The Daxman's Blog: Dax's First Day of Pre-School

Today was a big day for Dax -- it was his first day of pre-school. He's been looking forward to it for a while now. He should, it's a pretty cool school: it is on several acres covered with huge oaks; has a giant playground; has a "farm" with horses, donkeys, goats, peacocks, and such; and is right along Bull Creek, so the older kids can go hunt for frogs. I mean, really - pretty cool kid stuff. I was a little concerned about the first day because every time we mentioned "school", he would say, "ride school bus". But, luckily he was fine riding to school in Mommy's car.

We got him all decked out with new clothes, a new backpack, and a new lunchbox. He took a peach to give to his teacher, because I was out of apples. When we got to the school, he wasn't overwhelmed at all, and there was a lot of activity going on. We walked back to his classroom and discovered that his teacher, Ms Susie, had a family emergency and that Ms Jeanette was his substitute for the day. (Side note: Jeanette was Duane's mom's name, so we took it as a little sign from above that she was with us today.) Dax went right up to her and introduced himself with, "Hi, my name is Dax." (We did tell him to do that part.) She was very sweet and took to Dax right away. After we got his backpack hung up and his lunchbox in his cubby, Ms Jeanette asked if he wanted to play with blocks, color, or play with play-dough. Without hesitation, he said, "play-dough" and sat right down at the table and proceeded to announce that he was going to make a snake. Great. Duane and I talked with the teacher about procedures, etc while Dax played. There was another little boy there, Tyler, and when we told Dax what to do, he went over to him and said, "Hi, Tyler. My name is Dax." He seemed pretty comfortable with everything. We told him we were leaving and he said, "OK, bye." We gave hugs and went to the front office to take care of the paperwork side of all this.

It wasn't until Duane and I were walking to the car that I started to choke up. I made it out of the parking lot and up the street, but then I just couldn't hold back the tears. Duane asked if I was crying because I was happy or sad and I had to say, "I don't know." But after sitting outside at the coffee shop, sipping a chai, reading, and then eating a relaxing lunch, I felt much better. I even managed to get a quick pedicure in, and then I REALLY felt better. :)

For pick-up, the school has you drive thru the circular driveway and they load the kids in the car for you. When I pulled up, Dax, another boy, and Ms Jeanette were sitting together on one of the outside benches waiting. Before he saw me, I saw him telling Ms Jeanette something and she started cracking up. What a special feeling to see my child make other people happy. When they saw me, they came over to the car. I asked how it went and Ms Jeanette said, "He did great! He is SUCH a good boy! And a very good helper, too." I was so proud of him!!! She also said that he ate almost all his lunch, followed by, "That was a lot of food for such a skinny boy!" I had to laugh.

Once we were in the car, the interrogation began:

Did you have fun at school today?

-yeah!

What did you do?

-eat snack (you can see what his priorities are! Like father, like son!)

OK, good. What else did you do?

[silence]

Did you read stories?

-yes

What else did you do?

[silence]

Did you go outside?

-no

Oh? Did you go on the playground?

-yes (not sure why he doesn't think the playground is "outside")

What did you do on the playground?

[silence]

Did you swing?

-yes

Ms Jeanette is nice, isn't she?

-yes

...and so it went.... Not a lot of freely-given information.

I thought he would go straight to sleep for his nap, but it actually took him an hour to fall asleep. I guess he was still fired up from all the new-ness. When he woke up, Duane was already home. Duane was much better about getting info from him. Dax volunteered that he played blocks, and that while they were on the playground they played a game called "see firetruck". Apparently, when you see a firetruck you're supposed to yell, "See Firetruck!" Sounds like a fun game.

It was a most successful day by all accounts!

All ready for the big day!