First Day of School!

This morning, in preparation for the big day, we took the traditional front-door-picture of the first day, and Hannah was definitely in the mood for posing, if not for smiling. It will be a good personality shot to show her in later years. Just getting her to be in the picture took some convincing, so I took what I got! :)

Later Gemma and I dropped Hannah off at her first day of preschool this afternoon, and none of us even cried! I admit I got a bit of a lump in my throat when it came to actually saying good-bye, but the hard/good part is that Hannah didn't seem to mind or notice that I was even leaving! She was busy with her very first classroom job, which was helping her teacher pass out some coloring pages.


*Note: She's not actually picking her nose there, even though it looks like it. :)

Once I got out into the parking lot, I took some deep breaths and headed home. Another mom from church saw me and asked if it was my first preschool drop-off. She cheered for me, and that made me well up even more! Fortunately I had Gemma there to squeeze and focus on while I gathered my emotions. :) I'm totally not against crying, but I thought I'd rather not lose it in the parking lot, with all the classrooms facing me.

Already I'm learning some things I'll do differently on Mondays & Tuesdays, primarily, I will not try to run errands before preschool. I wasn't planning on doing that, but when the girls and I were all ready by 9:45, I figured why waste the morning? Well, I got my answer around noon when Hannah said "I'm tired," and looked like she could drop off to sleep any moment. She rested in the car for a few minutes until it was time to go into the school, and then she started to liven back up.
On Thursdays, I'll have bible study at the church (which is where the preschool is located, conveniently) and so Hannah will end up being "on campus" all day, even though she won't be in her class that whole time.
The other problem is figuring out a time for Gemma to nap. In retrospect, I should have let Gemma nap here from 10-noon, and then she & I could have done our errands later in the afternoon while Hannah was at school. Somehow I was figuring that if I got the errands done in the morning, I'd end up with more time to myself by afternoon. Probably a selfish reason, and the selfishness did not pay off! Haha.

Anyway, I'm proud of Hannah for jumping right into this preschool day without any reservations or problems, as I've heard the story many times of how I cried/screamed for many days when I first started going to preschool. I guess I can be thankful for that difference between Hannah & I! :)

We'll see what this first week brings, and all that Hannah has to say about it. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my time with Gemma as I sip my decaf coffee and munch on whole wheat fig bars (a real treat for me!) :) Hope everyone else has a great back to school/first day of school week!