First Day

We all visited the school a few months ago- a home-based place just four houses down the street from us.  It's been there quite a while, and most of the neighbors sent their kids there, so we felt that it'd be a good place for Huelan to start preschool.  It's set up like a preschool/daycare, with around 8-12 kids there at any given time with Ms. Jan and her twenty-something daughter Ms. Michelle.  You get the feeling from her voice and cadence that Ms. Jan's been at this a long time.

Huelan was so excited the day of her first visit that she wanted to stay (It helped that two girls told her that her dress was pretty).  We went home, but have been talking about preschool periodically since and ramped up the talk in the last week or so.  Her excitement ramped up too, but she let some trepidation show through. When we told her that she wouldn't be going to story time at the library, she said in a soft voice, "But I don't want things to change, I want everything to stay the same."  I would too if I was her- she has it pretty good.

The actual logistics are pretty easy right now.  Since it's just a 5 min walk away and she can pretty much show up any time before 9, we didn't have too much of a time crunch.  The first morning Huelan had the full escort- Mom, Ba, Vansen, and Gosia.  Huelan was a little shy when we walked in at 8:30, and there was just one other kid there, but in a few minutes half the kids had shown up and we were barely able to coral her for a goodbye kiss.  She had jumped in with both feet.

Mom and Ba did okay, too.  We were probably more anxious about how she would do than sad or nostalgic.  I was fully expecting to get a phone call in the middle of the day asking me to pick up Huelan because she was doing atomic knee-drops on the other kids during nap time or she wouldn't stop making fart noises with her mouth until all the monsters were gone.  But no, she did great, and especially loved art time.  Actually the only one of us to shed a tear was Gosia, who's also moving on to another chapter: Vansen.

Some more pics here