memories on palomino lane: Hannah starts Preschool

The long awaited day arrived. Hannah's first day of preschool. We all did pretty well considering. I was full of mixed emotions. I was excited for Hannah. Excited for her to try something brand spanking new. She doesn't leave me, ever. We have never successfully dropped her off at the nursery or Sunday School at church. Nope, one of us always ends up in their with her to keep her from completely freaking out. We attempted childcare at the YMCA. Nope. Play dates? Only if mommy is attending as well. So, along with the excitement for her came the worry. I was worried about how she would feel. Would she be scared? worried? sad? All of the above? First thing she said when she woke up that day was "I'm not going." Oh boy. With some encouragement I got her in the bath tub and by the time she was getting out she was starting to come around. By the time we were leaving I was getting "Hurry Mama, we are gonna be late." On the 20 minute drive to preschool I could see the confidence fading a tad. The questions started coming. "Are you going to stay with me? Why aren't you staying with me? Just stay with me for 5 minutes." When we finally got there I was sure she would have climbed back into my womb had I let her. There were no tears, thank you Jesus. But I still wasn't sure how this was going to go. Thankfully the teacher is one of my very good friends. First thing she said when I walked in was "no tears." I said, "Look, if she doesn't cry, I won't cry but if she does I'm not leaving until she stops. So yes, today, I may not leave." Lucky for all of us, she never cried. After 10 minutes she unglued herself from me and stared coloring with her teacher. It helped that she already knew the teacher and it was a pretty small, quiet class. I walked out and closed the door. Turned around and snapped one last picture through the glass. There she was. I was bursting with happiness for her and dying inside at the same time. I walked through those very same doors taking Lauren to school with Hannah only a few weeks old. How could this be? Was this it? I looked right at Jamie and said through the tears, "I can't do this. We have to have one more baby." He hugged me and assured me we shouldn't rush into anything.

Hannah is loving going two days a week for a couple hours. She walks in with such confidence each day and talks about everything they did at school all week long. She has the teachers wrapped around her little finger. I couldn't ask for anything more.

First Day of Pre School