Preschool

Matt loves it. I went with him yesterday and stayed with him for an hour just to get him acclimated. Aside from the fact that he didn't want to stop playing with Duncan the train at the train table, he had a really good time. He built a "cell phone tower" out of the big blocks, made a slide out of the legos, traced my hand and his with a crayon, made about two snips of the paper with the safety scissors before announcing "I'm done" and running back to the train table, had a minor meltdown when it came time to clean up - you guessed it - the train table to go play outside, but once we were out there he played happily on the playground with the other kids and then we came home where he collapsed in bed for two hours.

I was telling Mark that you could totally tell the stay at home kids from the daycare kids because the daycare kids sat quietly on the rug when the teacher told them to and listened to instruction and went from one activity to another without issue. The stay at home kids, on the other hand, like Matt for example, just wandered around the class like a deer caught in the headlights.

Today we rehearsed proper school behavior several times before it was time to go:

Me: Matt, who makes the rules when you're at school?
Matt: Miss P.
Me: And when Miss P. tells you to sit on the blue rug, what are you going to do?
Matt: Sit on the rug.
Me: And when she tells you to clean up the trains, what will you do?
Matt: Clean them up!

Etc. etc. I'm not sure it made much of a difference, though, because when I asked him what he did today at school he said, "Played with Duncan [the train]."

What else did you do?
Played with the cars.
Did you color?
No, I played with the trains.

Sigh... I suppose he'll catch on soon enough.

The best/funniest/worst part of the day, by far though, was when I dropped him off. I don't know what I was expecting, although I've been joking to everyone that this exact thing would happen... so don't ask me why I was so shocked when the teacher's aide came to the door and asked the nursery students to line up at the door, Matt couldn't get away from me fast enough. He walked away calling "Bye Mom!" without so much of a look back or a wave like he's been doing this for years. LOL. I just had to shake my head and laugh... because otherwise I might have cried. :)