Bash brought Bob and Larry for Show and Tell. Eden brought their LeapFrog computer.

Adam picked them up and walked them home. Mrs. Vos reported that Sebastien was a little more subdued, which makes sense since he is still a little under the weather. But later we were asking them about school and Eden told us that they watched a beautiful butterfly on TV, and that "Mrs. Vos had a low TV but Mrs. Alfree had a high TV." I don't know what that means. She also told me that she showed her computer for Show and Tell and said "I teached Mrs. Vos how to use it." And Sebastien spontaneously told us, "A butterfly lays an egg, and the caterpillar comes out and it has so many legs! Then he spins and spins a cocoon and goes inside and stays for two whole weeks. And then he wiggles his body and wiggles his head and POPS out and...it's a beautiful butterfly!"

The other sort of funny thing is that Eden has not peed at school at all. She wears her undies, but she won't pee there. By the time she gets home, she has to GO. So I said, "Why didn't you go pee pee at school, Hon?" And she said, "Oh, our potty is just better."

Can I just say how much I love hearing them talk about school! It just warms my heart. I am so proud of them, they have both taken to this new adventure like total champs. So far the Friday morning preschool experience has been wonderful and I'm just so thankful.