McKinstry Moments: His First Day

We took a huge step Monday. Caleb started preschool.

Up until this point, his learning has taken place under Mommy's watchful eye. But, this week, I finally entrusted my precious child to others for his academic instruction.

Sending him to preschool was not a decision I made lightly. I wasn't eager too shuttle one of my little ones off without me. Having him in someone else's care wasn't going to take a load off me either. To be honest, not having him home to play with Hadley makes me her main source of entertainment and requires more effort than when they can play together (not to mention that I have to load up all three kids, get them out of the car to sign him in, and reload them again at 9 a.m. and then again three hours later). However, I do feel having a "real" school experience is what is best for Caleb and our family at this point in our lives.

Up until Hadley was born, Caleb and I worked together quite a bit doing learning activities and he was excelling. He knew his colors and shapes by 18 months, his letters by age two, and has always had a good vocabulary and clear speech for his age. While we still work together some, I don't feel like we are making the progress that we once were for several reasons, the main one being time. Since it is hard to juggle all three kids and work on their independent learning objectives, I don't get to spend too much time working with any of them individually as a result. Another problem with having younger siblings around was that he wasn't interested in sitting at the table to work with me if they were playing with toys nearby. Though a lot of skills can be taught as as you play or read together, there are some tasks that require focused energy, such as handwriting, and these were where we were stagnant. Going to school would ensure that there was set times for learning throughout the week in addition to the "learn as we go" approach I'd been using at home, plus he would have the structure of sitting in a desk and following along with what the other children were doing - playing during play time and forming letters during handwriting time.

Additionally, while I felt that Caleb's early learning was accelerated by our one on one time spent together, Hadley is definitely much farther behind in the same skills than he was at her age, which I think has a lot to do with the fact that my time is divided. With Caleb at preschool in the mornings during what is Reid's regular nap time, the opportunity for more time to work with my girl opens up.

After much debate, Dave and I decided that three half days a week would be a good balance. He'd get all the benefits that would come with being in a classroom, I wouldn't lose too much time with my sweet boy during the week, and it wasn't too financially taxing. It would be a juggling act to get all three kids up, out the door, into the school, and back to accomplish this, but in the end the benefits outweighed the sacrifices so we went for it, registering Cay-Cay for school.

Entrusting my son to someone else has been a challenging internal conflict for me though. My head says this is best for him (he'll have more learning opportunities, develop social skills, meet friends, and gain independence) , but my heart has been heavy with worry. In the past few weeks, I've talked and talked and talked to him about every possible situation I can think of that I need to prep him for - just in case. "Don't leave school with anyone but Mommy, Daddy, or your grandmas...What do you do if someone hits you or takes something from you?...Do we cry and have a fit at school?...You know we don't kiss kids at school, right?...When you go to the bathroom, make sure you are pointing the right way...Your teacher may call you Caleb not Cay-Cay." The list goes on and on. (Yep, I'm that mom.)

Through a local preschool fair I narrowed down my options and toured the school that I thought was the best fit. For such a small private school, I noticed how well equipped they were securitywise, cameras all around the school, coded entry to all the rooms, access through only one entry door, walkie talkies for all the teachers to take on the playground, etc. And, all of this should have made me feel safer leaving him in their hands, right? Well in some ways it did, but there was still a bit of a paradox. I didn't like that because of all the security, I was blocked out too. I couldn't just walk right in and peek at him in his classroom. There was some discomfort with not having access to him whenever I wanted.

I met the four-year-old teacher, who seemed like a lady who would mesh well with Caleb's personality and who blogged pics of the kids on a daily basis which would help keep Momma feeling like she was missing out on precious memories with her boy. I was very excited only to find out a couple weeks before school started that she'd retired! Who would be in the position now? Should we still give it a shot?

After all that worrying though, I came back to Philippians 4:6 which says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God," and though I wasn't too good about the not worrying part at first, I started praying, laying those anxieties before Him. As we drove to Back To School Night, I prayed that God would simply give me a calming peace to know that I had made the right choice.

Guess what? He faithfully answered me. Everything that happened what night reassured me that he was in good hands. When they introduced his teacher and I saw that it was a woman I'd met before and who had worked with Caleb when we were visiting the school before, I had to hold back some tears as His comfort washed over me. I was so relieved to see that she was the person who was filling that position. As I watched all the staff interact with the kids and saw the joy and love they possessed, I couldn't have felt better about sending him the following Monday.

Caleb had had some concerns himself about this whole transition. He'd visited the three-year-old class when we'd visited the school before and was a bit upset that he'd be in a new classroom with different toys. When we entered his new room though, he was not disappointed and ran straight for the new play things.

