Saturday, September 24, 2011

Third Day of Preschool

When dropping off the kid one morning, the daycare director offhandedly said "you're going to hate me but: I'm going to move your daughter to a new room".  I thought she meant like "for the day" but no, she meant ... ANOTHER TRANSITION.

Why yes, yes we did just move from Twos I to Twos II in February.  Why yes, that was after moving from Toddlers to Twos I last October BEFORE SHE WAS EVEN TWO.

Again, the director wants to keep The Clique together.  Again, she's in a bind because there is a large group of children ready to move into the Twos rooms, and she has an empty preschool classroom, so it's a workable solution.  Wee One will have (YET AGAIN) a new primary caregiver, but other than that, not much will be different.  New room, new person, same group, same ....

Yea.

So they took "field trips" to the new room.  Which has a large climbing apparatus with a loft, so all the kids loved the new room and had no issues.  Remember, my kid is a freaking rock star, and I'm the one with major transition issues.

Then Shermageddon happened, and I was concerned about traffic for Monday morning.  My college had not issued any statements or information to students, so I ended up posting announcements on Blackboard/email and Twitter, and trying to plan my life so I wouldn't be the loser that showed up late to class after telling my students they better not show up late for class.  I was worried about having fall clothes clean for the cold snap that came out of nowhere, and the exams I would be giving that week, etc.

So I dropped her off at daycare, knowing she would be in her new room, but thinking that "everything else" was staying "the same".

Turns out ... that was my kid's First Day of Preschool.

I pick her up to find no care sheet filled out for her (normally I get something like this that says when she went potty, napped, ate, etc).
This was the first one she brought home with no potty accidents.  Yay!

Instead, we received a general "Today" sheet that described how now they each have a job (Wee Ones is to pass out cups at meal/snack times), how there are "stations" in the room and the friends are learning that there can only be a certain number of people at a station at one time, how the friends were learning to use the computer, and there will be Show and Tell on Friday.

Also, with our Today Sheet came ....


The Preschool Newsletter, complete with a welcome for all the friends transitioning to preschool.  Complete with a back page about tips for "students". Gah.

Wha ... what?  Um ... ah ... uh ... wha...????

On Tuesday when I picked her up and had no idea when she'd slept, how much she had eaten, only that she'd had a potty accident, I realized that "everything else will be the same" was really code for "we are transitioning your kid to preschool and not really telling you so you won't freak the fuck out about it".

The only problem with that?

Most people know when their kid is starting preschool.    They can take pictures "First Day of Preschool, look how cute!"  They can mentally prepare themselves to transition from the world of "daycare", which is all about eating, pottying, and sleeping, to the world of "school" which is all about learning to be an independent person in the world. 

Wednesday, I took my camera with me to drop-off.  So here I document my kid's Third Day of Preschool.

In the car on our way to the Third Day of Preschool

Standing by the fishtank at the Third Day of Preschool

Oh, yes, everything is JUST the same

Because she's always had a "job", right?

I guess Cup Passer Outer isn't grammatically correct

Monday, September 12, 2011, my kid started preschool.  She's not even two-and-a-half.  But of course, she's doing great.

3 comments:

Betsy said...

Yowsa! That's kind of crazy. Glad it seemed like a smooth transition, though.

And she's forward facing?! When did this happen? =) My kid is still too light. His pediatrician predicts he'll hit 30 pounds by age FOUR. He thinks 27 - 28 pounds by age three. Ugh.

MommieV said...

I only turned her front facing about a month ago. I took my car to get detailed and while I had the carseat out I changed the belts and reinstalled it front facing. She was just breaking the 25 pound barrier at that point.

I kept her on whole milk until about a month ago also. She's addicted to chocolate milk, so I would give her half whole milk and half choc milk. Honestly, I think it was all the milk that helped her start to put on weight.

Today at the doc she was 27 pounds. She took forever to get to 22 pounds, and then it felt like forever to get past that. Now she seems to be catching up.

Still a little on the petite side, tho, so I can understand.

Betsy said...

Milk is the only thing that got him past 22 pounds as well. And he's still on whole milk as well. We're eating "clean" and I recently read scary things about skim milk so I switched the whole family to whole! Plus if it means that he'll gain weight, I'm going to keep pushing it!