Gabe's First Day of Preschool--The Drop Off

It must be nice to be three years old. When I was in college, and then when I was teaching, I always hated it when my first meeting of a class wasn't first thing in the morning. If it was at 8:00 or 7:30, even, I would barely wake up with enough time to get ready and get to the class on time--which gave me little time to think about what was coming. Classes that started later (the worst being the night classes, obviously) always gave me plenty of time for nervousness, anxiety, worry, and all the other things that go along with being a fundamentally anti-social person who is being thrust into a social arena. I would pace and fret and gather and assess whatever I was taking to class, frittering around the house and wishing time would pass faster so that I could just get it over with (of course, once I was used to the environment of these classrooms, I invariably liked the later starting classes to the early morning ones--but for first day jitters, early classes win).

Not Gabe. Because his class time runs from 8:45-11:45 (yeah, not the 8:30-11:30 that I thought--glad I checked that before showing up too early), he was up at his normal time of 6:30 and still had two hours to kill before school. And he went about his business as usual through those entire first two hours. He ate a little breakfast, watched about thirty minutes of Curious George, then went upstairs and systematically destroyed the landing and his room. At one point, he brought me down the shattered remains of one of his plastic cars to throw in the trash (how he broke it, I have no idea, but it had to have taken some concentrated intent). Just another day.

Then, shortly before it was time to go, I brought him down to get him dressed and put on his backpack.

Dressed and ready to go.

His new backpack. Libby brought this one out last night. She'd picked it up for him to use during preschool. He was pretty excited, especially when he got to pick out a toy for his very first show and tell. He chose a little Buzz Lightyear wind up rocket ship that zips around a table-sized puzzle (the puzzle has a little groove that the ship's wheels follow). Why? Who knows. It plays the Buzz Lightyear theme song, too, and once in awhile he will pick it up just to make some noise. Otherwise, he never plays with it. But he chose it as his favorite toy. Kids are weird.

At this point the posed pictures began because, once the camera's out, he has to put on a show (I have nobody but myself and this blog to blame for that). He wanted a picture of his arm for some reason.

Then the other arm.

Then he wanted a picture of his belly. If he were a girl, it would be at this point that I would have made a mental note to NEVER condone an unchaperoned trip to Mardi Gras in New Orleans when she got older.

After this, he seemed appeased with the posed pictures, for about thirty seconds. Then, as I was gathering Norah up, he said, "Now a picture of my wiener," and he set about pulling down his pants. I stopped him. "No, honey. It's not ever appropriate to take pictures of your wiener," I explained--because, really, what else can you say to something like this? Thankfully, he left it at that--and I made a mental note to NEVER allow Gabe to have access to any digital photography equipment until he is married, and then he can take all the pictures of his wang that he wants to.

Waiting on the front porch to go to school. Libby specifically informed me that this was a necessary picture. I'm not sure why. We don't wait for a bus or anything. Not only that, we don't USE our front porch--we only come into and go out of our house from the back door. Maybe this is some tradition or other that city kids have that I haven't yet been made aware of? Do parents all up and down city blocks gather their kids on the front porch their first day of school to pose for pictures? Anyway, I got the picture.

And then there was a steep decline in pictures because I was carrying Norah around with me--and she doesn't cotton to me holding a piece of technology in my hands while SHE'S supposed to be occupying my full attention. After setting her down inside, though, I managed to get a picture of Gabe with Mr. Rob doing a fire engine puzzle.

Once we were inside, Gabe took a moment to take off his backpack and put it into the cubby hole he'd been assigned. He pulled out his show and tell toy and put it in the basket for later. And then he ran off without another look my direction. After getting the little bit of administrative stuff taken care of that we still needed to do, I tracked him down. After three attempts, I finally got his attention and told him that I was leaving and would be back later. He looked up at me briefly, as if to say, "Whatever," then went back to work.

And that was that. If something more interesting happens when I go back to pick him up, I'll update again later. If not, then I guess that means that his first day went off without a hitch!