1st Day of School

NO! I do NOT consider this her first REAL day of school! I dont know why I keep calling it that, but I do. So for clarification purposes I guess today was her "1st day of MDO"! Her first day of school will actually be when she starts Kindergarten.

Here I was this morning, planning to leave the house in enough time to be able to get a few pictures of her. I actually left the house a little bit early, but I forgot to get a picture of her in front of our front door. I have seen many many pictures of kids by their front door on the 1st day of school and i just LOVE the idea of seeing how the child grows throughout the years. But I totally forgot to get that shot. I might just have to cheat and get that picture another day and pretend it was today.

She surprised me though when I dropped her off. She was very excited about her new room, and we had talked all morning about how she was going to stay at school and I was going to leave, and mommy would come back and get her after lunch, and nap, and play time. She ran into the classroom and found her "apple" on the table (although having a Kevin in the class confused her, no one else should have a K name, that is in her mind they shouldnt). She began playing with the toys and the other children, asking them all their names. Everyone was asking about her cast, it was just so cute to see her so excited. Then it was time for me to leave, Ainslee was getting cranky, and i didnt want to stay and be obsessive. I do not believe in the "sneak out" approach. Especially since I was leaving her with perfect strangers. So I went over to her and told her I was leaving, gave her a kiss, and told her I would be back to get her. Her voice got all crackly as she said "NO mommy I want you to stay here with Kaylee." I told her again that I could not stay there that I was going to be back to pick her up after I ran my errands, and I turned around to walk away. She followed me into the hall and said "dont go mommy." Still no tears. the teacher led her back into the classroom, and I left. I wondered all day if she was bothered after I left. Come to find out she wasnt, thankfully! Oh and the "errands" I was supposed to run today got pushed to the back burner because "little miss" took a 3 hour nap. Man I could get used to this......drop Kaylee off at school and then get to take a nap myself. I hope that wasnt just a fluke!

Kaylee was so cooperative this morning. She listened fabulously and cooperated with all my picture taking. You can tell by the pictures that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THE HECK I AM DOING IN THE PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT!!! I dont know about lighting, shadows, oudorr vs indoor, the settings on our camera, or anything else when it comes to taking pictures. Heck the way I feel is, as much as we paid for that darn camera it should take the pictures for us! Is that too much to ask?

Oh and she is sporting her NEW lunchbox. Her Auntie Rah-Ra, AKA Aunt Ceire, got that for her and had it monogrammed. It is TOO CUTE!

These 2 are going to be the bestest of friends!

In front of the door to the school. This is where I remembered that I wanted this shot in front of OUR door at home.



Here is "Chandler" by her folder in the hall. I watched as other parents arrived and took pictures of their children all smiley and "picture perfect", and here she is -eyes closed and with the goofiest looking smile you ever saw.........and it is like that in EVERY picture!! I wouldnt be so sad about this smile except her REAL smile is so darn cute I want to be able to capture those shots too!

She is looking up at her teacher. See the nice mosquito bite on her cheek? Yeah! She has one on her forehead and about 5 on her legs. She must be allergic because they swell up and get a really hard bump on them. I feel so sorry for her, the mosquitoes are going to eat her alive eventually! I guess she is just so sweet they have to take a bite.

These next pictures are from after school when we went to pick her up. Marcus wanted to come with me to get her on the 1st day; here he is trying to get her to notice him. She was still so "busy" (that's how her teachers described her) that she barely stopped to acknowledge that we were even there.

After being a teacher for 5 years before Kaylee was born, I learned A LOT about the way I wanted to be when i was a mom, and the way I didnt want to be. Among other things, I never want to be that crazy obsessive mom who bugs the teacher to death about every.little.thing.imaginable! But I fear after just the 1st day I have become THAT mom. I wanted to know everything about her day! I hope her teacher doesnt think I'm crazy......even though I know I am!

Not sure if you can see in this picture, but Marcus is trying to give Kaylee a kiss, he was all puckered up and everything. Like I said before she was having nothing to do with us, she was still busy exploring her new classroom.

Here is daddy putting her shoe back on. She is SUPPOSED TO leave it on at nap time. When asked why her shoe was off she gave this response "Kaylee took it off." But along with that response she had a "I know I did something that I wasnt supposed to do, now what are you going to do about it" look on her face. She is such a little booger!

Here I am trying to get my hug and kiss

As you can see everything was put away, the chairs were stacked, and I'm sure the teachers were ready to leave, but Kaylee was STILL trying to play! I promise we have toys for this deprived child to play with at home

While we were busy with Kaylee, the director of the Preschool/ MDO just couldnt keep her hands off Ainslee. She stole her and walked all around with her. Isnt my baby such a cutie!

But this is what happens when she wants her mommy. Ainslee is going through another mommy phase. She seems to be ok with others if I'm not around, but if she can see me or hear me.......then she wants to be with me. Her crying and tears stop instantaneously when I hold her, it is insane!

Kaylee RUNNING around the classroom, you think that cast slows her down one bit? Ummmmm, I dont think so! She is going to be quite a challenge for her teachers this year!

Here is the happy foursome. As you can see Kaylee has had enough of smiling her Chandler smile and Ainslee is too interested in Kaylee to look at the camera.

Oh and I forgot to take a picture of her "homework tree". Maybe I can snap a picture of it hanging on the wall one day. But I wanted to tell you what her teacher said about her when we picked her up. She said lots of things actually, she said that Kaylee was the "short teacher", when the other children werent doing what they were supposed to, Kaylee would tell them what to do. Kaylee had to be told many times it was time to come inside. She didnt even eat 1/2 her lunch (they actually didnt TELL me this, I saw it for myself when I opened her lunch box. I was shocked she didnt eat more. She was probably too busy worrying what the other children were doing to eat her own food). And they said she is very talkative, each one of them said they carried on long conversations with her. They said her cast was not a problem for her, even outside on the playground. She talked nearly the entire nap time. She followed her teacher out into the hallway, when she wasnt supposed to. She even locked the teacher out of the classroom once. She used the potty multiple times, by herself I might add. Overall I feel like it was a successful 1st day, but I feel like we are in for a "fun" year, I am using the word FUN very loosly. I guess "fun" depends on how you look at it and your definition of the word. I guess interesting is a better description.

Now she has to miss 2 weeks while we are in Boston I hope she makes the adjustment smooth when we return. I doubt that she is going to have any problems, but as I have learned with kids you should always expect the unexpected.