First full day at preschool

Ivan was excited to be going to the "big boy school." How do I know? He didn't sleep well.

One last thing we had to take to preschool that we hadn't taken on Monday was a photo of us to have. Of course, despite my incessant photo-taking and thinking of myself as a photographer, we had no good photo of all of us (Ivan, Allen, Andy and myself, not to even think about Mariposa) available. It's either me and the kids, or more frequently and much better, Andy and the kids. The only photo of all of us, was the fuzzy, out-of-focus picture Andy's mom took and printed for me.

I gave Ivan three options-the fuzzy group photo, me with the kids, or Andy with the kids. He picked the fuzzy one of all of us. It pleased me that he wanted that one.

We were the first ones to arrive to school. This was good, as it's easier for Ivan to get acclimated to a new empty place than when the "party" is already in progress. (As I say, he always needs a pre-party time.)

We put everything in his cubby. He was excited to see his boots. He immediately noticed that his cubby didn't have a photo of him, whereas all other cubbies had a photo of their "owners" attached. I guess the photos were taken on Wednesday, when Ivan was at home. Mrs. Persons remarked how he immediately noticed that. She assured him his photo would be taken soon.

Then Ivan took off. He ran and explored the entire classroom, jumping and hopping and skipping around. It was like he was on this sugar high (and he had no sugar in the morning, just his regular cereal). Andy and I were stunned. It was too easy. He went to draw at the easel. He went to pee.

In the meantime another girl came in, who sat down with the teacher at the arts table to cut with scissors.

"I want to cut with scissors," Ivan said and sat down.

"Mama, you go a work now," he told me then, without looking at me, focusing intently on cutting his paper.

We got dissed.

"You want us to leave?" I said, just to double check.
"Yes."
Maybe Andy was right. Maybe he was done with daycare and ready to explore something new.

Maybe I don't give him enough credit. Maybe he's more resilient and less sensitive than I see him to be. He surprised us when he transitioned from the two to the three year-old classroom. I thought he'd have a really hard time leaving Ms. Yvonne and Ms. Azeb and that the transition would take weeks. Instead, they ended up transitioning him a week earlier than anticipated. He liked the three year-old classroom so much, he didn't want to return to his old one.
Andy called preschool around 11. Ivan was fine. There was no crying; they were impressed by him, whatever that meant.

Andy picked him up around 3:30. Ivan was at his cubby, checking it out. He did fine, Ms. Folwer said. He was jumping from one activity to the next and going to the bathroom every time they told him to without a problem. On the playground he fell and hurt his elbow. He cried a bit, but was fine. I hope someone hugged him.

He brought home two pieces of art--construction paper with holes. Apparently, he discovered and really liked the hole puncher.

Since it was early, Andy took him to work for the remainder of the work day. He was fascinated with the fax machine. He also asked Andy, "Why is she in your office?" referring to Anita who shares the office with Andy. She was present when Ivan posed that question out loud.)