First Days of "School"

For show-and-tell Maggie chose four ducklings and carefully placed them in her backpack. Now, while she puts her things into her not yet labeled cubby and surveys her still unfamiliar classroom, on this her second day of pre-school, I pull the teacher aside to tell him about the ducklings Magnolia was so adamant to share. You see, they're imaginary.

The teachers are great though, and are learning quickly. When asked what they should call her on the first day, "Magnolia or Maggie?," she informed them, "Actually, call me duckling." I never heard whether they complied or not but I was impressed at how well they described my daughters after the first day:

At the end of day 1, Maggie didn't want to leave and wasn't even sure if she wanted to talk to me but eventually agreed to show me around the classroom -- which toys she played with, which ones she helped clean up, the things that another kid messed up. She enthusiastically told me about the soft frog blanket that she used for her snooze. I finally got her to leave willingly by saying we needed to go see Kaleia's classroom.

Unlike her sister, Kaleia was ready to go home.  When we peeked in, she was happily playing but, as soon as she saw us, ran over and said, "Car. Bag."

Both girls slept amazingly--ahh, the secondary benefits of preschool!--and on morning 2 were just as excited as they got ready. Drop off, including the requisite imaginary duckling warning, was smooth again.

At the end of the day, Maggie had to finish what she was building before she would even consider coming home. Kaleia was playing outside when we came to pick her up and the two sisters ran and embraced. Then they went back to play in Kaleia's class.

I was always hesitant about daycare and felt very blessed that our girls have been home with family until now. We've always thought they would go to preschool, but we've wanted to homeschool them for elementary school (more about that in a future blog post, hopefully). Brian and I still see ourselves as their primary caregivers and teachers, but I am appreciating this experience and all that they are already gaining from it.

Here is a video of Maggie's response when I told her she was going to start going to "school":