First Day of School

Yesterday was Scarlett's first day of Pre-K 3 and Max's first day of toddler "school."  They previously went to Parents' Day Out at the church down the street, but Scarlett aged out, and I wanted them to be at the same place, so we've moved on to a church school in Uptown (one-year-olds through Kindergarten), where they'll attend three days a week.  Max's day is pretty much all playtime, but Scarlett's class has Spanish, Kinderfit, Music, and Science, among more basic lessons like handwriting and math.  Her classroom has a guinea pig, a turtle, and two lizards!

Eating breakfast before the big day.  (Note that Max is eating by himself with a spoon and no bib and is sitting in a big chair; he started doing this several months ago because he wants to do whatever Scarlett does.  We had a messy start, but he's doing great now.)  

The Pre-K 3, 4, and Kindergarten classes wear uniforms, which I managed to get Scarlett pretty excited about over the summer (she explained to Max apologetically that babies don't get to wear uniforms, so he'll have to wait until he's big like her before he's lucky enough to get to wear one).

Silly goose.

"No more pictures, Mommy!"

This is the look I got when I asked him to smile.  At this point, he has no idea what's about to go down, so the forced smile really was a bit premature, Max ...

I went back inside to get my purse and this is what I saw when I came back out -- totally unstaged. Those are the kids' nap mats on the ground (they're like small sleeping bags with built-in pillows).

So sweet.

Scarlett did great at drop off (although in fairness, she attended camp at the new school this summer, so she was familiar with the building).  Max didn't know what hit him.   When we got to his classroom, the teachers were loading up the kids into a giant stroller to take all of them for a spin, and every single one of those kids was crying.  Once Max figured out what was happening, he joined the symphony of tears.  The director called later to say all was well and that Max was happily playing on the playground, and he was all smiles when we picked him up that afternoon.

So, despite a bit of a bumpy start, Max had a good day.  Scarlett had a great day, and proudly showed me her art when we got home, announced that she got to be the teacher's helper, and that all of her friends wore uniforms too (what a coincidence!).