We signed up Evan for school! 2 days a week from 8:30 - noon. He'll even eat lunch there...
I so hope we are doing the right thing... I keep telling myself it will be fine. Evan has stayed in the babysitting room at the YMCA for about an hour and a half at a time while I worked out. That setup eventually worked out after a few days, but preschool is a much longer day.
We've been preparing for this day for a long time. Not only with letters, numbers and stuff, but Mike and I have been trying to teach our Evan social stuff from the start. He has his little group of friends that he sees weekly. He knows that he has to help pick up his toys at the end of the day. He has to say "please" and "thank you" when he asks for stuff. If someone greets him he has to respond back, "hi", wave or whatever. He's shares his toys when we have kids over. He's not allowed to hit, but he hits Mike and I anyway. I thankfully haven't seen him hit another kid.
He's pretty good at entertaining himself, like when I need time to finish balancing the checkbook or mop the floors. He even helps clean with his spray bottle and scrub brush. He helps me weed outside and "mows" the lawn. We don't indulge him when he has a tantrum, but have him wait it out by himself until he's calm down. He knows his full name and says it constantly. "I not a monkey, Mommy. I E'an Donus Tonen!" But this stuff means nothing. Evan is always with his mommy. We go food shopping together, to the drycleaner once a week, to the bank, to the post office - all together. The whole neighborhood knows us, but how is my baby going to be without me? He's only 2.5 - is he ready for this? If he hates it, he's out. I'm doing this for him and so I can start figuring out what to do for work. If he's unhappy, I won't think twice about pulling him out and waiting until he's older.
The good thing is that every parent I know that sends their kids there loves it. A lot of our playground friends go there. Plus it's a 5 minute walk away and has an open door policy (so I can cry in the coat closet while Evan's in class). Originally we were on a waiting list since we applied so late, but they called us with an opening and that was it. I had checked out 2 other schools by this point and didn't like either one. One was way too strict with a very structured day and the other didn't have any structure and had a lot of kids with behavior problems.
When Evan and I visited the school we finally chose, there was a summer camp going on in the front each time. There were about 20 kids in their bathing suits all playing with water stuff. All the kids were friendly and came running up to talk with us. One little girl asked Evan if he was going to go to school there. The teachers were a few feet away so I quietly asked a few of the kids, "Do you like it here?" I got 2 "YES" and one "uh-huh". Everybody seemed to be friends with each other and they all seemed to play well together. Another time when we visited, the little girl who asked Evan if he was coming said "I remember you! Do you remember me?" Awww, that was so cute!
So class starts Sept. 10. In the meantime Evan is super excited to find a Diego backpack. We'll see if he's equally excited about hanging out 7 hours/wk with people he doesn't know. My baby!
He looks ready for school, right?
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