babe lately... Pre-K edition

Tuesday August 13, we had been waiting MONTHS for this day to arrive. Babe was excited, I was excited.... and when the day finally arrived, we both ended up in tears.

I imagined the first day of Pre-K would be full of smiles, hugs, kisses and lots of pictures. In reality, it was the complete opposite. I stayed up Monday night making a cute little chalkboard sign that read "Pre-K" with babe's name, age and the date. On Tuesday morning he woke up, ate a good breakfast, helped pick out an outfit and picked a 2 pocket folder with a sheltie puppy on it. As my husband got the car ready I asked babe if I can take a picture of him holding the sign I made... he said "I don't want to, I don't like it. I don't want to go to school". And the sadness began.

As we walked towards the gate, my husband and I holding each of babe's hands, he started whimpering and sometimes crying, saying he didn't want to go. He had the saddest look on his face and I had to not stare at him in order not to cry. At one point I remembered I had a mini Snickers in my purse. I put it in his shirt pocket and told him he could eat it when we picked him up. We continued walking and got to the classroom. We were the first one's there and had to wait about 10 minutes to be let in.

When they finally opened the door a teacher's assistant gave instruction's that every morning the kids will need to be in a line, and then started handing out name tags (just until they know every one's name). Babe was the last one called and when we tried to put the name tag on he pulled it off his neck and cried, we tried a few times and failed. He started crying more, resisting our attempts to get him in line. All the kids were in the classroom and as the teacher was about to close the door I had to point out that my kid was still not in the room. She walked over to my husband and grabbed babe away, saying "I got him", she instructed me to throw his name tag in the room and proceeded to close the door... but not before babe reached out one little arm and screamed "MOM!", I tried to give a quick wave but the second the door shut I literally felt my heart drop and started crying.

We went home and waited 2.5 of the longest hours of my life. I couldn't wait to see his little face... they were like 5 minutes late opening the door when we went to pick him up. When he finally walked out of the classroom he did not look happy. The teacher said he cried for about 20 minutes but then was fine. He still ignored our camera's and didn't want to talk to us, but was quick to point at his pocket indicating that he wanted his Snickers... unfortunately it was squished flat. We told him we wanted to take him somewhere or buy him something to celebrate his 1st day of school... boba, yogurt land, his pick... but he said he didn't want "special things" and just wanted to stay home. It made me sad.

He eventually said he wanted boba and told me that he ate fishy crackers at school and learned how to "clean up" his mess. Everyday he says "mom, I don't want to go to school", with the saddest look on his face. I'm looking forward to the days when he says "mom, this is what I did at school"...