Ethan's First Day

Yesterday was Ethan's first day of pre-school (insert a peacefully gliding tear falling from cheek here). It's so hard as a parent (or more so a mum) to drop off their child on their first day of anything. You worry about if other kids will be nice to them, will they have fun, will they make new friends and most of all will they give you hell that night for leaving them there for the day!

So yesterday, we got in our SUV and headed to school. I left a little sooner than I thought we needed too, so I could walk in with Ethan and make sure he was ok before I left. (That and he woke up at 5:30am - so we were ready a little earlier) We pulled up to the school and parked, then from the back seat came this little voice, "We no go to CiCi's?" (CiCi was the woman who was caring for him.)

Ugg, could he have said anything more powerful to tug at the E sharp of my heart string. I turned around from the driver's seat and took my sun glasses off so Ethan could look in my eyes, "No muppet, today is your first day of school. We are going to meet some new friends today. Would you like to meet some new friends?"

Ethan's little bottom lip rolled into his mouth and right when I thought he was going to break down on me, I got a resounding "OK!" from him with the biggest smile I had ever seen! I turned back around and let out the biggest exhale since his birth that I had ever done; crisis meltdown averted. After a brief walk across the parking lot and some short term debacle at the front desk, we were in!

I walked Ethan back to the 2 year old room (he can't go to the three year old group till he is potty trained) where he meet his teacher Ms Kelli. I have to say that Ms Kelli is one of the nicest woman I have ever meet. Her dad passed away when she was 2 and she relates so well to Ethan and is understanding of him and his feelings. She introduced her self and showed him where his cubby was. Ethan was so excited to see he has a cubby with his name on it and he got to put his things in it!

Then I pulled out a surprise for Ethan. I had our photographer Deanna make me a 5x7 of the photo of Ethan and Christopher "bumppin". (I just love that photo. It shows the very special bond Christopher and Ethan had.) We let Ethan hang it in his cubby and he told Ms Kelli that was him and his daddy - too sweet (insert another tear).

Then the fun began, you could see in Ethan's face as he looked around that "meeting new friends" meant he DIDN'T KNOW THESE KIDS YET. And the shy, hind behind mummy Ethan emerged. But Ms Kelli invited him to sit with her at the table and eat some animal crackers and color a picture. And well all she had to do was say color and he was in like flin and I made a graceful exit.

The entire day at work I thought about my little muppet, what was he doing, was he having fun, would he nap? And when I picked him up from school that afternoon - he greeted me with smiles and big, "that's my mommy!" (Insert warm fuzzy feelings here) as he ran up to me to give me a hug. (I just love my muppet.)

The rest of the evening he was a chatter box of anything and everything. He was telling me about the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (Veggie Tales Movie - insert Ethan pretend sword fighting) and how he was a dog (insert Ethan panting like a dog) and then he was a monkey (insert Ethan getting in my face and going "ooooo, ahhhhhhhh!") then he was the sun (insert Ethan with his hands on his face cracking the biggest smile). You could tell that he had so much fun yesterday and it made dropping him off a little easier today.