The first day.....

of preschool did not go as planned. S was a bit nervous - made evident by the fact that when we brought it up at dinner the night before he burst out in tears, "I don't want to go to preschool. I want to go to toddlers." We calmed him down and even made cookies and a card for his toddler teachers to say thank you. He made it clear he didn't want to go to preschool Monday morning but we strolled in. He hugged my leg most of the time, but agreed to show me around a bit. Then it was time for me to leave, and it happened - he lost it, S was a complete and utter mess, hysterical crying. I have a vague recollection of him crying one other time when I left and that was pretty mild and ended once I was out of sight - basically he loves school and does very little crying there. If anything, he cries when I pick him up because he wants to stay and play with his friends. In particular if I happen to arrive before they have gone outside to play in the afternoon he is not happy and I usually have to wait around so he can go outside with this friends - the solution, I stay at work and get more done and pick him up later, problem solved.

But I digress - I finally left and he was still hysterical, it was really sad. He kept saying, "I don't want you to leave." "I want to go to work with you." Of course I had a day full of meetings so no ability to hang out much longer than I already had. I called to check in later and he was fine. After I left he sat in his cubby with his blanket and bear for about 20 minutes just wanting to be by himself. He then ventured out and started playing with toys, and from there he was all good. He was a bit confused because last week he was just visiting preschool and always went back to toddlers so apparently he kept asking his preschool teachers when he was going back. All in all it was a great day, and this morning when I dropped him off, there were no tears and he seemed ready to go.

I have no doubt he'll love being a preschooler, more independence and pretty cool activities. Yesterday he even got to pour his own milk at lunch and loved it.