Mom went with us because she wanted to see his new school too and the two of us were so tickled to see his little name tag. We kept trying to get him to come over to look at his desk, but he was too focused on the toys. I even took a pic of his name on the bulletin board, such a cheesy parent I know.

The next part of the evening was sure to win Caleb's heart (as if the toys weren't good enough). They had cookies!

He also loved the fish tank in the cafeteria.

The night before school I packed up his backpack with all the gear on the supply list. He decided at the last minute that he wanted to buy lunch because quesadillas, carrot sticks, a cookie, and milk sounded appealing, so I didn't get the opportunity to write him a sweet little note but it was a time saver.

I offered to buy Caleb a new lunch box, but he just kept telling me that he already had this Thomas one Uncle Brandon had bought him at a yard party.

Dave was out of town visiting his parents, so Mom had stayed the night with me which made the morning run smoothly. She helped with breakfast and getting everyone ready and watched the younger kids while I ran him to school. Before we left though, I had to get some obligatory first day of school pics.

He helped pick out his own shirt. He said he wanted something really colorful.

A lot went in to the purchase of this bag. First when we began our search he was very adamant that he wanted a Ninja Turtle one because he said they were his favorite and they were everywhere in every store we went to. (I am not sure he's ever watched it before, but he said he did at Granny's.) Later that evening when I questioned him about the NT's names, he realized he didn't really know much about Ninja Turtles and should pick something else like Thomas.

We then took at trip to Walmart, where he found a light up Spiderman backpack. He was very vocal that he didn't like Spiderman but wanted to find a Thomas backpack that lights up. Of course they didn't have any!

We looked at a couple more stores but came up with nothing. The Internet wasn't much help either. They just don't make light up Thomas backpacks. I did find some other themed ones that lit up though and gave him a few more options. After looking through them his heart was set on a Planes one that would have ended up costing somewhere around $30, which I just couldn't justify for a preschool backpack. I recommended one that was just under half that cost with the same theme and lights but he was not budging.

Since it was his first one for school ever I really wanted him to have the one he wanted but felt that there was a lesson in it too; you can't always have the most expensive thing. At that moment it hit me how to teach just that. I made him a deal. Mommy would either pay for the cheaper backpack, or I would give him the money I would have spent on it and he could use his own money to pay for the difference on the other backpack....He decided on the less expensive one...no tears...very content with his choice. Proud Mommy moment!

Then, when we got to school I had to take some more. Just couldn't stop myself...I was the only parent there busting out there camera in front of the school.

Look! I even made one of the pics thanks to this guy opening the door at just the right time.

Then everything was a whirlwind. I checked him in and off they took him to his classroom. I even had to remind him to kiss Mommy goodbye. (At least I didn't cry! Though I felt sorry for the other poor Mom who was swiping at tears as we exited the building together.

Hadley was not happy that she didn't get to go school, and she was even more unhappy when NaNa had to leave for the day. A pedicure and manicure with Mommy and a little bit of Bubble Guppies helped calm her frustrations thankfully.

Getting pretty wasn't the only thing we spent our morning doing though. Some learning was taking place too. Hadley wanted to draw in a workbook I bought her recently and I also printed out a coloring sheet on the letter A to start working on letters. Plus we spent some time talking about the color red and tried to find some red things around the playroom.

Look at how well she holds a pencil. This was self taught.

Hadley loves to use crayons normally but she was so happy to have this pencil that she preferred to use it to color that day.

While she was finishing up her Bubble Guppy episode, I got some learning time in too, letting God teach me as I dove into his Word and the Bible study book we are using for the class I've been teaching.

We also did some prep work to decorate for the home"pre"schooling that is going to take place this year at the McKinstry residence.

Then it was time to go get the boy; I woke my snoozing baby up and strapped the kids into their seats. Caleb was none too happy to see us though. When they brought him upstairs from his classroom he was upset. "What's wrong Caleb?" I questioned as he came towards me. He didn't want to leave! The principal and cafeteria lady had to smile at his enthusiasm and my heart was glad too.

Again, being the nosy mommy I am who doesn't want to miss a second, I asked him a million questions about the day. He told me that he made a friend, a girl with a dark blue shirt with cherries on it who he didn't want to leave because he wasn't sure if she'd come back. He excitedly talked about playing on the playground, mentioned that he liked that they had ranch dressing for the carrots, and explained that they got to pick which desk they wanted and that someone else got there before him and took the spot where we thought his desk was at Back To School Night. He recounted that they colored a picture and the teacher said they could only use yellow but that he didn't understand why he had to color the banana yellow because some bananas are red and that he wanted to color his red. (Of course, I tried to no avail to explain that yes he was right that they could be red but that the point of the lesson was to learn the color yellow.)