first day of preschool

Last week was Ryan's first day of preschool.  He's going 2 mornings per week, for 3 hours each day.  For the last month we've been talking it up, did the potty training to get him ready for it, talking about everyone that we know that goes to school.  All in all, it was a great first week.  Ryan was excited to carry his backpack to school (with nothing in it mind you), and when we got there the first people we saw in the parking lot were his old nanny Tracy and her daughter Emma.  Ryan immediately knew this place was going to be okay.  Although Ryan and Emma are in different classes, I think it helped to get him in the front door.
I stayed for about 45 minutes the first morning, just to hang out and see what happens in little people school, but I wanted to make sure I left for awhile because I didn't want Ryan to think I'd be staying every day.  So when the time came, I pulled Ryan aside and told him Kaitlyn and I were leaving, he gave us both a kiss and off he went.  Not even a tear in his eye...so brave that little man of mine!
I came back on that first day about 20 minutes early, snuck in the back so I could watch him playing without him knowing it, and he made me smile as I watched him happily interacting with the other kids.  And then, the look on his face when he noticed I was there made my heart sing....pure joy!  He gave me a huge hug, then went back to playing.
As we were walking to the car he said to me,
"Mommy, I missed you.  Thanks for coming back to get me" and "Thanks for letting me go to school today Mommy".  Really?  Where does he learn this stuff?
Today was a little more challenging to drop him off, as I think the newness has worn off, and he didn't want me to leave.  But hopefully he'll continue to get more and more comfortable with the routine.

Since last week:

• he has been counting everything he sees, and accurately now (whereas before he'd count to 10 quickly, when there were only 3 things there to count)
• he can be heard saying "line up Honeybears, time to line up" (his class is the Honeybears), and he willingly cleans up his toys singing the clean up song
• he has a puzzle that is a map of the USA, and he loves to study it, just like his Dzia Dzia loves to study maps....and he can locate San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego, and New Jersey (thanks to our friend Cristen who pointed out where she's from) and he talks about flying up to visit Connor and Elena in Seattle constantly
• he can identify most of the letters in the alphabet
• he asked me earlier if he could have Teacher Tiffany (one of the teachers in his class) over to our house to play some day

So I think school has been a good influence so far.  Even if it's hard to say goodbye sometimes.

such a large backpack for such a little boy!

Ryan jumped right in to painting, and that's teacher Celeste in the background