September 10 = First Day of Preschool!

Liam is doing so well in all his therapy areas- he's at age level in many areas in physical therapy and is catching up in occupational therapy.  In speech, he's making really impressive gains.  With all of the appointments we have, I haven't found a way to get Liam around other kids his age on a regular basis.  We take him to the YMCA's "stay 'n' play" but most of the kids there are much older and we take him to the church nursery on Sunday mornings but he and Malia have always been the only two kids there.  I really thought that giving him time with other kids age could help his development in all the different areas so when we came to Maryland for the first time, trying to find a place to live, we looked at some preschools but the vast majority of them required the child be two by September 1st.  Liam's birthday is September 5th.  So I kind of put that on the back burner while we were planning for and then welcoming Malia into our family.  However, on Monday, I was trying to get Liam and Malia inside and Liam refused to hold my hand.  Thankfully we live in an apartment where you park in the circle out front and the circle is very close to the front door and the only traffic consists of residents either pulling into parking spots or leaving parking spots- not high speeds- but I still would like him to learn to hold my hand when I need to have a handle on him.  I got inside- put him down for his nap- and immediately started looking for preschools.  I thought it would be good for him to participate in lining up, circle time, routine things that require a tad bit of obedience and that if he saw other kids listening to directions maybe he would too.  I also thought it would be really helpful for him to hear other kids using age appropriate language- words that he probably understands but isn't quite able to articulate yet.  So I called Anchors-A-Wee on Monday and they had actually started that day but it was an odd day where all the parents were invited to stay so everyone's real first day would be Wednesday- he would fit right in and not miss a beat.  And since separation anxiety is not something we have had to deal with I wasn't worried about him needing that first day with me within his sights.

Here he is in the car on the way to his first day!

I really wanted to get a good picture of him in front of the classroom door but he was too excited to go in and get started that this was as good as it got:

The teachers were giving me advice on how to lessen the difficulty of the separation- I refrained from telling them it wouldn't be a problem for him and went back to the car.  I had a few moments acknowledging that it would probably be understandable if I cried a little- I thought of how far he has come and how precious he is.  I thought of how this is one of those defining moments- it may not be kindergarten but he's heading in that direction.  But then I remembered I needed to go grocery shopping, feed, change and dress Malia, pump and be back in just over two hours so I took a deep breath and went on with the day.

When I picked him up that day, his tote bag with his new t-shirt was waiting for us on the hook outside his room.

The last activity they do before the end of their day (11:15) is outside play.  They have this room with a window from which you can see them on the playground but they can't really see you looking at them.  I got there 15 minutes early to spy on him and he was right there with the blonde teacher.  She was rubbing his hair and helping him play in the sandbox- I think he's won over another heart.  He was pretty exhausted- he's used to getting up around 8:45 but that's when school starts now so he has to get up before 8:00.  So we came home, had lunch and went right to bed- he didn't fight me a bit.

And here's an unrelated picture of when he thought it'd be cool to throw every individual piece of his snack on the floor and heck- why not throw all the napkins down too?!