Lilly's First Day of Preschool

Well, it happened.  The day I have been so dreading excited about all summer.  Lilly's first day of Preschool was yesterday!  I was so excited/anxious on Tuesday night that I did not sleep a wink.  Deep down, I knew that she would be fine, that this would be good for her, that she would love it, etc.  But it is so dang hard to watch your baby grow up, and it happens so fast.  I just need for time to slow down a little.

Disclaimer: There are going to be so. many. photos. in this post.  I tried to narrow them down, but I couldn't! Sorry, not sorry!

I spent Tuesday evening preparing for Wednesday morning.  I did some laundry, ironed Lilly's little "first day of school" dress, packed her lunch and book bag (or "back pack" as she likes to call it) and made a sign for pictures, ha:

***UPDATE:  I have had several questions so I guess I should clarify.  Lilly is actually in a toddler class but I couldn't think of how to put it for purposes of the sign, so I went with 2 year old class.  However, her classmates are all around the same age (18 months, give or take a few)...and right now, they are all girls!

I woke up Wednesday morning with my stomach in knots.  I honestly was more nervous about how I was going to handle it than Lilly.  I awoke to the following text from my mother:

Good luck to you and my angel girl today!  Although it is sad for them to take that first step to fly - focus on being so proud that she's bright and beautiful and READY to begin making her impact on this world.  So proud of you both and I love you both so much. :-)

Can I just go on the record and say, IS SHE KIDDING ME WITH THAT?!  I wrote her back and told her not to talk to me again until she could say something far less nice to make me stop crying.  

Lilly, on the other hand, woke up in a great mood and was ready to go!  She demanded her sunglasses as soon as she got out of bed and wore them around all morning.  Diva.

We ate breakfast...

waffles, her favorite!

 ...and then quickly got our things together so that we could have a photo shoot!

Prepare yourselves.  I took a TON of photos. And the fact that Lilly was feeling uncooperative did not deter me one bit.

"Chalk, mommy!"

I wanted L to wear her back pack, but she pitched a fit.  Which is seriously annoying, because she's been obsessed with it and wanting to wear it everywhere ever since we bought it.  I'm not sure if it was because it was no longer empty, or what, but it wasn't heavy at all because there wasn't much in there.  I made Dan put it on to see if that would change Lilly's mind...

Hopefully he won't be mad that I posted this one, ha! Ladybugs look good on him, yes?

...and at first I thought my plan had worked...

...but she seriously wasn't into the back pack.  Sigh.

She also was decidedly not into pictures.  Period.

Finally, I put the nice camera away, so L of course started hamming it up as soon as I did so.  Luckily I was able to snag a few good ones with my iPHone.

Can we all take a moment to discuss the cuteness of her dress?!  Dan rolled his eyes at me because on Tuesday night at orientation the teachers warned us that our children will often come home dirty, so not to send them in nice clothes.  I informed them that she would be wearing a nice dress at least on the first day.  More eye rolling, ha!

We arrived at school, and I was crying before we even got into the building.  I tried blaming it on my hormones, but Dan said, "Let's not act like you wouldn't be emotional even if you weren't pregnant."  Touché, husband.  But maybe it wouldn't have been as bad?  Ha!

Lilly was so excited when we walked into the classroom.  The teachers had on a bubble machine, and there were so many toys and activities laid out, she wasn't sure what to play with first!  She decided to start at the crayons/stickers/bandaids station, so she colored for a few minutes and then went exploring.

One of Lilly's sweet teachers, Ms. Joanne

Dan and I stayed for about five minutes, and once we realized that Lilly was absolutely fine and could care less whether or not we were there, we gave her a hug and a kiss and told her bye bye.  Her teachers told us at orientation the night before that it was important to tell our child goodbye and let them know that we were leaving, otherwise the child wouldn't trust us every time we left a room.  So, we gave hugs and kisses and told her that we loved her and "bye bye."  She was not phased one bit!  She looked at me and said, "Love you mommy, bye bye!"  And that was that.  Queue more water works from the pregnant woman!

When I got to my desk about half an hour later, I noticed that my phone was ringing and I didn't recognize the number.  It was the director of the preschool calling to check on me and let me know that she'd just checked in on Lilly and that Lilly was doing great, no tears whatsoever.  I was on the verge of tears yet again and was mortified.  Get it together, lady!

Carney will be picking Lilly up on Mondays and Wednesdays, but I wanted to see how L did on her first day so I left work and met them for pick up.  L's teachers said that she did absolutely great!  They said that she whimpered a few times, but as soon as they gave her lovey, she was fine, and then she didn't need lovey anymore after a few minutes so they'd put it away again.  They said she had a blast playing with the other kids and that they were impressed by her vocabulary (I told them to just wait until she warmed up, she won't stop!), and they told me she even sat at the lunch table to eat which I am shocked by.  I assumed she would be too busy exploring to eat if she wasn't confined to a high chair!  Ms. B and Ms. Joanne told me that they think Lilly is going to do wonderfully this year.  She even gave them a hug before she left, and I know she'll be excited for her second day tomorrow!

Carney surprised Lilly with a celebratory "first day of preschool" donut, which I thought was SO sweet, and Lilly was of course really excited about it.

She was also really excited to see her friend Kinsley!

And she actually ate much more of her lunch than I thought she would.

Overall, it was a great day.  I knew deep down that L would be fine, and I'm so glad she was.  We LOVE this program and Lilly's teachers already, and I think it's going to be a great year for everyone.  And Mom was right...it is so hard to watch your babies get their wings and take off for the first time.  It will downright break your heart a little.  But I am so proud and thankful that my sweet, beautiful little girl is ready to make her mark on the world.  

