Pre-School

Keeghan started pre-school last Tuesday. I was dreading it. I knew leaving me was not going to go well. I tried to keep the thought light and we all talked school up. Tuesday morning she was ok driving to school and even getting out of the car. We walked up and got in line all without tears. She held the hand of one of her teachers and went off into school. I was stunned. So stunned that I went into the office to sit and was going to sneak down to peak in and make sure there were no tears. One of the secretaries (Keeghan is going to school at the same elementary school where the 3 big kids went so I know a few people thank goodness) went down and came back to report Keeghan was fine. I left, and headed off to do a few errands by myself (almost forgot what that feels like!) and then home to do some cleaning (Keeghan is NOT a fan of the vacuum so I vacuumed without having to carry her around which was a joy!). Picked the princess up after her 2 1/2 hours of school. She said she had fun though her teacher said she did cry for about 10 minutes at one point during the day. I knew that day 2 would not be pretty. Now Keeghan knew what was going to happen and that would involve me leaving. I was right. I got "NO SCHOOL" all morning and though she went to the car and didn't flip once we got out of the car Keeghan was hanging onto me so tightly that I didn't need to actually hold her. I told her I would walk into school with her but that MaMa couldn't stay. Or....MaMa could stay for a good 35 minutes while Keeghan was not happy. I finally told her it was time for me to go, peeled her screaming 3 year old arms off my leg, climbed over her, and left. I stood outside the door listening to her scream for another 5 minutes and then thought she had stopped. I walked down the hall and ran into the assistant principal who say the tears in my eyes and took mercy on me. She walked down and went to check on Keeghan for me and returned to tell me that Keeghan had stopped crying and was sitting at the paint table...a bit standoffish but not crying at all. Phew. I took off to hit my Wednesday morning kickbox class...very late mind you but I REALLY needed it come then. Pick up was fine. Keeghan was happy and told me about her day. Thursday morning we started again with "no school!". I had decided I would simply drop her off and go knowing full well that her teacher would call if she needed me (she was kind enough to send me a few pics of Keeghan having a good time painting and playing with friends on Wednesday). Again, had to peel Keeghan off me while she was crying and saw that she was still crying as I drove by to leave but the report at pick up was that she had stopped crying before they even went inside. Again, phew! Keeghan was again very excited to see me at pick up and repeated over and over "You pick me up!". Friday is a no school day for the little princess so we'll see how Monday goes after a long weekend off. I'm going to stick with the drop off and go theory and hopefully there will be less tears each day with the assurance that I will be back to pick her up.