I know it is a good thing. But wow. What a change this is for all of us. I dropped my little girl off at school today. For the first time. By herself. All day. She's never been to pre-k, never to daycare, just with me. At home. For 3 years. And now she's not.
I must say it was very obvious that she was the most adorable 3 year old (probably the only 3 year old!) in that entire building. I was able to walk her in today and will be able to tomorrow, but after that, its no getting out of the car for me. Not that she needed me today or anything. I woke her up at 7:30 (Did you EVER think you'd hear me say that? lol) and Brad and I giggled as we watched her try to come out of her sleep (we've never seen that before!) She was excited to get dressed and then walked straight to the door to go. I had to remind her that we needed to fix her hair still and that I needed to get Blair out of bed and ready too! We left at 8:00 after a very brief photo session and she was very upset that she couldn't wear her backpack AND be strapped in her carseat at the same time. The meltdown was averted when I told her she could hold it on her lap. We made it to the school early (it's less than 1 mile from the house) and as we were walking along the LONG sidewalk parallel to the parent drop off line, my nose started bleeding! That poor excited little girl had to stand on the sidewalk with me while a nice mom in her car handed me some napkins out the window and we stood still as I waited for the nosebleed to stop.
We finally got into the front office, obtained my visitor's tag (which is way cool and even has your picture on it!) that they print out everytime you enter the building. We held hands and pushed Blair's stroller together down the long, busy hallway as kids zoomed past us in every direction. I could feel Ava's nervousness as she stared at these big kids and held on to me just a little bit tighter.
We got to her classroom where her teacher was waiting - just for us! She didn't do car duty this morning so that she could be there when Ava got there this morning. We were the only ones there and she invited us in the class. She took Ava to hang up her backpack (where she showed her her hook with her name on it) Ava started to run back to me tentatively when Ms. Valencia asked her if she wanted to go sit down and color.
And that was it. She got her pencil box and notebook out of her bag, held her teacher's hand and walked away from me. I kind of giggled and said, "Ava can I have a kiss bye-bye?" And she didn't come back. She didn't turn around. She just sat down at her desk (with her name on it) and started "working". But guess who did turn around? Her teacher! Ms. Valencia turned back to me, hugged me and said to call any time I wanted to today. She asked if I was alright - I said I was fine and turned to go. She kneeled down to Ava (whose back was STILL to me! lol) and said, "Tell Mommy bye and I love you!" I heard her small voice, but couldn't tell what she said. Ms. V. repeated it to me.
"Bye, Mommy. I love you."