Happy first week of preschool, sweet Lilly Bean.  I am so, so proud to be your mama.  I love you to the moon and back, times infinity!  

Childcare 101

One pretty big item on my list of “this is seriously giving me hives, we need to make a decision and act on it pronto” is childcare for Baby Geronimo.  We have decided that, at least for the time being, I am not going to stay home.  At first, I was pretty resistant to this idea – I’ve always thought I’d like to stay home with my children until they went to kindergarten.  However, I’m in the process of switching roles at work that will be substantially less hours and travel, and we decided together that long-term, this is a better decision for us right now (I know, you’re all shocked that we agreed on something baby-related…we are, too!).  If I am being honest, I also secretly wonder if I am cut out for staying home full-time.  I have plenty of girlfriends who do this and are planning to do it, (and please let me preface these next statements by saying they are non-judgmental to the max), but I’m just not 100% sure staying home would be for me.  I went to stay with my sister-in-law to help with my nephews and niece a few months ago, and I swear I have never respected anyone more.  Andrea has a full-time, 24-hour/day job that I think is harder than mine most days!  As I said before, it is very possible that I’ll change my mind once Baby B makes his/her arrival, and I think my 4-month maternity leave will be a good trial run for me to see how it would be, but for now, the plan is for me to come back to work.

With that said, Dan and I have GOT to get busy on discussing childcare.  I have a girlfriend at work, Carrie, who is expecting in October.  Carrie told me that she thought that most daycares had a 6-month waiting period, but boy was she wrong.  She started calling a lot of places just last month and most of them won’t have space for her Samuel until May 2012 (she's due in October and will be back to work in January)!  Quite a few other people have told us that if we are even considering daycare in the least, we need to go ahead and choose some that we like and get on their waiting lists NOW.  We can always defer when the time comes or just tell them we’ll no longer need a space, no harm done.  With that said, how does one go about choosing a preschool?  Through the little bit of research I have conducted on this subject, I already to know that it is going to be a LOT of work.

The first thing we need to do is identify the things in a preschool that are important to us.  Mind you, Dan and I have not yet discussed any of this – once we do, I will report back on whether we were even on the same page!  My "wish list" is made up the following (in no particular order!):

• I want a clean, safe environment for Baby Geronimo to spend his/her days. 
• I would like something that is fairly close to where we live – preferably close to downtown Raleigh, if possible.  We live less than 5 minutes from downtown, and Dan works downtown.  While my office is not downtown, I’m only about 15 minutes away, so I just want it to be accessible so that in case of an emergency one of us can get there quickly. 
• I want the school to be accredited, and I want a good teacher-to-student ratio – the fewer children a teacher is responsible for the better, so that every child receives the attention he/she needs and deserves. 
• It goes without saying that I’d like for it to be learning-oriented and with excellent teachers, so that Baby B will be nourished and challenged! 

I know, I haven’t mentioned anything about cost yet – but it’s because I really don’t have any idea what childcare costs these days!  Dan and I are very fortunate to have good, steady jobs, and I am by no means saying that cost is not an issue, but I am willing to pay more for a good school.

So how does one go about choosing?!  The general consensus from the research I’ve done and people I’ve spoken to is that we should do our research, develop a short list, and then schedule visits to the schools that made the cut.  We should be sure to meet with the preschool directors in person and observe the teachers with the children – and possibly even ask for references from other parents that we could speak to for recommendations.  The problem for us is going to be even finding any time to sit down and develop a short list.  Several girlfriends have recommended the NC Division of Child Development to use as a reference.  I think I will start by searching that site for 5-star preschools, and then go from there.  I’m sure there will be many follow-up posts on daycare visits and this whole process, so stay tuned for those.

The other option that we have discussed but not in great detail is a nanny.  This is a whole new beast to deal with!  Ideally, we’d want someone with a background in nannying and preferably a degree relating to child development.  We would want this person to come to our home Monday – Friday.  I would not expect them to do any kind of cooking or cleaning or anything like that for us – our main focus would be childcare.  I have several girlfriends who have chosen this option and love it as well.  They have given me several websites to look into such as Sitter City and Care, but I’ve not gotten around to doing a thorough search yet.  The good thing about these websites is that they provide background checks, which we would definitely be interested in before even interviewing nannies.  I would ideally love for someone to stay at home with my child until he/she is around the age of 2, at which point I think I would feel better about sending them to daycare (I know, 2 is a random age, and I’m not sure why I picked it other than it sounds good.  I just like the idea of my child getting one-on-one attention, nurturing, loving and learning from a nanny before going to preschool to continue learning and developing their social skills.).  Again, I have no idea how much this would cost.  We cannot afford to pay someone a $55,000/year salary to stay at home with our child.  The limited research I have done says that the typical cost ranges form $10-$14/hour for one child, which seems reasonable but would still I think cost us more than if we put our child in even the best daycare.  The only thing working to our advantage from this standpoint, while horrible in itself, is that with the economy being so bad and teacher jobs being cut everywhere, my girlfriends have told me that there are a lot out there to choose from.  While it is unfortunate that our economy is in this state and that qualified teachers can’t find jobs educating our future, I am hopeful that this option will work out for us.  We’ll just have to crunch some numbers depending on what we decide to do to help determine which option will be best for us. 

Whew, that was a long one, but these are important issues!  Do any of you have any suggestions or opinions either way on this topic?  We’d love to hear from you, and could use all the advice we can get!

Until next time…

Sarah