Parker's First Day at Preschool

Today was Parker's first day at preschool. He'll be going Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9-12. I have to work about once a month and I chose today as my work day since it was a short day and so I could see how he did. He did really well. Some things that happened:

1.) He wore his Chrysanthemum bead necklace that he made and showed it to everyone around. The girls seemed jealous.

2.) He was writing his name and some numbers on the easel and the main teacher came up to look. She looked slightly shocked and then looked down at me. I had told her about Parker, but she was still shocked. I said kidding her, "You aren't suppose to react that way." She immediately said, "I like the way you drew your number 4." Or some other appropriate teacher thing. Then she looked at me again and said, "Wow."

3.) All the kids were playing outside and I heard Parker starting to freak out. I went over to see what was going on. He was standing on the scooter and this tiny little girl had her hand on it. He was saying, "Her turn was over, she was done with it, and now it's my turn." The girl didn't budge. I had a feeling he was telling the truth, but since I wasn't sure and didn't want to seem as if I was playing favorites with my own kid, said: "She wasn't done with her turn. She needs to finish and then it will be your turn." He didn't like this and the freak out continued until I mentioned snacks. Then he said, "I'd like an ice cream snack."

While he was freaking out, my normal approach of saying, You need to stop screaming or we are going to leave, just didn't fly. Even if I wanted to leave, I could not have. Perhaps this is why my mother always seemed to disapprove of this approach. I was left sort of hanging...

4.) At snack time, the teacher was handing out the snacks (it was a short day so snack time was condensed) and said to Parker "would you like another apple?" Parker said, "I'd like 5." She said, "Well, here are three apples, how many more should I give you?" He said, "Two stupid," but luckily the stupid was silent. The whole thing reminded me of a part of city slickers when they are asking the ice cream makers to match ice cream to dinners and one guy said, "Hot dogs and beans" to which the other relies, "Scoop of vanilla, scoop of chocolate...don't waste my time."

5.) They made a little art project today using shapes to make houses. There was glue involved which Parker hasn't really used before and it showed. All the other kids' houses were fine, but Parker had glue everywhere. He is the youngest by 2 months in the class (he was originally put in the 3 year old group since he missed the Sept 1 cut off, but was then moved to the older group), so this kind of thing is bound to happen.

By the end, he was ready to leave so we cleaned up, packed up and headed out to get Eli and Miranda who were at Susan's house having all manner of fun.

I think he'll like it there.