Maks's First Day at Chesterbrook

I go back to work on Monday. Yikes. I am feeling a tremendous amount of mommy guilt sending Maks to preschool/daycare instead of staying home with him myself. That's why we like Chesterbrook. It's more of a preschool than a daycare as they have a lot of learning elements built into the day and very separate groups determined by age. Still, its not me. I know that deep down, Maks has to be very scared and unsure of what is happening in his life and now we are going to throw another big change at him.

I am taking him in Thursday and Friday as well for half days. I thought it would be an easier way to start him off instead of full days right out of the gate. I took him in this morning at 8:30am. We met Ms. Nicole the Principal of the school who walked us down to Toddler II. Maks's class has 9 other little kids who are nearly 2 years old. There are 2 teachers, Ms. Jenny & Ms. Ashley. When we walked into the school Maks was very shy and seemed a little bit nervous. Once we walked into his classroom though, he was a changed (little) man. He wanted down right away and ran over to some toys. Within 5 minutes he had played with three other kids, introduced himself to a teacher (a 2-yr old introduction consists of walking over to her and handing her a toy) and made a little girl cry. Very productive first five minutes. He wasn't phased at all that I was walking away. I'm not quite sure how to take that, but was glad for him that he felt comfortable in his group.

I called in at 10:00am to check on him, just as any other completely anal/nervous parent would do. The teacher told me he was doing great playing with other kids and was currently sitting down for circle time. I have a really hard time believing he just sits for circle time. I need to learn their secret.

I went in to pick him up around 12:15pm. The other little kids were going down for nap time. The lights were off and there was soothing music in the background. Maks was sitting at a table "reading" a book. Ms. Jen from the front office told him to "look who was here," he looked up at me and gave me a big smile, put his hands up in the air and ran over to me so I could pick him up. (Yeah! He does at least like to see his Mommy!) We got a great little packet to take home after his first day detailing out how his day went, what he ate (2 plates of food for lunch!) and a bunch of pictures.

He was a little withdrawn in the car ride home but by the time we were in the house and upstairs he was running around like a crazy kid again playing and laughing. Hard to tell how today really affected him but I'm glad outwardly he appeared to have a good time. Lets hope the same is true of tomorrow! And the day after that... and the day after that...