If I'm honest I'm not handling the transition well at all. It all has been overwhelming to me. I am so conscious of how I am feeling because my girl picks up on my vibe even when I don't think she does. I'm trying to talk it up and be SO positive about school and be excited. I want her to continue to love to go to school. Maybe because we also had her birthday, then school, then my son will go to preschool that I'm just processing slower, who knows!
I've tried to cue in on how she is doing with all of this and at times she is very excited, then when we went to meet the teacher night she was quite nervous (understandably so)....her biggest worry is about not knowing where to go. I tell her this is very normal to be worried and that the others will be worried too. This is all new for everyone and it will take some time.
I think I figured out that it's better to just stop talking about it as much and let her talk if she wants to. Tonight we hardly spoke of it at bedtime because I think it just makes her worry more. Especially when she's tired she focuses on the, "What if I miss you? What if I get scared at lunch?" "Do I have to stay all day?". The tears are so hard to see and much harder to calm down.
I was a bit worried about her new teacher because interestingly enough, someone I used to work with, used to work at the elementary school. About a year or so ago she told me who NOT to get for kinder. And yes, that is the one we got....however.....she also said don't get this other teacher (who I saw on the website won an award at the school) and the mom group I went to who had kids there already both got this teacher. So, um.....I'll make my own decision thank you. Mrs. Schindler. Sounds like a really nice, wholesome teacher, doesn't it? My impressions were good. She's been teaching for 25 years, seems to be quite good with communication. I wrote her an email just expressing some of my concern as a newbie i.e. that she's a young 5, has only been in preschool 3 hours 4 days a week so the days will be long for her, her worry about lunch and the noise/chaos, etc..We had to write all this out on a card for the folder but I wanted her to have it prior to my girl's first day. She responded with such a nice note that they will take good care of her, she's in good hands, it's normal for ME to be nervous, and yes it's hard to let them go. I just felt better reading it knowing that she responded right away and it was helpful. It also doesn't hurt that I'd like her to know I'm keen on staying in contact.
This is a big school (well big to me) there are 6 kindergarten teachers and my girl will have 21 in her class.
Something neat is that when we went to meet the teacher night I recognized one of the Dads in our classroom i.e. his wife was a teacher at my girl's preschool last year. We also ran into his wife at a bouncy house with her daughter Lilly. So she will be in my girl's class. I don't think my girl remembered her, BUT....she at least has met someone and I can talk about the fact that she has a friend already at school.
We are all ready to go tomorrow. Her totebag is ready to go, her outfit ready, her premade sign she will hold is all filled in for that perfect photo!.....and I'm going to take her (with nanny and brother) Wed-Fri this week. They allow us to walk them to the classrooms wed-fri. Then we will see.....I am not totally clear if we are walkers in the morning what the process is starting next week, like where we drop them off if we don't walk all the way to the classroom. I am sure around the school in the am it will be a zoo and will take some time.
Apparently there is a 'Tears and Cheers' thing for parents after school starts tomorrow. I don't know if I will stay for that because I have to go to work, but will see. I will plan to pick her up after school as well when we do drive up. Going to see how that process works. We even got our family number tag to hang in our window. They even made a video on how to do the drive up line.
I am sure there will be tears....hopefully just mine and hopefully after we drop off. I really can't explain why these transitions are so hard for me. They have been since the kids have been born. I was slow to take away the bottle, get them out of cribs (my son is still in his and will turn 3 in October), just the 'growing up' stuff I am not embracing quickly. The thing is, I really am excited for them and love to see the new stages and what they start learning, etc.. When we did soccer this summer-- to see my girl out there running w/ her little teammates, kicking goals, etc.. I was so dang PROUD! We really had a great experience with the coaches (they included little brother as much as they could since he really wasn't on the team). They let him pick up the blue cones at the end and gave him stickers or stamps the other kids got. They even let him wear a jersey and sit on the sidelines to watch/clap when the kids were taking turns with a 3 on 3 scrimmage. All around great experience and I am really looking forward to these types of things w/ the kids. It was a ton of fun.
We also had a 5th birthday. It was a nice day, small get together at the house w/ family friends. We did get the bakery cake with a unicorn (as she requested) from the Mexican bakery. There was a small snafu at the bakery because the picture on the original cake was crooked. I decided I couldn't live w/ it so they had to remake it, but were very nice about it. However, the flavor was awesome!! It had strawberry filling and tasted great! I would for sure go there again.
My son was in a mood and not super interested in being in pictures. We did still get some cute ones. Our nanny does some photography on the side and is pretty good at it. You can tell on the camera which pictures I took and which ones she took:
Now, on to Kindergarten first day tomorrow and prepare for my boy's start for preschool and HIS birthday just around the corner.
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